nfreeman
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Posts posted by nfreeman
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They are 5 under DeLuca .500 with 11 games left in December.
8-3 gets them to DeLuca .500 as of New Year's, and means they are very much in the playoff race.
7-4 means they are 2 under, and still alive.
Anything worse than that makes it extremely unlikely.
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Well, they sure didn't get Boston's A game, but they didn't show up looking like they'd given up on the season either. And they got a great performance from Levi, which will be good for his confidence and theirs.
Not dead yet.
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15 minutes ago, Pimlach said:
I don't think so Rico.
TP does not want to pay people not to work anymore.
If he does get fired we probably get the Matty Ellis of interim coaches. The fear is the team wakes up, plays good under Ellis, and then they re-sign Ellis. Does anybody want that?
Finish the season. Draft at about 3OA, put another prospect in the collection and hire the next desperate victim.
I'm sure TP doesn't want to do this -- no one does -- but DG has 2 more seasons on his contract after this season at less than $2MM per year. That is a pittance relative to the huge dollars TP has committed to the players. YMMV, of course, but I don't think the cash will be the issue.
OTOH, what may save DG is TP's hunger for stability and to avoid the embarrassment of being wrong on yet another HC.
Still, the team looks utterly lost and unable to find its way back, and is regularly getting booed off the ice at home. I just don't think that can continue indefinitely, or that TP will object to KA making a move.
We'll see.
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9 hours ago, Wyldnwoody44 said:
My new LG TV apparently doesn't have the option to download Espn app on it, so I put it on in the bedroom, have Espn + on the firestick.. I maybe walked in 3 times during the course of the game chuckled, maybe watched for a minute and walked out. No thank you to this team.
They don't seem to play for each other, they sure as hell don't play for the fans and City of Buffalo. These guys play like they're in Beverly Hills or the Napa Valley, whatever the culture is there, it isn't the hockey I know and love.
These guys are making me not enjoy a sport that I have been watching since I had to adjust the tracking on the television.
Something is very very wrong.
Correct -- Roku is a far superior product to Fire TV.
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It gives me no pleasure to say it, but I think it happens on 12/31 or 1/1. The wheels are falling off.
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IMHO you can’t trade for heart and toughness and determination in the middle of a season and expect a major turnaround.
But you can find a coach who emphasizes those qualities and brings them out of the players.
I would love for DM to prove that he’s the guy but every week that goes by where the Sabres are simply not competitive in at least half the games makes me more skeptical that he can do so.
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Early December, 4 games under DeLuca .500 and we aren't far from a place where the playoffs are impossible.
The countdown to DG getting canned is officially on.
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3 hours ago, Thorny said:
Ya this one
Briere scored their 2nd and 3rd goal that night. He was fantastic during those 2 great seasons. Such an unforgivable hockey sin to let him and Drury leave.
The moment I was thinking of was at 52:58 of that video. It was Lydman who laid out a Hurricane, followed immediately by Kotalik's goal and the crowd reaching peak euphoria and noise levels.
3 hours ago, Thorny said:The demolishing of Philly in game 2. This might as well be a different sport. This is nothing, nothing like Sabres hockey today. The atmosphere, Rick, all of it.
This is the heart of it
Listen to the crowd ROAR just because we *got a 2 on 1*. It’s just different
That was the perfect match of a thrilling team with peak RJ, plus a great coach and an adoring, raucous crowd. Taken from us far too soon, but two years of great memories.
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In person:
- Bills defeating KC in the 4th AFC Championship game, sitting with my best friend from childhood, with Cornelius knocking Joe Montana out of the game in Montana's last NFL game.
- My son's first NHL game, coinciding with the rebirth of the Sabres in the glorious 2005-06 season -- early that season at the old Nassau Coliseum vs the Islanders, with Tim Connolly, also undergoing a rebirth, playing a beautiful brand of hockey and starting his best season as a pro, tying it up on a sweet goal with a couple of minutes left and Big Al Kotalik winning it in the SO.
- Later that season: game 3 of the conf. finals, at home, vs Carolina with my brother. The Sabres won to take a 2-1 series lead and it felt like we were coming to the end of the desert (although Tallinder broke his arm in that game, the first or second in a catastrophic series of injuries on the blue line). At one point in the 2nd period, someone (maybe McKee) laid out one of the Hurricanes with a big hit, the Sabres came down right away and Kotalik blasted in a one-timer from the high slot to put the Sabres up 4-1 and the building felt like it was gonna explode. That was the loudest crowd I've ever heard at a hockey game.
- Hasek and Sabres squeaking out game 4 vs Ottawa, 2-1, to complete the sweep in the 1st round of the 1999 playoffs.
- 1993 NBA Eastern Conference Finals, Knicks vs Bulls, game 2: I was relatively new to NYC and got a group together to share Knicks season tickets. This was peak Michael Jordan vs Pat Riley, Pat Ewing, Charles Oakley and the brutal Knicks. With a couple of minutes left in a very close game, John Starks, a guard who was bagging groceries before Riley rescued his career, went flying down the baseline for a huge dunk and the Knicks hung on for the win.
- A bunch of fantastic college basketball games.
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What did he say exactly?
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Season 5 of Fargo is pretty good so far. The woman from Ted Lasso is surprisingly good.
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This team can't be taken seriously.
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17 minutes ago, Taro T said:
To the bolded, yes he did. BUT he had a glorious opportunity to convert some of that ridiculously large amount of cap space into assets that would still have value today. For 2 years, the Sabres were scraping the cap floor, but they never sold any of that space to other teams. That was such a huge waste of assets because the day the RS ends all that cap space vanishes; it's day old news, there is no value remaining. Even if he only got a couple of extra 6th round picks which have very little value themselves, he could have used those as chips to help move up in the draft or to try to hit a couple of late round HRs.
While, on the whole, like the job Adams has done, that is near the top of the moves (or lack thereof) that are completely exasperating.
I generally am a TP defender, but I would guess that the lack of cap space deals is because TP hasn't been interested in burning more cash on the Sabres than he currently is (which I expect is a considerable amount).
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12 hours ago, Hank said:
I have a brother in law who thinks once you have an opinion on something if you change your mind it makes you a hypocrite. He doesn't grasp that educated, intelligent people make opinions based on observations and available information, and with more observations and information opinions can change. He also has an eighth grade education, has never held a steady job and constantly asked my wife for money. That's who you remind me of when it comes to Mitts. You've never liked him and you never will, production be damned.
11 hours ago, Hank said:I just reread this. I did not mean to imply you're unintelligent, I know you are. Apologies if it came across that way. I just find your seemingly unwavering stance (at least to me) a bit curious.
Thanks for your follow-up here. I appreciate you (and everyone else here) making sure to keep it friendly.
Anyway, I don't think my stance on Mitts has been "unwavering." I think he's developed into a good player -- and there was a real risk a few years ago that he would simply wash out -- and in the abstract I would like to keep him on the Sabres.
The problem, of course, is the cost to do so, which unavoidably needs to be evaluated in the context of his actual value as well as the context of the Sabres' cap situation. He's a center who last year had 15 goals and 59 pts. This year he's on pace for about the same # of goals and closer to 75 pts. He just turned 25 and he's an RFA after this year. Locking up a player with that kind of profile will probably require something like 7 years x $7MM per year.
When I watch Mitts, I see a good player who adds value in a supporting role, but not a player that I'd want to give that kind of contract, which is the kind of contract I think needs to be reserved for franchise cornerstones. Especially in the last couple of weeks, I still see way too much of "bad Casey" -- i.e. poor puck decisions that result in O-zone turnovers and squandered opportunities. I also think in most cases a forward who only scores 15 goals or so isn't worth that kind of contract.
And we shouldn't kid ourselves about the consequences of giving Casey 7 years x $7MM -- doing so probably means you're not able to keep someone like Quinn or JJP or Benson when it's time to lock them up long-term.
If Mitts would agree to, say, $5MM x 5 years? Sure -- sign him up. But I don't think that's going to happen. Since Mitts has been eligible to sign an extension for 5 months now and it hasn't happened, I'd guess that he's asking for substantially more than KA is willing to agree to.
We'll see. Hopefully I'll be wrong about him and he'll make it clear that he's too good not to lock up at a high price.
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I think Benson is a lock and Mitts is pretty iffy due to the likely cost to keep him (which I think is inflated relative to his actual value).
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8 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:
If any offer was made, then yes. We know Adams expressed interest. We don't know how it was received. Maybe Brisson let it be known that the Sabres were not on top of Pat's list. Of course it's in Brisson's interest to float as many teams interested in his client as possible.
OK, but that doesn't answer the question as to whether you think they made an offer.
The key point I and others have made is that it seems pretty certain that the Sabres made him an offer, which he rejected in favor of another team's offer -- most likely because he thinks the Wings are a better team than the Sabres.
Do you disagree with that point? Do you think they made him an offer or not?
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10 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:
I find it incredulous that any agent of a player in his twilight would refuse money on the table.
So do you think the Sabres made a one-year offer?
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1 minute ago, PromoTheRobot said:
The same as your that it did happen.
Well, I phrased mine as a guess, so there was no certainty implied, at least as to a 2-year offer.
However, I think based on the reports from credible NHL reporters and KA's own words, it's almost certain that the Sabres made an offer and that Kane chose Detroit because he felt more confident about them making the playoffs than about the Sabres doing so.
I don't think it's reasonable to interpret those reports and statements otherwise.
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4 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:
Yeah sure. That happened.
What's the basis for your apparent certainty that it didn't happen?
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52 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:
And while you're at it, explain this report from Greg Wys:
So Kane didn't want a multi-year deal or he didn't get an offer for one? Or did Buffalo offer multiple years and Kane still said no? Have any sources for that? Sounds like spin to me.
Sorry but this sounds like classic jilted fan backlash.
I’d guess the Sabres offered a 2-year deal and Kane passed because, having watched them play this year and fail to show up for at least 40% of their games (including 65% of their home games), he concluded that the Sabres aren’t a real team and aren’t worthy of his last few years in the NHL.
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35 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:
Hmmm, seems to me you were all in with them when they made a big deal about Tuch but whatever, you can change your ###### stance whenever you want, it's allowed, it's just the internet.
Dude.
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Good.
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14 hours ago, Hank said:
What are you talking about? 6K has been consistent all year. The two starts he lost were against Pittsburgh and Philly the 2nd. If you watched those two games you know The whole team played like dogshit. Hayek himself couldn't have won those games, let alone 6K. He was spectacular tonight and against Colorado and Philly the 1st. Good to very good in the other four.
I think you mean "herself," and I beg to differ:
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2 hours ago, inkman said:
If this dude was from Wisconsin, does this signing even get noticed?
Well, Kane is #42 all-time in scoring, he's won 3 Cups and a Conn Smythe and he had 92 pts 2 seasons ago before his injury. When a guy like that joins a new team during the season as a FA, it's noteworthy.
1 hour ago, tom webster said:This, I believe, is the correct take. He wanted to be here, Buffalo offered the most money, and he chose someone the Sabres are competing with.
I had doubts of what kind of fir he was, don’t like him personally, and am not sure he’s what they want in the locker room, but him going there is an embarrassment to the front office.
If the bolded assumptions are correct, then I agree that this is a loss to the FO. It's not a huge loss, and will be forgotten quickly if Kane is cooked, but for now it sure looks like Kane decided that the Red Wings are simply in better shape than the Sabres are, and likely by a significant margin.
Sabres Practice Dec 8, 2023
in The Aud Club
Posted
IMHO:
- Quinn was better than JJP last year, although JJP will probably be ahead at the end of this year (recognizing that we can’t know what would’ve happened without Quinn’s injury). In any case both of them have very high upsides.
- Quinn has more game than Pommer did and will be better than Pommer was, assuming he stays healthy.
- I too am concerned about him coming back too soon and reinjuring the Achilles.
- If he stays healthy this season he could be a contributor in the 2nd half, although I wouldn’t expect a game-changer.