thewookie1

That is honestly shocking; granted its also hilarious seeing as Pittsburgh paid CBJ to take him.

Guy isn’t good at hockey, just punching according to Avs fans

He loves to reverse check and certainly gets into it with opposing players at times. Benson definitely strikes me as an annoyance, little love tap at the end of the Vegas game and his love of getting his head into all sorts of problems. Krebs is rambunctious, unsure if he’d be dirty. Cozens is more of the clean tougher player but isn’t above fighting back.

Dahlin, Benson, Krebs and Cozens to a lesser degree are the only guys who have shown some of that “dirty” potential

Frankly the only one who does so on a consistent basis is a healthy Dahlin who will destroy people from time to time. Clifton throws lots of hits too. Muel used to buy injuries seem to make him shy away from it.

I honestly believe he would make a good POHO that even Pegula may allow. In part because I doubt Ruff would demand a non-Pegula presence clause in his contract. At minimum I’d offer him an advisory role of some kind seeing as he still has a house here and still loves the area.

Maybe he’d be a good POHO?

8. It isn’t going to happen

Cozens will be fine so I'm not at all angered by his contract. Muel's was a bit overkill but its nothing to end the world over. Convincing vets to come here and stay seems to be very difficult. I'd suspect Petry wanted Detroit specifically due to his ties to the area Olofsson never seemed to get any bidders so we are just kinda stuck with him. If he were a good or average backup the contract would be fine.

It can be, there's a lot of running and games tend to be pretty long in the sun more often than not. Plus it can be mentally tiring batting against guys throwing 98mph pitches at you.

It's a Catch-22 to be honest Buffalo has/had an abundance of prospects over the years; each of which only have a certain number of years under control/ELCs and only so many of those can play in the ECHL and the AHL. In Benson's case he was in the terrible position of being a graduate of Juniors Hockey but being blocked from playing in Rochester where he more or less belonged. With his Juniors team moving and having a whole situation with the head coach they hired I can certainly understand why Buffalo wanted no part in that for Benson and likely Savoie as well hence the early season trade of Savoie. Plus it does make logical sense that young players need experience in the NHL to truly become NHLers. However I do think location and brand does have a degree to do with Yzerman's plan versus Adams. The Detroit Red Wings are an Original 6 Team, with multiple Cups to their name as well as the Captain of said recent Cup Teams as the GM. (Not to mention his success in Tampa) The city itself is likely in worse shape than Buffalo but likely has a bit more "entertainment" for younger players to take part in. If the Sabres and Red Wings were to offer identical contracts to UFAs, the likelihood is that they'll choose Detroit if not only on prestige alone. Adams entire strategy of bringing in players who want to be here is testament of that, he is trying to bring in players at fair rates who actually want to be in Buffalo so that they can spread positive vibes about the city around the league and eventually rehabilitate the city and team's image. Otherwise he is forced to pay extra just to bring in UFAs whom already get a premium due to the general UFA market. Effectively if Yzerman paid what looked to be overpayment for Copp and Compher, we are likely paying at least 500k or more each to bring them here. Simultaneously, two years ago we saw Quinn and Peterka tear up the AHL and get a promotion due to that. They had earned it by their play in the AHL; signing UFAs to "block" them would come across as disingenuous as its changing the finish line after the race is over. And while some say that shouldn't matter; it really does from a player standpoint. It may hurt us the fan and the overall team success in theory but makes our franchise out to be reliable partners to young players. Something Yzerman has the benefit of not exactly needing this due to the fact he can just use their Original 6 status to automatically create clout. Yzerman also had the benefit of multiple dynasty players bleeding into their roster's leadership. Zetterburg and Kromwell both played with Larkin. Adams had no such benefit to play off of. Although not dynastic in Cups, the last GM who had the chance to try and connect past to present was Botts with Pominville but he chose to replace him at first chance with a guy who had already spurned us once. Adams has tried to do that with Tuch via his personal fan connection with the past teams but there's a difference between a player who played on a team and a fan who grew up idolizing them. So to sum it up, Yzerman actually had an easier job than Adams has in regards to actually creating a "team" I'm still bitter that Botts didn't re-sign Pominville and bring in Vanek during the COVID season. Neither were great by then but they could of been a solid 3rd line with a young Mitts and brought a degree of history to the team lineage.

That honestly is kind of absurd however the MLB schedule doesn't exactly have much rest time so aside that specific case I'm ok with it to general degree.

Load management should never be a thing; players make a lot of money and its their literal job to be out there, barring injury, for their many paying customers. The NBA is a literal joke with the fact they give their players games off for purely rest days; they should be required to then pay all those fans who bought tickets money back for their "load management" The MLB is a bit different, starters throw far harder than they used to and as such 100 or so pitches is about their limit. But that isn't a hard cap, some players are different than others and can throw on shorter rest or throw more pitches without issue. It all depends on pitching style and how they do in each individual game as well their personal attributes like age and experience. Probably depends on the player and their injuries. Suter and Doughty are both still playing and have been near the top of the league in TOI most of their respective careers. (Suter obviously took a step back in TOI upon his departure from MIN)

I don't think he played slow; I think he was out of juice and just didn't engage quick enough. Some of you guys just have this borderline obsession with finding scapegoats and chasing them out of town. Tuch has done very good in his time in Buffalo; just because he's not literally running through the boards 24/7 doesn't mean he's shot and needs to be dealt. Tonight was a better team with slightly more rest beating a lesser and less experienced one. Nothing absurd, nothing over the top.

Looked like a team that just simply ran out of fuel by the end of the 3rd. Their speed just slowly ebbed away and we even dominated the shift they scored their 3rd on.

When you play almost 60 min in two games it can catch up to you

Greenway needs to cold ***** Schiefle

Rough way to end the period but you can definitely see why the Jets are great while the Sabres are more or less ok.

Frankly I think Joki been better this year than Chychrun

Well he isn't wrong; the biggest reason is we still play Detroit 3 times in the final 21, Washington 2 times, Tampa once, Isles once, Devils once and even Toronto twice. You find a way to win those 10 games in regulation, and your odds of making it skyrocket.

I'd say its a bit of both. It's an accomplishment for Dahlin in regards to his skill and stamina But an indictment of depth; but more so after Power's return. Prior to that we were down our #3 & #4 or #2 & #4 depending on your rank of Power and most teams aren't equipped to simply replace those minutes with AHLers.

I think to start the year it also was a perfect storm of injuries, trying a more defensive system, and some goaltending variability. Usually teams have their core players go through downturns at different times but we effectively had everyone cold for the first two months and seemed unable to escape it. Goaltending was between a rock and a hard place; to get Levi to sign we had to promise him a chance to make the team and after his solid starts last season in clutch situations Adams really couldn't argue that he wasn't ready and jettison him to Rochester day 1. (This was mentioned by a few ESPN analysts when talking about Levi's agent being very much against Buffalo bringing in a vet goalie. UPL, thankfully still had supporters on the staff, and Comrie was sort of just a guy who they had expected at least some degree of competence out of. Granato needed to certainly do better at snapping them out of the funk they were in, how I have no idea but that's what the staff is paid for. Veteran leadership is a very amorphous measurement since it can only be judged based on the success you do or don't have. While Erik Johnson hasn't been Teppo Numminen by any means, he was the type of move I hoped for when Pesce denied us for a depth role. (7th/8th Dman) Clifton brought his experience from Boston as well so I can't say Adams didn't even try to bring in more experience. Where he stumbled was bringing back Jost and not bringing in a body to fill in for Quinn.

A combination of 3 things: 1. Thompson, Cozens & Tuch Issues early - Thompson's offseason was likely delayed by his end of season back injury; he is a proven slow starter as well but by the time he got going he ended up hurt 6wks + (Only since the All Star Break has he looked more akin to himself) Cozens went into the season feeling the weight of his new contract as well as Quinn's injury and overplayed everything to start the year, became agitated and got his face broken by a much bigger Flyer, couldn't see the puck with the full bubble and didn't seem to settle back in until Quinn returned and seemed to reset his brain. (He's weird sort of center who thrives on playing a more "winger-like" north-south style and does so when with Quinn and Peterka or when he plays wing/center with Mitts) Tuch's early season issues seemed to keep him slow and less explosive and I honestly don't think he really knew what to do without his above average speed to help in forechecking. (If you put cinderblocks on a guy who plays a very fast paced pressure style; it isn't going to look pretty) 2. Eric Comrie, and the unstable goaltending situation - Levi and UPL played very inconsistently with Levi actually having the Goalie lead for quite some time. Add that to Comrie's continuous issues both due to himself and the team's inability to give him goal support seemed to create a nigh-endless teeter-tauter. Additionally, due to Vasilevskiy's injury, Tampa was hunting the waiver wires for goalies (especially when they had to start random dudes) for any NHL goalie. 4 teams including the Sabres were literally trapped with 3 goalies to prevent Tampa from poaching them. And since Levi was in the Top 2 and they wanted to still give Comrie a shot, we ran with 3 goalies. I believe if Tampa had their goalie, Comrie is likely sent down mid-November and then brought up occasionally until Levi either seized the job or lost it. This uncertainty undoubtedly caused the players to feel less comfortable to take risks. 3. Overachievements in 22-23 didn't just level out, they went the opposite direction. People here have claimed all the career years were bound to regress to the mean; and there is merit to that in regards to players like Tuch and Skinner but for younger players, career years aren't finalities and can just as easily be breakout seasons to lead onto greater achievements. However, instead of basic regressions and experience gain we've had catastrophic underachievement in part due to injury as well as unusually bad luck. Teams rarely take a nose-dive in GpG between seasons like we have and the power play's inability to function seemed to sap the confidence out of the team. Injuries not only derailed players like Dahlin, Samuelsson and the three mentioned earlier but eliminated Quinn entirely while leaving lines in shambles adjusting the losses. Once you lose your confidence and start pressing, things are only going to spiral however this team seemed perpetually trapped in a wind tunnel never bottoming out but never getting anywhere either.

Yeah, honestly I want a Stolarz or Dostal type 1B style backup for next season and let Levi cook in Rochester the whole year.