dudacek

I don’t think I’ve seen them say anything more than “welcome to Buffalo” in these videos. The PR team is very cognizant of the “meddlers” reputation it seems. I wonder how different the reality is before the editors get ahold of the tape. The war room seemed packed to me and there were another half-dozen guys on zoom (including the “new” scout we just hired, so maybe that’s actually old news) I think it might be time to put to rest the memes of a skeleton hockey department.

Murray was interesting, maybe our most effective skater overall, and a man among boys. It will be interesting to see if his skating can hold up against men. Weissbach showed speed and confidence. He’s the oldest guy out there but he made me curious enough to see what he can do in Rochester. As a group, I liked the identity they showed. They worked. It was nice to watch competitive hockey.

I watched R2 more closely in the 2nd half of the game after not really noticing him the first. He was smart and assertive. I agree with the above take on Quinn. He was very responsible with his positioning but you could see the wheels turning. It’s going to take a while for him to adjust to centre ice, and to his wingers, and just play. The announcers talked about it, but Peterka looked physically stronger than I expected in that compact package. That speed/strength combo has NHL winger written all over it. He seems to have the hockey sense Justin Bailey lacks. Or at least I hope enough that it translates against better players. Matej Pekar looked a long way away. Love the attitude but he still plays pond hockey off-puck. He’s going to take a lot of coaching. I hope Peca takes him under this wing. Nadeau was the unsung guy that I noticed the most. Very direct, smart player. Feet need work. Samuelsson absolutely blew up a guy defending a rush up the near boards. It was a physical game and he was a man out there, but in a measured, controlled fashion.

I’ve not seen UPL play a ton as a pro. But yesterday was the 1st time I saw the presence analysts have talked about. He had that Carey Price thing going where he just looked calm, confident and tough to beat.

Laaksonen has skill, but he has to protect the puck better than he did tonight if he wants to succeed against NHL competition.

The guys you'd expect to stand out seem to be the ones standing out, with the exception of R2, who I haven't noticed much. UPL sure looks the part at this level. Our defence not much on the breakout passing tonight.

Anyone else have voice, but not picture?

How would you free up $3.9 million to match if you were the Blues? https://www.capfriendly.com/teams/blues Would your team be better off? And how would the Sabres be hurt if they did match?

https://www.spectorshockey.net/2021/09/nhl-rumor-mill-september-16-2021/ Jeremy Rutherford reports the contract standoff continues between the Blues and restricted free agent Robert Thomas. The 22-year-old forward is coming off his entry-level deal with little leverage except if he signs an offer sheet with a rival club. The Blues have almost no cap space left for the coming season. If a team signed Thomas for between $2.055 million and $4.11 million and the Blues declined to match, they’d receive a second-round pick as compensation. This, this is the kinda move that would earn Adams mad respect in my book.

Freidman says he believes the Sabres had talks with at least one team this week. More interesting to me, he said there is an expectation there may be direction on what will happen in terms of Eichel's surgery as soon as the end of this week. He has heard the Sabres have circled back to the idea that the injury has healed/is healing itself. https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/video/eichels-relationship-sabres-still-storyline-ahead-training-camps/ Also Eklund's Eichel go-round offered a 2-for-1 special today: a 3-way involving the Kings and the Flames. Imagine how much pressure is on the Knights now 😜

Murray definitely had a plan. His plan was to tank to acquire franchise talent, picks and prospects, then flip the picks and prospects for good players to supplement the franchise talent. He failed because he ignored the human elements of team and organization building. Botterill had a plan His plan was to make a series of buy-low moves while patiently waiting for his young talent to develop and cleaning up his cap. He failed because he ignored roster balance and fit with his acquisitions (and lack thereof), few of his young talents developed quickly enough, and all of his acquisitions disappointed. Adams has an obvious plan His plan is to sweep out the players who have suffered, add a top talent to the forward ranks next summer, pass the mantle of leadership to Granato's post-Eichel core of youngsters, and supplement that with a steady stream of relentless, self-motivated prospects, while maximizing cap flexibility for a big move or two when the timing is right.

Don't you think the short-term plan is to sign Dahlin and put Eichel on IR, where he puts the team over the floor but insurance (should?) cover his salary? Doesn't preclude another move, but he should be covered.

Donnie is the most important element on this year's team. Dahlin number 2. He needs to emerge as a on-ice leader. (Get him signed!)

The original medical call was that time would heal the injury. The only official update was from July that Jack still wants disc replacement. We've seen him scrimmaging. Anybody think Jack might pass his physical?

Except the veteran centre was awful and the high-scoring winger couldn't score. The verdict on Hall, Risto, Reinhart, Eichel and the long-term build are yet be determined. Moves you agree with (I like most of them too) aren't the same thing as "doing well." He will have "done well" if the new core he is building shows its quality and the team starts contending again.

I wish I had gif game. I appreciate some of Adams moves and seeming direction, but he iced a terrible team last year and his decisions this year can be described as a gamble at best. The roster appears to have huge holes that threaten his plan. He has not "done well."

It looked like they loved Power all along but knew the odds were they weren't going to get him. They outright said they put a ton of work into determining the next best guy. If you choose to believe the whispers, that guy was Eklund. Eklund > Rosen, Levi, 2022 late 1st? I could see it, or at least see a team thinking it.

It's really hard not to read the whole Reinhart thing as an exercise in "See, it's not Kevyn, it's Jack"

I think the spirit of the quote is "The best/most complete players usually play centre because that's where coaches can best maximize their talents" But I agree that this move seems forced and Adams has done a terrible job with the centre position.

You may have never expected it to come to this, but it is September and number 9 is still a Sabre. You know the drill and you know the back story. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=158169 I'll leave you with this largely forgotten quote from the infamous 'Disconnect' press conference. "But for now, obviously, I’m here. I’m the captain of this hockey team and my goal is to be available and to try and help the guys in the room and to help this organization win hockey games. I’ll continue to do that as long as I’m here.” What do you expect from Eichel this season?

You rejected 14 overall and Sam Reinhart for a chance to take (Clarke, Johnson, Hughes, Edvinsson...?) Dear lord, Rob Blake, Jarmo K, Stevie Y...

I think it's maybe about the interpretation of "play driving"? "Team A lacks real goal scorers" they don't have anyone who can score 30. "Team A is loaded with goal scorers" they have maybe 8 guys who can score 20.

I gotta re-watch, but I thought it was about Risto. There was a lot of time-jump editing in there. The almost avoided opportunities for us to build a concrete narrative, they just piled on a lot of tantalizing snippets and created an impression.

Not sure what you mean by this. it's a pretty open-ended statement. Panarin, Marner, Marchand, Kane, Ovechkin, Kucherov, Pastrnak... Arguably Rantanen, Stone, Huberdeau, Gaudreau, the Tkachuk brothers... I'm sure you could find a few more, and I guess there are different ways to define "play driver" but considering there's like 250 wingers in the NHL, I don't have a real problem with that statement

The Sam stuff made me sad. With the franchise in better hands he could have been one of those guys who will always be a Sabre like a Robert or a Pominville.