Taro T

Apologies. Meant Karmanos. Nightengale didn't "sound" right, but was drawing a complete blank on Karmanos and Ventura. (Been a long weekend crawling around in the attic trying to fix some crud that shouldn't need fixing. And yesterday it was friggin' HOT up there. (Nearly passed out on the ladder getting out of there. That ended THAT job for yesterday.)

Totally forgot that. 🍺

IF the team does well the next 2 years, expect that Adams becomes the PoHO, one of his 2 primary AGM's moves up (probably Nightengale Karmanos), and Ruff moves into an advisory role to Adams if he's ready to stop coaching. And if Ruff wants to continue coaching for a year or 2, that advisory role remains open waiting for him to fill when he's ready. (Personally expect he'll be ready to move out of the grind in 2 years, but who knows, while Lindy tends to be adaptable to circumstances he also can have a stubborn streak.) IF the team does poorly / treads water the next 2 years, expect that Adams is out, there's a new GM that Ruff has input in choosing if not outright choosing, and Ruff becomes the PoHO.

Pretty sure we get that in 2 years, when either Adams or Ruff get named PoHO. 😉

2 years because of the 2 year contract and because of Ruff's age. Guys with his resume don't only get 2 year deals. Pretty sure the plan is that if things go well, that he slides into an advisory role and Adams becomes PoHO with one of the hotshot AGM's taking on Adams current title. And if things go poorly, then Ruff becomes the PoHO and either one of the hotshot AGM's take on Adams' current role or they do a legit GM search led by Ruff. Expecting that Lindy is getting ready to hang up the whistle; and if after 2 years, he decides he wants to stick around a little longer behind the bench, am sure they'd let him (provided things didn't blow up) but even Bowman got out of coaching at 68 (and he'd tried to do so unsuccessfully back in his late 40's).

Realize your comments are generalized, but you picked the wrong post to complain about too little patience for Cozens or that he's the guy that should be the 3rd line C. Every lineup this kid has come up with for this upcoming season has him at 2C with Quinn stapled to his side. And, while it's likely that Krebs is the 4C this coming season, he very well could be next year's Jost. (IMHO, it's more likely he's the 4C than the 3C, but that's in the mix too.) By next year's Jost mean the 13th F who slots in pretty much anywhere in the bottom 6 when an injury hits. He really needs to be working his butt off this off-season because there is an opportunity there for him to grab the 3C role or he could Asplund his way right out of town or he could be any of several things on the 4th line. Again, Pat Kane can be on a bonus laden 1 year deal. Meaning he can come it at $1-2MM officially on a contract that would give him a good shot at getting $6MM this year. If the Sabres end up under the cap w/ that bonus, great; there are no cap ramifications the following season. If they don't stay under the cap, that overage gets taken off next year's cap. Which is why having Kane pretty much forces their hand to dump Skinner NEXT off-season provided Kane doesn't hit the proverbial wall this year. We KNOW there was interest on both sides for a deal but it didn't happen when the Sabres started the year as basketcases. From what Adams has said he's looking for this off-season, expect he would fit the W role to a T. He just needs to convince him that the Sabres have their heads out of their you know whats. So, no, their remaining cap doesn't keep them from making "two bigger $$ additions."

Didn't mean to imply a lack of muscle kept him from being a reasonable 3C. Meant it kept him from being the D-bag he seems to want to be on the ice. Should he become the D-bag he wants to be, would that (and being a year closer to his prime, and at 23 he's getting to a point where he should start being what he is) be enough to create enough space for him to make the passes we on rare occassion saw from him when he first became a Sabres and be an effective 3C? Benson's game is significantly different than Krebs' game. Benson learned to understand the game on a high level early, because at his size he'd've gotten killed sometime in the last 8 years after checking was introduced. And, it's kind of unfair to compare Krebs to Benson because Benson is the rarest of cats. Can't recall the last time a guy that wasn't drafted in the top 10 played a full NHL season at 18. Maybe the comparason for Krebs will be Asplund, but am hoping (with no real reason TO hope) that the better comparason is Mittelstadt or Thompson. 2 guys that were NHLers at very early ages and struggled early but figured it out when they got some man strength added to the rest of the toolkit.

Which part of "UNLESS he REALLY believed in the team they have here" was the unclear part? Pretty sure you and I might be on the same page here. Considering Ruff sure does seem to only be planning to be here in the HC role for 2 seasons, it would seem that he expects that to occur, if not this year, then next. Could be off on that, but it fits with Lindy's apparent timeline.

Kane is 35 years old and will qualify for a bonus laden contract should he be willing to sign a 1 year deal. Should they sign Kane, it pretty much guarantees that Skinner is bought out NEXT year, but he doesn't have to get bought out this year. Believe it was GA that said the team has ~17MM they can spend towards the cap. Spending it on 2 sort of expensive players and 2 4th liners is easy to do and, especially with Kane being bonus eligiible it could be done with not breaking whatever internal cap they MIGHT have. Lastly, people keep saying the team won't spend near the cap and presumably that will doom the season, but would Ruff have signed on if he knew he was getting hamstrung the way he used to when Hasek was around UNLESS he REALLY believed in the team they have here?

Still am expecting Adams to pursue Kane to slot into the top 9 and Cirelli (or similar) to slot into the bottom 6 at C with another 1 or 2 guys to start the year on the 4th line. Will he be able to convince Kane that with Ruff leading the boys that they can contend? Will he be able to actually land Cirelli or similar? Figure those answers are maybe and probably. But those are the 3-4 slots he's likely backfilling this off-season. Krebs will be 23 this season. Still young, but if he continues to work hard over the off-season he should be able to put on the muscle to play that d-bag style that he seems to want to play. Will it be good enough to be 3C? Maybe in a year or 2, but not expecting it this year; but am still hopeful that he won't have to be good enough to be the 3C on a regular basis this year.

Always liked Arniel. IF the Sabres were going to go for ANOTHER 1st time HC, he'd've been my preference. (But they have done that far too often since canning Ruff, so no thank you to him even though he probably will be a good one.)

Don't believe that's possible. Short of Hasek's blocker having hit him in the melon, nothing was f'n that coiffe. And he wasn't the target of the blocker toss.

Me no likely Canes. Would rather have seen that play out the other way with Tulsky walking.

Granted, since he came to find analytics, the Canes have been very good. But he was HORRIBLE in pretty much all his stops prior to that (Atlanta, US Olympic Team). Want nothing to do with him. Believe Carolina getting good is in spite of him, not because of him.

Not missed off-sides, missed icing right before the GWG in OT. But the real travesty was Ol' Butt Hurt Fraser flat out blowing the Bondra high stick while in the crease goal and refusing to let the VRJ review the play. Because of that D-bag's intransience, the league changed a rule for the 1st of 3 consecutive years after the Sabres got clearly hosed on a call in the playoffs. There were a few other instances of Ol' Butt Hurt & his linesmen making stuff up that game; but those were the 2 big ones. And Ol' Butt Hurt admitted after the game that it WAS intentional. (How he ever reffed another game after that was boggling.)

When our old receiver started having issues, we got a Denon. Had it a couple of years and it's been excellent so far.

Yup. Washington. And if they didn't run into the bad luck of having Kerry "butt hurt" Frasier reffing game 2, they win Game 2 and very likely win the series only to get spanked hard by Detroit that year. (Though w/ Hasek in net, they very well could've won 1 or 2 games. But doubt they'd've gotten further than that. Those non-salary capped Wings squads were juggernauts.)

You will likely get your wish there. Fairly certain that while Adams isn't going to be only shopping the bargain bin like some here expect, that he isn't going to be bringing in anybody making more than Thompson and Cozens.

Haven't been a fan of it via the eye test either. But the data @thewookie1 put up indicate it might've been better than it seemed. (Though a lot of the time they were together was w/ the EN which might explain why the CF% was so skewed in their direction.) But, also, at some point, Power will actually mature and a lot of guys in their 3rd season tend to look a lot better. (Though most of them aren't still only 21.) IF Power starts to look like he's fully cooked, that pairing might look a lot better.

Expecting those are the 6 that start the year in the lineup with Johnson and Bryson the next 2 up (regardless of whether Johnson is watching or playing in the A; IMHO he's the 7). And that's a pretty good guess at how they'll deploy. But Adams seemed pretty adamant when Byram arrived that he was brought in to play with Dahlin. And having a full off-season to get used to playing with him, would expect there's a 50/50 shot that's what they run with out of the gate. Which then either bumps Samuelsson onto Power's pairing or slides him all the way down to Jokiharju's partner and Clifton now that he's more comfortable with knowing the tendencies of the other D here bumps up to 2nd pairing. The wild card (wonder how he's doing btw) is putting Power and Dahlin together; letting Byram anchor the 2nd pairing probably with Muel while leaving Clifton and Jokiharju together on that 3rd pairing. (Which could actually be a really good 3rd pairing.) The other wild card is does Johnson force his way into the top 6 out of the gate? Watching him play 2 on 1's in Ra-cha-cha, not expecting it; but wouldn't have money bet against him.

He really does seem to be bought into the thought that this team, as assembled with minor tweaks here or there, will be a long time SC contender starting in ~3 years. And, had the team snuck into the playoffs last year and this year, people would be completely fine with him only making moves at the fringes and letting the kids fully cook. Heck, had they made the playoffs once in the past 2 seasons, most would be fine with letting them cook. The problem is, they aren't even in the playoffs yet and people are tired of being here for the past baker's dozen years watching them be anywhere from historically bad to just bad enough to not get into a field with 3 mediocrities making it and everywhere inbetween. We seem to be left with 2 options to hope for. 1. that Adams is both right about the future and that the kids have cooked long enough to get into the playoffs this year with only a handful of additions (say a Pat Kane, an Anthony Cirelli, and 1 or 2 "energy" guys for the 4th line) which will likely buy him the 2 extra years to see if he's right about the future and the Sabres already have their own Beane or Chugger; or 2. that Adams is wrong about this year, the team flames out spectacularly and that Pegula listens to Ruff (who ends up actually having some good ideas about who the next GM should be) and finally gets the Sabres their own Beane or Chugger. Can't root for option 2, so have to hope option 1 is the reality we're living in. We'll find out soon.

"WHY would the Sabres trade Skinner?" Do you have some time, because this could take a while. If only McCrimmon would ask himself that same question and come back with the same expectation that the author had that it would be a hard ask of Adams. (Unfortunately, Skinner has that full NMC, and it isn't really Adams call. But we can still dream that McCrimmon decided to take some mushrooms and then make a call to Adams.)

Also, let's see what happens when the captain of the team hates to lose not just wants to win. Really expect one of Dahlin or Tuch to wear the C with Cozens taking the other A. Maybe Ruff goes off the board and gives the C to Cozens and lets the other 2 get the A's.

Expect the LT plan is to eventually have Johnson partnered up with Power, but could see him with Samuelsson or Jokiharju this year. Expect that they will try to make Byram - Dahlin a thing. Will be interesting to see if they try to make Power-Dahlin a thing instead. Am looking forward to camp this year to see what they're thinking lines and pairings wise. Am pretty sure we won't see Biro getting shifts with Thompson "just in case."

Having a coach with an actual system of play in their own half of the ice should help a lot of the younger guys look better. The $1MM question is, will the system that Ruff implements for this team be the right one for the 2024 NHL. Am certain if he could've somehow teleported this bunch back to 2001, they'd be going gangbusters.