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Say what, again? Those are just your posts from the past few pages. Obviously not all participants in this thread and definitely not the full tenor. If you go back a few more days, people want to make a trade that makes the Sabres a contender this season. The kind of trade(s) that would upset the chemistry, which is the basis for our little exchange here. I'm not picking a fight with you, just, if anything, evangelizing the concept of chemistry.

If you're involved in talking about trades, then you must have Sabres players in mind who would/should be traded, no? I'm simply asking which players are not on that list.

Haven't we learned anything from this season yet? A team is more than the sum of its parts. We dumped two very "talented" players in the off season and look what has happened. Up until this latest win streak the argument was persistently being made that the Sabres are LESS talented now. The chemistry part of the equation describes how one part, or multiple parts, relate to another. Player X + player Y = +team, while player X + player Z could = -team. That's how chemistry works, and when you are mixing the right parts, it can last quite some time. The issue here is that you're combining the core structure with the notion of trades. The trades aren't for core players, those are typically for pieces to bolster the core. I think, right now, we're not fully sure yet who defines the core. As an exercise, who are those who you think should not be traded?

While I agree the discussion is a valid one, personally I don't think a trade for a heroic second round run is worth the loss of a first round pick. Still, on the bolded, I think the Chicagos, LAs, and Pittsburghs of the last 10 seasons would argue with your point. The magic may not last indefinitely, but it can last far longer than several months.

See the second quote. After reading the second quote, why did you take the bait? That lacks the precision one expects of someone who relies on numbers to interpret the world. It's like a tacit understanding of some arcane system. Wink-wink, all hail Uranus! What DO you mean? Also, note that when you start posting numbers that say the team is "average" or player X is "bad" when the visual of the evening was the team is awesome and player X was a near hero, you're going to get kick-back. Then to post the "can't a guy enjoy a win" in the same breath - that's exactly what the anti-metric crowd is saying after you post the aforementioned stats. Just trying to help.

Here's a thought: perhaps the crappy prior seasons where exactly the lesson some on this team needed. I'm thinking of Eichel and Risto, specifically, but you can add McCabe, Larry and even Girgensons, too. Samson would be part of that group, ideally. That group went though the prior seasons and now they have a taste of wild success, nothing compares. And, they can just about touch the process for getting themselves to where they're at.

Hey everyone...Tage Thompson got a goal tonight.

Not to re-hash so soon after a glorious victory, but Eichel had far better options there than the whiff he wound up with.

What. A. Game. Buffalo. Hockey. Sabres.

OH MY GOD!

You're right. I thought the same thing.

This team is amazing.

HELL YA! I love Risto, too. Fun times.

It really does. It's awesome.

This game...this game in particular...I haven't seen the Sabres play a game like THIS in a loooooooonng time.

Mitts goal...clutch.

You have to forgive their start on this one. 3 difficult opponents in 4 nights.

Who gets pushed off the puck, or over completely, by players a foot shorter than he? Who blows their nose and wipes in on their arm sleeve?

I like the way you think.

Unlike you (at least your state position here), I like HCPH, but his antics as you describe them do drive me crazy. I happen to think that his in-game tinkering is the best we've seen in a while, perhaps as good as Lindy's was when Lindy was good at it. I also like Phil's system. But his roster selections pre-game are just stupid. So, that said, it occurred to me Sunday that what if...stay with me now...what if the analytics guy the Sabres have feeding the coaches data just plain old sucks at his job. Or, worse, and this is where you really, really need to stay with me...what if the analytics guy is a MOLE!

I don't know, it looked to me that Foligno was a bit hard on Eichel and Dahlin. Coincidentally, the players that we tanked for.

Seems odd. How does the NHL come by players, then, if only 30 a year are likely to stay in the NHL long term? There's a potential for 713 active NHL players a year. Even over a 10 year period as an average career, that only accounts for less than half of active players.

My theory is that, given what the core has been through (except Dahlin and Skinner), they under-estimate their ability to hang with the better teams, so, as HCPH has said several times recently, they give the other team too much respect in the first, until they figure out they CAN hang with them.