MattPie

I think the Sabres probably still have the best prospect pool in terms of talent, but not for building a complete team. I wholeheartedly believe in Best Player Available, but the second part of that is you need to be willing to trade some of those players for other equivalent quality players that bring something else to build the team. If seems like we're stuck at that point. Some of these guys, as much as we all like them, need to be turned into good gritty forwards and D for the Sabres to improve.

In my case, you start falling away. First, it was cancelling NHL tv (it being kinda terrible helped), then I took a long break from this site. I got sucked back to visiting here in the last year or so, but I'm really questioning that now too. You just find other things to do. (My avatar dates from the tail end my fandom before the break) Same, at best when I was really into it in the mid-2000s, I'd watch a game on TV on mute while listening to the Sabres stream (before I had Center Ice). I'd sometimes watch other playoff games, but not really. If it isn't the Sabres I'm not *that* interested.

You have to hope so.

I was going to make a joke about how it's sad we're savvy now that saying a "Clifton and Clague for a <some team's #3 D) and a 5th; the money works out", but I don't follow hockey closely enough to know anyone else's #3 D.

FTFY.

The sax player for The Slackers would often use Guns of Navarone in his solos; so good.

Which is good, since you're wrong a lot. Hey-oo.

Lysine (the amino acid) does wonders for cold sores in my experience.

Wherever there are four Anglicans/Episcopals, there's a fifth.

I wonder if Kane took a look at Rochester's facilities, knowing that a two-week conditioning assignment was in his future and said "no way, that's from the 1970s". 😉

I feel like I've seen this before.

Not since High School. 🙂 (not kidding, in the early 90s I remember doing it as a several-week module during the winter) MsPie's father is pretty into it; several times a week, has portable net and lines in the driveway, etc. He qualified for the NYS Senior Mens Championship or something last year, but got sick and couldn't play.

I keep coming back to the best analysis I remember seeing anywhere posted here back when Ryan Miller flamed out after the trade to St Louis. We tend to think of goalies as "the same" other than skill, but they have their own styles that mesh better with some styles of D. I think back then, the idea was Miller liked to play towards the top of the crease. The Sabres worked with that by having the D low to make sure forwards down by the goal line were tied up, since Miller would be leaving angle shots kinda open. The Blues played with the D further up, so Miller kept getting burned by passes to those low forwards. (I may have completely botched that) Anyway, if some decent guy comes in but his style doesn't mesh with the way the Sabres play D, it'll get ugly even if the Sabres aren't objectively bad. I'd say for UPL not being the quickest to get across and set, the Sabres need to focus on typing up low forwards and slowing down the cross-ice pass. UPL seems OK (lately) at stopping shots as long as he doesn't hunch down, and he's big. Interestingly, Levi might be the opposite since he's a smaller, quick goalie. The Sabres may need to do more to pressure the initial shooter and allow Levi's athleticism cover cross-ice passes by moving quickly to follow the play.

Honestly, having the AHL team 90 minutes down the road is a luxury already. I don't think it needs to be closer in a smaller town like Buffalo. LV is probably a unicorn here, since they have a new franchise and success, but I'd be surprised if the AHL stays there longer term when the newness wears off. I could be wrong. I looked at a couple teams to see arena ages: Hershey Bears: 2002 Syracuse Crunch: 1951 Laval Rocket: 2017 Milwaukee Admirals: 1950 Providence Bruins: 1972 Amerks: 1955 So it's a mixed bag.

We can argue about the timing, but this is the right decision. It would have been way worse if the Sabres were stubborn and kept him up. This doesn't sound like a temporary assignment though.

Get your self-reflecting, introspective #*&% out of here.

UPL is like 24 years old. Could he fold? Yes. Could he be coming into his prime (like most goaltenders at that age)? Also yes. The greatest high is being able to smugly say "I told you so".

I suspect that the 2nd round of the playoffs, which often isn't as competitive as the first, is the let-down of going 110% in the first round.

Pizza: that's good, because the pizza I've had from LC is straight up bad. Parks: that's amazing.

Probably, although on the Sabres does he push down Tuch or JJP (or Quinn when he's back)? I don't know at his current age that's a slam dunk to replace any of them. Especially with the Buffalo "play the kids" Sabres.

TIL the owner of the Red Wings also founded Little Caesars. huh. In any case, Detroit has their own style pizza (obvs you know this Doohickie), it's a little thicker than Buffalo, Focaccia crust, and usually square. It's probably descendant of Sicilian.

There are a lot of scenarios here Didn't want to go to Buffalo since they're struggling Knows this might be his last hockey contract so took the most money Buffalo wasn't interested enough or didn't offer much Didn't think he'd crack the top-6 in Buffalo, unlike Detroit (? I have no idea what Detroit looks like this year) Just doesn't like Buffalo pizza after eating deep dish (he is hitting all the "pizza" towns though, Chicago, NYC, and now Detroit)