darksabre

The Sabres are probably not going to be a physical team, but they should at least be a quick one. Nylander for Jokiharju makes sense in that light. You want guys who are tenacious even if they aren't particularly offensively gifted. Which I think the Sabres have a number of. Rodrigues comes to mind. It'll be interesting to see if other slow players find themselves headed out the door. If you aren't scoring you need to be back checking and drawing penalties.

I think the goal for this year should be to use that good defense to drive the team speed and draw a lot of penalties. I don't think we have the roster to score at even strength, but I think we could put a good defense-driven power play together. That seems like a realistic path to winning some games.

In this general vein, I've been thinking about these kinds of trades where the Sabres move a number of guys out and bring a number of guys back into those same spots. On paper it would look weird, but it makes sense if you're trying to get this team to do *any one thing* really well. Because that's what I think this team's biggest issue is. There are plenty of good teams that have areas of deficiency. There aren't really any perfect teams. I can't think of a single thing the Sabres are particularly good at. They're kinda bad, or at least mediocre, at everything. Shuffling a handful of players in and out might at least wake one facet of their identity up.

?

Allentown is the mediocre white suburbs.

I was thinking the same thing.

I watched the Hawks game last night and the one thing that stood out to me about Nylander is he still looks really slow. If you can get him in the right spot to set him up for a shot then all is well and good. But he's still pretty one-dimensional and doesn't look like he brings much else to the table.

Well that would suck

With respect to Laine... Yowza.

Amazing. The place barely has seating. https://www.nhl.com/video/hockeyville-tom-donovan-arena/t-277350912/c-68899703

I mean, it's not huge. Probably like 3,000 seats? They've certainly played these games in smaller rinks. Didn't the Sabres do one in a rink that had like...a few metal bleachers?

This arena looks pretty big...

Ah, that's explains it.

Where are you watching that?

Robert Moses screwed so much stuff up it's not even funny. One man singularly responsible for all sorts of messes that we're still dealing with today and will be for some time. It's incredible that we still have things named after him.

I have this weird feeling we're going to see Jack sliding to the wing with kids like Mitts running center on the top line sometimes.

Not surprising. I think he has NHL speed. He'll be 20 in February so he'll be on the Amerks next year for sure.

It really would be too bad for you guys. He's a huge part of the leadership group on your team. The NHL is a better league when the Jets are good and losing Buff would really hurt that.

Were they middle-aged? I remarked to Jo during our road trip last week that middle-aged women are some of the most oblivious people on the planet in parking lots. There were three distinct occasions where one would just spin around from the back of their car and into traffic like a child not holding onto the shopping cart. Old guys in Air Monarchs grabbing their wives by the arm to stop them from getting run over is apparently a thing.

I will be interested to see Cozens against tougher competition.

Bingo.

There was other stuff mentioned about him "losing his love for the game". He sounds tired. I think retirement is a real possibility. It would explain why nothing has happened with the Jets yet. They might have known all summer.

Yup. And I expect the Sabres will do it too if things shake out right. There are a lot of parts still moving with teams in camp and preseason now doing evaluation. I mean, we just found out Byfuglien might retire and it's already mid September. That could be a huge catalyst in a week or two.

If the Sabres trade Risto and waive a guy like Sobotka you free up 6.425 in cap. Waive Okposo and you get another 1.025. There are ways to make some space right now. Maybe just enough to field a better team.