Two or less

Fwiw, Paul Hamilton believes Ullmark will be taken as well. I like Girgensons when he first arrived, but I don't think LV would have any interest in him and I would hope Murray has no interest in keeping him here either. He doesn't do much for the team.

The Rex hiring/firing i think we all agree with. That one was pretty obvious. The McDermott hiring.... is it possible that when Whaley brought him in for interviews and to meet the Pegula's that they fell in love with him and ultimately they decided to hire him? Sure, i could get behind that logic. But if you are telling me they went out and researched and came up with him, and brought him to Whaley's attention, then i dunno, i guess we'll agree to disagree. Unless Tim Graham writes it, no way would i believe that no matter who Whaley found, they were gonna force him to hiring him. Also, i don't see the link with Bylsma? Unless i'm remembering wrong, Bylsma was the hot coaching candidate besides Babcock, big into advanced stats and spend his entire off time studying the new advanced stats and such and how they work, and also spend time with USA at the World Championships with Eichel. Murray interviewed Bylsma, then they all moved on to Babcock and after Babcock ditched us for Toronto, it was when they brought Bylsma to Buffalo to meet with the Pegulas. I don't see why you would say Pegula had a hand in that hire?

If you do something like that for over a year on a mostly daily basis, then all of a sudden stop, i guess i'm wondering what happened? And i'm not concerned one bit about him being late for the meeting.

Not sure what other info Wilson gave to this, but Antipin's team swept Bars Kazan with this win 4 games to 0 and advance to the KHL finals now to face the team with Datsyuk and Kovalchuk.

I never said anything about work ethic. All i said is i'm more concerned about him being first at practice, last at practice and working out with ROR then i am about him being late to a meeting.

You're speculating a lot here. Pegula has his hands on the teams, of course, he owns them. Is it more or less then most owners in sports? I don't know. But how far do you think he goes? He told them to trade for Kane? Told them not to draft Samsonov in the first round and trade for a goalie? He told them to bring back Moulson? Don't be so gullible. I get it, losing sucks. And everything seems so complicated when you lose.

Smith seems very Brian Flynn-esque. Wouldn't be a bad thing for this team if he is just that.

My thoughts are the same. I don't care much that he was late either. I also don't care if he lied about misreading a text and i don't care about what the true story behind it is. I do care more about Reinhart not working out post-practice with ROR anymore though. When Samson came to the Sabres he was considered a workaholic. But this season it seems several people reported that he rarely shows he does work before or after practice and hasn't worked out with ROR in a long time after practice. Reinhart should be a pivotal part of this teams success going forward, but there are still several flaws in his game. Hopefully he spends a lot of time this summer working on those and comes as a even better and stronger player next season. But i still have confidence that he'll be a star and in Buffalo for a very long time.

I don't think so. Did Pegula fire Rex without getting input from Whaley? Probably, and rightfully so. Rex was not winning, and also embarrassing the franchise with his big mouth. It's the Pegula's responsibility to protect their brand. Winning cures everything, but when you don't win, you don't have to stand for the side stuff that was making this franchise a joke. They do plenty on their own, they didn't need a loud mouth like Rex to come along and make it worse, with his brother riding bicycles on commercials. They hired Rex because he was a "big name" and a guy who might've brought credibility to the organization, and it didn't work out. I give them credit for pulling the plug and not waiting to see if it will turn around. I just don't think there was anything Whaley could've said to change their minds. As for the Sabres, what evidence is there to suggest Pegula's are connected? Because they sit in the war room on trade deadline day? Or because they have a seat at the draft day table? I think you're really into conspiracy's if you truly believe the scouts their their input in a meeting to Murray, and then Pegula grabs a notebook and gives him his opinion on who to trade for or sign? Murray interviewed Bylsma before we even interviewed Babcock, to try to cover their bases incase Babcock didn't work out. The only time Pegula had a true hand on what the Sabres were going to do, is when he was at that dinner party and met with Pat LaFontaine and they discussed all things hockey and Sabres and it really opened Pegula's eyes that they're much farther from success then he could ever imagine and Pegula did what literally 98% of the fanbase was hoping for at that point of time... fire Darcy.

how do you know Gio didnt suggest to make him dress and sit all game?

I would hope they speak with Keefe if they fire DD. He seems like a very interesting head coach. Another guy i wouldn't be surprised seeing GMTM go talk with is Dallas Eakins.

Exactly right. The Sabres in that third period were pathetic. They played a typical Bylsma game if they were up by a goal or two. They literally didn't try to do anything or attempt to score a goal. The Sabres sat back and played for overtime. We only generated 6 SOG in that period. The system sucks.

Right. And the Ducks actually took Marcus Petterson 17 picks prior to selecting Montour. Not even the Ducks were ultra-high on Montour. The Sabres had weak forwards and Murray needed to fix that. Obviously the picks, besides Lemieux have yet to work out, but like inkman said, i don't get going over past drafts, essp 2nd round and further down and being too critical. I have not seen anything about him recently with being linked to the Sabres. I know recently, there was 30 NHL teams represented at one of his games (i believe the Wings were the only ones not there, but i could be wrong) so Sabres still keeping their eye out for him. Hopefully Nelson has done a good job recruiting him.

Besides our own guys, team to watch is Minnesota State and dmen prospect Daniel Brickley. He was with the Sabres at development camp and is very close with Casey Nelson (were a pairing in college) and during development camp Nelson said he was going to do his best to recruit him to Buffalo. I don't think Minnesota State will be making the tournament so he'll be a free agent pretty soon.

I hate to say this because I like Sal as a football guy, but he's brutal when he comes out with hockey takes. He keeps calling Evander Kane Patrick when discussing the "rumors" this past week. It's almost like he wants to act like he belongs but it's so obvious he has no clue. As a football guy he's top notch though, i don't think theres many better then him.

Interesting, during this past winter classic, NBC mentioned that they were working on an outdoor game for next season to be hosted by West Point and that the NYR would play but needed to be the "away" team. They didn't go into much detail but soon after someone in NYC either radio or tv mentioned it could be Buffalo. But after that any mentions of anything just died off, until i saw this thread. Pretty sweet if true.

Exactly right. I think we were going to try to sell on Franson and Kulikov regardless of how we would've came out after the bye

Florida beat St Louis 2-1 tonight. Really thought they were gonna lose this one...

Sabres' rebuilding efforts creating bond between veterans and youth Rest of article- http://www.si.com/nhl/2017/02/19/buffalo-sabres-rebuild-jack-eichel-brian-gionta-jake-mccabe Nice write up by si.com on the Sabres rebuild. Lots of quotes from players, you can tell he took his time doing this piece. One funny typo in there though... haha

Reinhart is the new Meyers. :doh:

Agreed. I like the idea but the way it is currently set up is a joke. I've heard several proposals, but i think my favorite one is the one the NBA runs. The league shut down Thursday night, had it's all star weekend, has it's trade deadline this upcoming Thursday and league games start up again Thursday night. The only weekend the league misses out on is the all-star weekend and players who don't go to the all star event have a entire week off. Pretty good perk.

Amerks won 3-2 tonight over the Sens. Didn't see any of the game, solely basing it on the game summary page from the ahl web site but Alex Nylander scored and Fedun had an assist and 5 SOG.

Leafs & NYI won. And Boston is up in San Jose. I don't think as many people will be as excited for a run once we faceoff in Colorado next Saturday as there was this morning, because the points will add up quickly but i also don't think the Sabres will be too far out of reach either. It won't be easy but they will need to come out and win 5-6 games right out of the break to catch up a little bit. And we still play Toronto twice at home, Florida home and away and NYI at home. As long as their "in the hunt" there will be opportunities for them to make some power moves.

I agree with a lot you had to say. The team just looked shot tonight. And you could really see it with their frustration during that 5v3 PP. The whole team has looked shot tonight, i don't think it wouldve mattered who we played tonight, we probably werent going to win. Gio as you mentioned hasn't been the same for a couple of weeks now, and same goes for Foligno. But, in the lines post break - I would still get Moulson out there and trust me, i am in no way a fan of Moulson. I just think he's more useful for us on the PP then Baptiste would be for us for several minutes of EV on the fourth line. I also would like to see Carrier back on the top line with ROR and Okposo. They were a corsi-power line when they were healthy for a while. But overall, i mostly agree with your points.

They went on a similar run late last season too. Obviously injuries derailed a lot of what they wanted to do early in the season but still how they played wasn't good enough.