Randall Flagg

I would add any defenseman that isn't 10/26, any prospect(s) not named Cozens, and any forward that isn't 9/23/68 to Mitts and 8 to get Cirelli

I am not one of those things, but will share that people I know have gone for routine bloodwork (and donations) and they've done the test while it's happening. In February, neighbor classroom teachers in my girlfriend's school all got sick with a virus, and gave it to her the next week. Nasty cough, general malaise. I caught a bit of it too. At the time everyone thought the only US corona cases were in Washington. But all of those teachers tested positive for the antibodies, so we're wondering if we had it too.

If the Sabres can adequately shore up the roster without using it, then make it. But I don't think that's particularly likely, and so I'd like to see it moved.

I thought I read that they'd scrap these results entirely and do it all again. But don't quote me on it

Yeah, they weren't that bad on purpose, but they were legendarily bad. deserved a top 2 selection

Well that was the most anticlimactic thing I've ever seen. I'll check back in when we make the pick or the trade. Don't have the energy to watch highlights of all the possible prospects

You'll get that fix when we win Lafreniere tonight!

I also wouldn't be surprised if Ralph was in Jeff's ear all season, trying to keep him going and his spirits up (with limited success) knowing that our goose was cooked with this roster even if jeff and jack were together, so that we could get Olofsson valuable experience on that line and be better for it when the roster finally was better. I dont mean to excuse games where Jeff's effort was bad and where he took bad frustration penalties, which happened. But he is what he is and good coaching can make that work for the team going forward I think there were times where Olofsson really made the line struggle 5v5. But long term it was likely worth it

I was going to do a project on Skinner this summer, but finding employment and then covid throwing a wrench in sports has removed my desire and time to do so. But the reason I was going to do that was because I rewatched a bunch of games during the first half of the 18-19 season and focused heavily on Jeff. Jeff doesn't hound the puck and he doesn't drive play in the offensive zone, even though his career fancy stats would suggest it - they are so good in Carolina because he played on a strong possession team and got a lot of chances. But what he does do is pick his spots off-puck in a way that few goal scorers do. His netfront timing and availability is the key to his game, and it's why so many gorgeous plays happened, particularly in key moments, in his first Sabre season. Picture the tying goal against MTL for the 8th win in the streak, the tying goal home vs Carolina in March, burying the Eichel plays in Boston, and so many more. The thing that I noticed when coming back to struggling Skinner after watching him there was that the dude was in the exact same place with his stick down on the ice every chance he could, but that those plays were never past the conception stage - they materialized only in the wildest hopes of his linemates before they and he lost possession. He spent almost all of his bad stretch with one and sometimes two of the lowest-event offensive skaters in the entire NHL. Skinner was doing the things he always did (and he made those annoying plays last year too) but instead of Eichel and him feasting, it was Johansson playing the wrong position and struggling, Sheary being nonexistent in terms of play creation on the puck unless he's shooting it, Rodrigues having a bad year compared to his usual utility role, pushing him outside of overall usefulness as an NHLer, and Sobotka, who obviously has offensive zone issues (though Skinner was scoring when that line was doing well early). Those were his top four teammates in terms of ice time, and as a result, rather than Skinner's unique-to-this-team sense of timing and placement in danger areas (really, not a single skater on this team has it at a desirable level besides him and sometimes Sam, even Jack is goofy unless the puck is on his stick and he's moving around) resulting in the successful completion of competent offensive zone plays and passes, he was stuck in those spots after abrupt high slot turnovers and only getting to show us the skate back to the defensive zone, behind everyone else, for the 1,506th consecutive time, growing a tick more frustrated each time. In the film, you can overlay the tape and watch him play exactly the same each year right up until it's time for something to happen, and then the results weren't there, because the thing that got him paid, the thing he's good at, was never triggered this year, and he doesn't have the puck skills and smarts to change styles and become a play driver. There's no coincidence that when he and Wayne and whoever it was that played with them were put together, things started to turn around - the line had a different kind of vibe, and even though it wasn't through puck skill necessarily, Jeff started finding himself with the puck where he is most natural and comfortable with it again. He was invisible because he doesn't have the skill to both physically get to that spot with the puck and finish it (few do). Now, he's paid lik ehe should, and shouldn't escape criticism for his production, but Jeff Skinner's season was far more to do with both coaching and roster construction errors than Jeff's efforts. I hope that Ralph understands this, because it seems that Ralph understood how crippled we were with our roster depth and center spine. Ifwe get a 2C and/or let Jeff play by Jack, I am supremely confident based on what I saw both this year and last that the grumbling about his contract and play will shrink and he will score a loooot of important goals for this franchise

I feel like the stuff these guys are saying about analytics are dreams come true for a bunch of Sabre fan nerds (I mean that in a loving way) I hope they can parlay it into acquiring good hockey players

At work, I flounder around, struggling with stuff all day long. Then at like 3:45 pm every day, all of the solutions to my problems hit me at once, and I have to try and frantically fix everything before it's time to stop for the day (because I'm not approved for OT yet, and even if I was I would feel guilty charging OT for how net unproductive I am until I finally figure stuff out). I spend the last few minutes writing the stuff down, have it fixed first thing the next morning, and then struggle again until it's time to leave when all of a sudden everything makes sense I'm learning so much stuff so fast though. Especially about data, coding, computing etc. Just you guys wait until things settle down in life and hockey is back, I'm absolutely going to learn to incorporate these skills into hockey

Dahlin posted an Instagram story 4-6 weeks ago, playing tennis. It was hard to do a physique check because of his clothing, but if the development of his triceps are a proxy for his time in the gym, he's putting in some good work.

This would be just one of many instances where my ability to discern color seems to be worse and different than anyone else's. It genuinely looks navy to me, just a hair brighter. I'm happy to admit that it is wrong but I'm trying hard and cannot see even a hint of the blue I've been pining for

Most stories of Columbus' evil range from wildly exaggerated to flagrantly fabricated. The oatmeal comic and Ted Talk that helped spawn the controversy are downright pathetic in their cherry picking and massaging of details and translations. Applying 21st century zeitgeist to anything that happened in the past is a great way to never understand anything, and to have zero ability to input anything of value to discussion Columbus was a great man, so long as we understand the definition of great man does not have to include being supremely perfect in every way, and deified, the way so many people insist it should be now And relative to his peers,he was a better than average person morally. Like, if I were to pick a sabrespace poster at random, chances are that he'd be a bit worse of a person than Columbus if he had existed then, and certainly would not have accomplished as much

For whatever reason, those pads look closer to our navy and off yellow than our royal blue to me. I have a friend who works with whoever distributes the sabres jerseys and has seen the royals and says they look great fwiw

If they're going to do that why the hell wait? BB and Lavy and Gallant? Maybe not, are available. Let's wait for 2 years for a pool like the one that gave us Housley, and miss the boat on demonstrably good coaches (sandwiching Trotz with Housley and Krueger) once again.

A bunch of posters did the work on hf a while ago, somewhere buried in the thousands of pages about ROR. They concluded that Botterill wanted to move him as early as a few weeks into the season. There is every indication including from people who purport to have insiders that Botterill just wanted Ryan gone. While its def possible that Terry felt the same way and imposed the deadline, ROR was doomed the second we hired jason and Jason added that offseason's abominable pile of crap, no matter who the owners were

Dibs on head pro scout

This would be pretty insane if it means what I'm thinking it does?

Definitely, I was poking at the logical cloaking mechanism he used on top of those feelings. I mean I don't think he's wrong to be worried about Adams' resume. But the whole certitude of failure from an unknown while formerly being boundlessly optimistic about a known abject failure was something I couldn't resist pointing out

I'm more optimistic than I've been since March/April 2016.

And didn't crack a point per game

I would keep Dahlin over Chabot yeah. But I think Chabot is in the tier of prospect that you'd call a young franchise D cornerstone with Dahlin and Makar and likely Hughes and possibley Heiskanen. I think Chabot plays a kind of game geared towards dropping people's jaws, a la Karlsson, and I think that's gonna win him some trophies. His skating and puck skills are so strong that his defensive game will be overlooked. He's definitely a different player than Dahlin. Way faster, not as cerebral, more prone to extreme plays on both ends of the spectrum

Was just gonna mention that I saw that on twitter. Funny

All stuff discussed here.