darksabre

This is Matt Moulson with a little more talent. The Sabres should be trying to extend him, but if they don't take a big jump this coming season, they should be looking to trade him sooner rather than later. Hopefully he can stay healthy and keep producing even if the team is bad.

There was a time in hockey where guys genuinely hated each other, so the fighting made sense. I think they mostly see each other as colleagues now. Co-workers for the same boss. But there are still too many guys in the league, Tom Wilson for example, who are dangerous to their fellow players. And they need to be handled accordingly. I'd like to see harsher penalties for fighting in the NHL but it needs to be accompanied by greater scrutiny and penalties for players who put other players in danger of serious injury, either intentionally or recklessly.

I actually think he can do it. He plays the game the right way, which I think is going to pay off for him real soon. He's still so young.

I agree with this. I feel like so many of the Sabres fights, when they do happen, are kinda comical or irrelevant.

I think if anything this is even more damning of the Sabres. Fighting around the entire sport is way down, so really there's nothing these guys should be that afraid of if they do step in to do a little grappling. Your opponent will probably be just as mediocre as you are in most cases. No one is getting asked to throw against Tony Twist anymore. Not even Ray Emery.

You're rolling out a list of children as this team's solution to problem that has dogged it for a decade and I'm supposed to stop being negative? 😝

Not a bit. I don't expect anyone to agree with it, because who would want to, but I don't see the Sabres contending at any point in Dahlin's tenure here.

I think a healthy Dahlin nets you much more substantial parts than a critically injured Eichel. Dahlin, to me, poses a dilemma. This team is basically only good when he's on the ice. They depend on him so much it's crippling them. What Dahlin brings by making everyone around him better isn't a nice little bonus, it's a necessity. The Sabres, as currently constituted, could not hope to compete without him. We all agree on that. But I think he's such a drain on resources that they will probably never be able to really compete with him either. Especially with all of the money they have committed to Power and Samuelsson. Something has to give or they're never going to be able to build a team. They'll have a collection of nice pieces, but it'll never get them anywhere.

Actually, they should consider it. Unless this team surprises us with a huge jump in production or they add some really compelling players, they are likely still several years away from even sniffing the playoffs. By the time they do, the window for them to win it with Dahlin here will be closing. He's a UFA summer of 2032, which isn't that long from now. The cost to keep him will be substantial. Probably too high to even entertain. Trading him now while he still has term could net a return that would reshape the franchise overnight...

Ah yes, the Houston Toxic Beaches

Just because they're our best players doesn't mean they're worth a sack of potatoes.

Who should I blame instead? Joel Giambra?

I'm not interested in stats as justification for chaining ourselves to players who don't get it done when it counts. We've been playing that game for like 20 years on this site. How many massive losing streaks have Tage Thompson's Sabres experienced? What's Tage bringing to this team when he's getting shoved off the puck in the corners despite being 6 foot 6? Guess the Sabres shouldn't have traded Pierre Turgeon either. Anyone still showing up is a fool anyway.

[one finger on the monkey's paw curls]

It's a matter of trust. Terry took a lot of advice from a lot of people after he bought the club, and I suspect he feels betrayed. These outsiders led him astray. Snakes in the grass. Deceivers. Kevyn has been with him a long time, and seems to be the only person he thinks isn't playing games with him. He's never going to fire the guy, not in any way that fans want. They may "reorganize the front office", but it'll always be in a way that Kevyn is able to save face. As long as Terry owns this team, KA is going to be around.

I think the Sabres consistently have too many players that don't have an extra gear. We see flashes of it from time to time, but mostly they're just overloaded with okay players who thrive when surrounded by players who do have that extra gear. Sam Reinhart, for example, isn't a better player now than when he was here, he's just in a better mix. I don't see Sam plugging back into this roster and the team suddenly making the playoffs, ya know?

Getting the mix right is a factor too. Even with good players this team is bad. The personality of it is unchanged for over a decade. Low effort, constantly injured, apocalyptically streaky. It doesn't seem to matter who the players are, who the coaches are, etc. The sum is never as good as the parts.

FWIW, I think maybe 2-3 guys from the current roster will be on the team the next time they make the playoffs.

Pretty amazing that the wrong choices get made every single time. Unprecedented consistency.

We gotta do something to make the team better! No, not like that!

Yuuuuup. It was bad enough they aborted Regier's plan before it was really even out of the gate. But the constant changing of courses afterwards just made things even worse. GMTM's whole thing probably works if Lehner wasn't constantly hurt and/or on drugs. He also probably could have used someone to act as a buffer between himself and the Pegulas, since he very clearly thought they were annoying morons. The fact that he hasn't returned to hockey management in any capacity means whatever he did, he couldn't come back from it. But I don't know if he was wrong...

Lotta people in this place too attached to garbage. Interesting.

This is the thing, right? He had a plan. He executed the plan. And then everyone got mad for not understanding the plan. Pegula should have sucked it up and rode it out. But he couldn't do that, because he thought he knew better. He figured he could just "business genius" his way out of things.

That was the whole point! They knew it was going to be unwatchable!