Taro T

Because as long as you have control of the puck, you are allowed to bring the puck into the zone behind you. But all of your teammates must still wait for the puck to fully cross the blue line before they enter the zone. The point of offside is to keep players from hanging at the net before the puck is in the zone. Even a guy as big as Tage Thompson can't be hanging out at the net as the puck is coming into the zone when he has possession of the puck. The NHL's version of the game is low scoring enough. No reason to artificially lower scoring chances even more than they already are when the play doesn't give the attacking team an unfair advantage. MHO. YMMV.

At least not until Florida gets healthy.

Where's the challenge in that?

As expected. The plan this year seems to be: Sabres win, you get the next one (unless it's a back to back); Sabres lose, next man up. Hoping he plays well and gets his head back on straight. He could be good for a month or 2 if he does. Not expecting he'd stay on pace much beyond that because even though they have 2 other guys that have shown they're NHLers that should be able to spell him should he get good; that they'd still ride him until he drops. And, it seems quite difficult for him to get his head back on straight once he does drop.

So, wouldn't that be a good place to get over 0.500?

Hard to call a November game a must win, but this team HAS to get above NHL 0.500 while it's still merely a slog to get to NHL 0.600 and not requiring a nearly miraculous run to get there. Pittsburgh seems as good a place to get over 0.500 as anywhere. Hoping we see Lyon, but fully expecting UPL between the pipes. Maybe he's finally in a good spot in his own head. Guess we can hope.

Well that is 180 degrees from what Ruff said he plans on doing next week when Norris shows back up; but we shall see.

Why you shouting at this kid? Talk to Chz or Scott about it if you have issues.

Personally, liked the Swamp Cats rink. But the location is fine. 15 minutes outside Lauderdale and across the road from an absolutely MASSIVE mall. Avoiding Miami isn't really an issue IMHO, though realize that sentiment won't be held universally. Agree that the MMArena isn't a dump. The concourses are IMHO too narrow, and there isn't much if anything they'll do about that, but they're at least 50% bigger than they were in the Aud. And the concourses being narrow is not a reason to tear it down and build a new one. There are very likely upgrades that could be made fairly inexpensively. Know though that back pre-Covid, when they were looking at modifications to the arena they were talking about MAJOR changes - things like converting at least the seating in the lower half of 105 and 117 and possibly all that seating into small tables with stools / chairs with service to the tables which would significantly alter the seating capacity and how the game is presented. Hope they never go forward with that plan; but they have been thinking big and outside the box in the past. And if they do stuff like that, could easily see their plans costing $0.25-0.5B. And have no idea who'd be paying for that though expect ownership doesn't want to be on the hook for it.

This site has set a filter to automatically add the umlaut to the O whenever Östlund's name is typed. Similar to the way how if you misspell Pominville it still corrects it to Pomminstein. So, no need to copy and paste to get Östlund done up the way they spell it in Sweden. 😉

There is a reason the Green Bay Packers are the only major publicly owned sports team in the US. Private companies don't have to show their full books to anyone but the IRS. With the players in the NHL getting 1/2 of HRR, we can calculate out what total HRR was (give or take a few $MM for not knowing exactly how much goes into insurance/pension funds) any of the last 20 or so years for the league, but not for individual teams. Forbes and the others that make these estimates of team value take knowns - ticket prices, concession prices, streaming prices, advertising rates and a lot of semi-knowns - TV contracts, tickets sold, concessions purchased, labor rates (for items other than player salaries), utility rates, tax rates, game related expenses, etc. and a few other items like reported prices for franchise sales and expansion fees and then project out estimates of what these are currently and in the future, and assume a discount rate - then voila (it doesn't just mean "your french fries are ready" 😉 ) you have the "official" value of what every single team is worth. And it's ALL just semi-educated guessing. And agree the teams are more profitable than the owners let on to them being - it's tougher to get concessions on utility/tax rates and to get municipalities to pay for maintenance/amenities when you're effectively printing money (ala the NFL) or even merely "comfortable" (ala the NHL and the other major sports leagues).

If they weren't using Dunne in place of Greenway when they're spelling Greenway, would agree. But Dunne played Sunday because they wanted to give Greenway the game off. Doubt they want to send him down if they have plans on playing him every few games even if everyone is healthy. As Norris is an offensive guy who's also responsible defensively, am expecting Östlund ends up the 14th man and is the one getting sent back down.

What he said. 😉 Personally would say a fair number of "hockey" trades end up win - win. It's the ones where 1 team gives up a really good player for future assets or a whole lot of middling assets that one gets taken to the cleaners. What's rare is the lose-lose trade. Though at this moment, it appears Adams pulled one of those off when he traded Cozens away. Maybe Cozens figures out how to play in his own end and/or how to make a clean pass on a PP or Norris stays healthy for more than an entire week and that one begins to look good for 1 of the 2 teams; but until either of that actually happens, won't expect it. Will hope for at (at least from the Sabres perspective, the Otters can go F' themselves) but won't expect it.

Think they'll put him in on the road, or wait until Friday and the friendly confines to have him lace 'em up?

Yes. 100%. And breaking 1 bone does NOT make your body necessarily more prone to injury.

100 was NOT necessary to get into the playoffs wtihout worrying about tiebreakers; it was SIGNIFICANTLY more than enough to get in the playoffs. Provided the Caps wouldn't have dropped any points to the Aisles that they in actuality took from them, 85 points was all that was necessary to get into the playoffs that year in the East that year; and it took 95 to clinch in the West. Even had the Caps taken all 12 points from the Aisles that year and enough of those 6 games had their results reversed to get them to within 1 point of each other, 97 points still would've absolutely guaranteed finishing in front of the 9th place team. You don't have to beat the 8th place team to be in the playoffs. By being the 8th place team you ARE in the playoffs. You have to beat the NINTH place team to be in the playoffs. And 85 points in the East and 95 points in the West guaranteed you that 8th place spot. Btw, those other 3 years, in the East, 92, 92, and 90 was enough to get in outright. Though 91 got you into the playoffs in 23-24, it took a tiebreaker to determine which team got in and one that reached 91 did NOT get it. The 1970 Montreal Canadiens are still the only team since expansion, and likely ever, that got to 0.600 and didn't get in. So, 0.600 is still the goal. Get there and you are as close to guaranteed to be in as you can get without it being an absolute 100% certainty.

And yet, calloused bones are stronger than they were prior to breaking.

No doubt, Norris caliber D are tough to replace. And didn't intend the post to imply that Adams (or his successor) needs to be looking for a guy(s) to replace him when he's out. Thought it was pretty clear that it was saying they need to get more Zuckers (who are absolutely available) and more Bensons (not necessarily so available) and Doans (who has been a model of health this year, but those guys, especially before they've become established, do become available a bit more frequently). And considering more than a decade later the Sabres are STILL trying to replace Miller; would say stud goalie is the hardest position to replace.

It seems Zucker takes more of that role. IMHO Doan is in more of the Darcy Tucker role the Loafs used to use. Win puck battles for loose pucks low and go to the back door for tap ins.

But interestingly, and neither of the other 2 of the "big 3" have been out this season, but Dahlin is the only of the Big 3 who's absense that they seem unable to overcome. (Looking at last season's performance, regarding how the team handled the loss of the other 2.) And it's also interesting, though not surprising considering how little experience the team has as a whole and how young they are, that the one 30+ veteran skater on the roster is one of the guys they don't seem to be able to make up for his absence; nor can they make up for the absence of the kid who SHOULD be too small and too slow to make that huge of a difference, but who's motor and hockey sense tend to create chaos that they seem to be missing from the forward ranks. And those are the types of guys that Adams has been reluctant to focus on when obtaining players - the veteran that's been there before and can help calm the team down when things are going kerplewy and the guy that may not check every box physically but he simply makes good things happen when he's on the ice. And the play of both can be contagious. Bringing in Doan was a good move to help (stinks that it came at the expense of Peterka, but is what it is). They really need a few more of these types ideally as they really seem to miss them when they're gone.

Didn't say HOW we got them. Have to subscribe to get the story. 😉 (Where's the D'oh! smiley when you really need it.)

To the bolded, 100%. Shockingly, the 800 or so players that actually get to the highest level of the sport are all (with maybe 1 or 2 exceptions and even they are in an elite, just not quite as elite, company) within the top 1,000 or so players in the world.

But still no playoffs? 😢

Follow-up - everyone got gravy boats. (Butter dishes, too.) For what they did with them, you'll have to subscribe to the Only Fans page.

The Sabres SEEM to have fixed their play at home, PROVIDED they aren't playing a team they are too immature to take seriously prior to puckdrop. Fixing that taking opponents lightly thing is the next thing that needs to be fixed in their home play. On the road, they've still had too many stretches where opponents get the matchups they want and eventually get the goals they need to keep the Sabres road records one of the worst in the NHL and so bad even playing 0.750 at home since the 3rd home game and better than 0.64 there overall can't get them over NHL 0.500 which is a low bar to cross. MAYBE getting healthy will allow them to be better at avoiding the killer matchups against. Pittsburgh would be a good place to start that. They need to continue getting strong goaltending on the road or even better matchups won't help them enough.