darksabre

If I'm the Sabres the last thing I want to do is get Taylor Hall engaged in the game by throwing a big hit on him or acknowledging his existence beyond being just another guy. Frustrate him defensively and watch him disappear into the void.

They can only retain half.

I'm looking at it like it's the Dignity Playoffs. Put up a good fight against the Bruins in this "series" and I'll be pretty happy. Also, I recommend giving Granato's interview on WGR this morning a listen. I don't know if he's the right coach long term, but he sure seems to have the right approach with the younger players in the short term.

Yeah this is definitely something we're going to have to revisit.

So that's kinda it then, right? If no one thought twice about the NMC at the time, then that's the bed that they made for themselves. And so here we are.

I'd really love to know some day how much influence Krueger and Pegula had on getting Adams to sign Hall with a NMC. It was a risky move, and one probably worth making, but man...I'd love to know if anyone in that room was opposed to it...

Sure there is. It's called "mail it in for the rest of the season in Buffalo and then walk for nothing in FA".

holy ***** I think this is actually what happened

Guys, hear me out on this: What if the Bruins called about Lazar and didn't even want Hall?

Okay, everyone go take a lap.

Risky schmisky. Y'all worry too much about getting mid round picks for UFAs. Sometimes you have to do the right thing and keep the guy around if you think you can get a deal done.

I'm fine with that.

Disappointed they traded Lazar. I have no opinion on the rest. Garbage in, garbage out.

I'm about to be upset

They're kinda like the Sabres. When things are going well it's fine, but then they have moments where the wheels come completely off. Their defense is sub par and their goalie situation is kind of a mess too. But I think it's more coaching than anything. They need to fire AV.

I can't believe we wasted so much of this season playing Eric Staal fifteen minutes a night. Good lord.

It's certainly interesting that if we break things down into 7 game sets, the Sabres went 1-6 in their first set after Krueger was fired. They're now 6 games into their next set and have gone 3-3. If they win against Boston that would be an astounding turnaround in such a short time. 7 games without Krueger is all it took for things to start looking different...

It's an interesting thing to ponder. It's not the ideal way to build a winner, but maybe someday we'll look back on these trials as foundational.

They're being allowed to take chances with the caveat being that if you screw up you better hustle to try to fix it. Which is how the game should be played if you have the skill and conditioning to do it.

Best game they played all season.

Holy ***** what a goal

R2!

That was a fun little set play by Jeff and Sam.

Someone on twitter said yesterday that not retaining salary on Montour may have been deliberate because it let's them still have two spots to retain salary on other trades, notably Hall. So perhaps Adams is expecting to trade another player and retain salary in addition to Hall. We'll see if it happens.