nfreeman

My 2 cents: - I do not for a second believe that KA has intentionally constructed this roster to "soft tank" or otherwise have a lousy season in order to produce another high draft pick. That would completely conflict with his goal of developing a winning culture. - I think he absolutely believes that there is a good likelihood that Comrie/Anderson/UPL will deliver capable goaltending, and that the other goalies who were available to the Sabres last summer didn't provide a likelihood of capable goaltending that was sufficiently better than the path he chose as to justify the price it would've cost. - It may nevertheless be the case that his expectations, which he hasn't revealed to the public, do not include playoffs this season, as he may think that outcome is unrealistic given the youth of his team, unproven goaltending, competition in the conference, etc. In fact some of his comments in his presser yesterday were consistent with this perspective -- i.e. he talked about not targeting a certain outcome for the season as much as improving every day, etc.

Y’know, I’ve always found PA to be fairly scrutable. Maybe it’s just me.

This is obnoxious.

I think it’s fair to say JB improved the organization in some respects, but not overall. None of the roster, its results on the ice, the FO, the coaching staff, the scouting staff or the team’s reputation were any better when he left than when he arrived. Some of those elements were undoubtedly worse. And while he did add a number of quality pieces, many of those, e.g. Dahlin, Cozens and TT were available due to his poor performance as GM. Overall he gets a D.

I like it, not so much due to being convinced that KA is the right guy -- I think he is but until they start making playoff runs consistently I can't be sure -- but because it makes a statement about KA and the franchise, both internally and to the rest of the NHL. The statement is that ownership believes in KA and the direction of the franchise, and he's backing that belief with (presumably) significant cash, and as a result the franchise is going to be stable, professional and on an upward track. Now KA just needs to make it so.

I'll say it: if they get good goaltending out of Comrie, Anderson and UPL, and if TT stays healthy, they are going to get 95+ points and make the playoffs.

That is fantastic news about Dane Jackson. What a scary looking play that was. And holy mackerel the Bills are awesome. Also, here's a little something for the other old guys:

Those Miami WRs will be very tough to defend without Jackson and Hyde (and Tre of course) if both are out. They'll need another excellent pass rush effort. OTOH, the O looks unstoppable.

This occurred to me too as I was watching some of the prospects games -- that building was sold out with enthusiastic fans who are pretty psyched about this team -- after no playoffs for 11 years and one bozo after another at GM and coach! If they get off to a good start this year, the arena will come to life.

Asplund seems like a good team guy, and he's a good skater, and he has good chemistry with VO, but I think his offensive toolbox is pretty limited. I'd expect 25ish points, with some pressure on his spot in the lineup if Quinn and JJP can deliver the goods, although he'll probably end up playing most of the time due to injuries.

So Mike Weber, who is starting his 3rd season as an assistant in Rochester, had a presser today that I really enjoyed: https://www.nhl.com/sabres/video/mike-weber-91622/t-277437090/c-12764198 I enjoyed it in part because I liked Webby as a Sabre quite a bit -- he scratched and clawed his way to 351 NHL games, all but 10 of which as a Sabre, over six seasons, with plenty of time lost to injury. He retired at age 30 with an unusable knee that required a replacement. He was drafted in the 2nd round in 2006, and didn't become an NHL regular until 2010-11 -- in that season, btw, he played in all 7 games of the Sabres' most recent trip to the playoffs, a 7-game loss to the Flyers in the 1st round that the Sabres lost despite being up 3-2 in the series, and up 3-2 in the 3rd period of game 6 at home with a chance to close it out, before blowing that game and then the series in game 7. Weber had zero offensive game, and other limitations, but he played a very tough, honorable, blood-and-guts game. I think it's fair to say that most fans appreciated him. He hated the tank, like all right-thinking people, and it consigned 5/6 of his career to playing for atrocious teams. Anyway, IMHO he comes across very well in the presser. He is articulate and passionate and I can see the players being inspired by him. He also provides pretty detailed and informative breakdowns of a bunch of the prospects. The only problem is that the press' questions are pretty close to inaudible in the video, and Weber usually doesn't identify the player that he was asked about -- he just plunges into a long discussion of the player in which Weber describes the player as "he" and not the player's name. I was able to figure out who he was referring to some of the time, but not all of the time.

I agree with all of this except the usage of "pragmatic" here.

I said legit #1C. I think he's young and improving, he's got a great attitude and is hungry, he's going to get #1C ice time and deployment, including PP, he's going to have very good offensive support from his linemates, D and coach, and he has a significant bag of skillz. I think 40-40-80 is very much on the table.

Yeah baby! Yeah!

Speaking of earlier hockey eras, I thought SabreSpacers of a certain age might appreciate this photo of Bobby Hull working on the farm in the offseason, which I recently happened upon on reddit:

Good stuff @RochesterExpat. Post more often!

Geez. What are you so unhappy about? Can't we look forward to the season and feel optimistic about the off-ice moves made by the organization without you fouling everyone's Wheaties?

I like VO. He's homegrown, he gets better and adds something to his game every year and he seems to have a good team attitude. His 1st 2 NHL seasons were the Covid seasons, and I am convinced that last season, his 3rd, was substantially impacted in that long middle stretch by his injury (which I think was to his wrist) -- and even so he delivered 20-29-49 in 72 games. I was kinda hoping they'd give him a longer-term deal, but I understand why they settled on 2 years. I think buying UFA years would've gotten expensive and he hasn't quite proven himself yet to be worth that kind of commitment, especially with younger forward prospects coming fast. Still, I think there is a very real possibility that he stays healthy, has a big year, establishes himself definitively as a legit top-6 guy and a core piece, while one or both of Quinn or JJP struggles to adapt to the NHL, and KA decides to give him, say, a 4-year extension next summer -- and I think one of the reasons KA chose a 2-year term for his contract was to keep that option open. I think if he stays healthy, 30-35-65 is very much on the table.

Well, it sounds like they got a successful HS coach who wants to break into the NHL and is willing to start pretty low on the totem pole. I assume his job will be to assemble video breakdowns of Sabre players and opponents and similar matters. It might be better to have a guy with coaching experience doing this job than just a young tech-savvy kid with no real coaching knowledge or understanding of the game.

Skinner just turned 30. He matched his career high last year with 63 pts (interestingly, he's had exactly 63 pts 4 times), with 33-30-63. As @dudacek points out, he didn't really get going until a couple of months into the season. Once he and TT got comfortable, and once Tuch joined them -- they were a very dangerous top line with a ton of size, speed, range and forechecking. They created multiple good chances seemingly every shift. And Skinner did most of his damage at 5-on-5. I think he's reborn under DM, like a phoenix rising from Arizona. He's still got his legs, and will have them for quite a while (which is good, because the Sabres are paying through the nose for him for a while), and DM helped him get his mojo back. He plays with passion. And he has really good linemates and a good offensive system, with good offensive support coming from the D. 41-32-73.

Wasn't Stan Fischler 70 years old about 35 years ago?

Yes -- it seems like each year, he's made huge improvements in accuracy in a certain range -- i.e. he started out missing all of them, then the first improvement came on the shorter throws, then on the intermediate routes, and now it looks like he can throw it deep with reasonable accuracy. The deep throws were an issue even last year, but that deep post to Davis last night in particular was a thing of beauty. Oh yeah. JA literally threw him to the ground. And I think it was in a pretty big moment -- IIRC, it was on a 3rd down in the 3rd quarter, when the game was either tied or a 7-point game.

Holy mackerel we look awesome. Oliver hurt though.