LGR4GM

Elite Prospects put the Sabres pool at 19th overall. Seems about right to me.

Poyer was already re-signed. Sal talked about it on wgr this morning. They signed Davis at 3:59, assigned him to p-ir at 4:00, and re-signed Poyer at 4:01 This was done so the league had the info before 4 for Davis which ends the league day.

If Rasmus Dahlin leaves, that's the lowest point... we're here:

Mrtka is going to be a good hockey player. He's got a ton of skill and untapped potential.

Yup. It's a Kobayashi Maru. If Buffalo sucks it's 15yrs no playoffs, if they sneak in and lose in 5 games in the first round, Pegula will keep everyone and we'll have a summer of Adams stupidly talking about how we took that next step and got that experience cliché cliché cliché.

Hey Siri, why is buffalo's coaching staff so stupid?

It all comes back to this.

Remember how we had to trade a 2nd for Malenstyn because he scared Appert in the AHL playoffs? We've got great coaches.

Pronman might be taller than Benson, idk. 😜

Which Finger Lake?

Mrtka over Benson... man, Pronman really doesn't want to admit he's wrong.

DOGE was a scam and a security threat https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/doge/doge-put-social-security-numbers-data-risky-server-whistleblower-alleg-rcna227259 "Following the high court’s ruling, DOGE staffers requested to move the SSA's database, known as "Numident," to a private cloud server that only DOGE personnel could access “without any independent security or oversight mechanisms in place in violation of laws and creating enormous vulnerabilities," the complaint said"

At the borders, for federal agencies, they're trying to push them into academia and public schools. They wrote their plan down, we could all read it.

What horse hockey. I've heard this awful excuse on wgr as well and it's nonsense. If Lindy Ruff, one of the most veteran coaches in the league doesn't know how to handle the mentioned issues above then why the ***** is he here? Sure, they could be better this year because there's less "new concepts" but also it's hockey, there's not some crazy magical new concept coming from Ruff. They have mediocre coaches and bad gt. They're probably talented enough but not experienced enough.

The Sabres drafting the last 2 years in particular has been, very meh. Probably because because the GM ordered them to draft rhd with every other pick.

If you want BIG physical forwards, the 2026 draft has quite a few.

There are 2 things that can happen and for the most part we are only considering 1. First is what we are talking about, Benson goes back to jrs and gets lots of minutes a night which helps him learn about this or that and practice in a lower stakes and easier environment. The inverse is that by coming to the NHL he doesn't get those minutes and therefore does not get to learn in that lower stakes environment. Second, something we are not talking about much, is Benson could learn a few things in jrs but by mid-season he would be bored and not challenged. He then develops bad habits because for the most part he is better than those he faces. This actually happens a lot, it is why Justin Carbonneau should have moved on from the Q. Now it doesn't just break a player, lots of guys overcome it, but we should consider would Zach Benson have become bored in jrs and developed less because it lacked the challenge he needs? For example the speed of JR is easy for Benson to keep up with, the NHL was not. If Benson spent 2 years vigorously working on his speed to be closer to NHL levels as opposed to being confident in his jr level ability, he would not have developed as much. What about his shot? That is a big criticism around here and if he went back to jr could he have worked on it? Would he have realized where it was in relation to NHL goaltending? I tend to think Zach Benson in particular needs the 2nd development path. The more you push him, the more he responds. Stagnating by being too good for jrs would have been more detrimental to his NHL skillset than spending 2 years refining himself against NHL competition. That's just my opinion though.

I worried we will continue to see McDermott use his 3rd down approach of sitting back and hoping to get pressure with 4 while decent QBs pick us apart. The Bills were atrocious on 3rd down last year. We would get teams in 3rd and 7+ and then just drop into coverage leaving big gaps for running QBs or easy completions over the middle. Jackson will smoke the Bills if they give him time and room on 3rd down. Henry is also a problem, although at least Beane FINALLY started to add to the line, it still isn't good enough. Should be an interesting first game but the 3rd down issues are the thing to watch for me this season.

There's our threshold then, 40.5o/u I think I put Benson at 45pts this season but forget where I put that projection.

Zach Benson is in 24th on this list alongside names like Tim Stutzle (29pts), David Pastrnak (27pts), Cole Sillinger (31pts), and I would like to toss out Aleksander Barkov (24pts). We also have Alex Galchenyuk (27pts and Jesper Kotkoniemi (34pts) as maybe some less than great guys around there too. The list of players who played in the NHL at 19 for 40+ games is 100 players long.

Zemgus Girgensons was 21yrs old in his 2nd season and he played an entire AHL season at 18yrs old. In his 30pt season he averaged 19:05toi a game for 1163:51 total TOI for the year. His CF% was 37.8 but he was getting 58.5% dzone starts. His xGF% is 39.6% or -16.2 depending on how you want to look at the split. He had 0.8g/60 and 0.8a/60 but 0.5a/60 were secondary. Zemgus has never reached 30pts again and has never even reached 20 again. In fact Benson's first 2 season would ranked tied for 1st with zemgus and standalone in 2nd in terms of points. Zach Benson just completed his 2nd season at age 19 (he's about 1.5yrs younger than Zemgus was in his 2nd season). He has no AHL season previously. In his 28pt season he averaged 14:31toi a game for 1030:44 total TOI for the year. His CF% was 56.6% and he got 44.4% dzone starts. His xGF% was 52.65%or +3.7 depending on how you want to look at the splits. He had 36.8xGF compared to Zemgus' 30.8 in more ice time. Benson had 0.5g/60 and 1.0a/60 with 0.8a/60 as primary. To recap, a younger Zach Benson put up better assist numbers, better CF%, and better xGF% including a better xGF than Zemgus while being 1.5 years younger in only his 2nd, not 3rd pro season like Zemgus but this is the comparison you think makes your argument? What number of points would Zach Benson need to put up this year in order for you to "know" that playing the last 2 years in the NHL didn't stifle his offensive game? 50pts? 60pts? I am genuinely asking what would Benson have to produce this year?

Oh yea... sure right. Can't wait until the midterms when they "help" at polling places in a "supporting role"

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd7yperjxneo "Despite declaring the Washington DC mission a success, Trump said that he is considering declaring a national emergency once the deployment's 30-day deadline expires. "If I think we're in great shape here, that's one thing. But if I don't, I'm just going to say it's a national emergency," he said. "If I have a national emergency, I can keep the troops here as long as I want."