Taro T

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.

Great analysis. One thing though that was different in the HD chances he had last year vs this year is a LOT of his HD chances playing w/ Frick & Frack came when they were on a rush and he either got the return on a give & go or a tic-tac-toe play. That was the source of many of his goals. A lot of them were essentially wide open nets that even this kid could score once every 20-30 or so chances on an NHL netminder. This year, don't recall more than a couple non SH attempts that he had that came off a rush.

Nope. It was usually Tallinder - Lydman (which was scary early in the year but got much better as the season wore on) and then typically McKee with Campbell and Numinnen paired up with the young guy (typically Kalinen). There was some mixing and matching as Ruff always did; but that was what they normally ran.

Umm, Tallinder and Lydman were the pairing back in '05-'06. They were not split up often at all.

Don't recall Adams ever stating that a goal was to not trade for a player on a LT contract. Do you recall when Adams said that?

Personally wanted the whole crew (except possibly Bales) sent into the sun. But not convinced that Ruff necessarily agreed. And really find it hard to believe that a guy like him that has never been shy about speaking his mind, has some of the most gravitas in the entire league, and really doesn't NEED this job would say 'ok, even though I'm getting handcuffed by keeping these clowns and I'd really rather have x, y, or z guy; I'll take the job."

You SURE that Ruff wasn't given any say in the assistant coaches? He's been unemployed for a few weeks, so he very well could've spoken to Adams prior to the decision to just jettison the new guy and reassign Mair's Ellis' duties. He's known Mair Ellis for years, interviewed Appert, and most likely was on board with keeping Bales and Wilford as well. It is the narrative, but is it actually true?

In fairness though to Adams, hadn't Vegas already traded all their good prospects away? Always thought Tuch and the 1st were the big pieces coming back and the 2nd and Krebs were the well they could be good or might not be pieces.