Randall Flagg

Why would I do that when Olofsson - Eichel - Reinhart Skinner - Mitts - Davidsson Cederqvist - Cozens - Weissbach xxx - Asplund - xxx Dahlin - Borgen Samuelsson - Johnson Cronholm - Laaksonen is surely going to be our cup winning roster in 2023? But for real the answer is no just because the logistics of no longer having any prospects are impossible to overcome as an organization. I would probably trade far more of them than most other Sabres fans would though for that guarantee.

You can love a bad coach - I'm not sure why that would be seen as convincing evidence that a player dipping from a form he never returned to has nothing to do with said coach. The point is, I'm not buying the good seasons under Ralph as being due to his hand while hand-waving away the bad ones. We did that ***** with Housley too - the Nashville D became great BECAUSE of things he did, he wasn't just along for the ride. Many posters argued that who would scoff at that notion today, but we're always ready to attribute good things to the new guy and excuse away the potentially inconvenient ones. For the record, I don't actually believe that Krueger ruined RNH. I just don't think he was some secret sauce for Yakupov that Nail just couldn't handle not having. I think Nail benefited from an absolutely wild NHL that season, and the fact that it's the low-IQ guys who tend to burst on the scene, quickly get figured out, and be incapable of ever adjusting to that.

And I'd even argue he's not worse about it than many other wingers, but you just don't watch those guys like you watch the Great 8 when he's on the ice, ya know?

No, but I think real-time analysis of the ingredients of those situations would have led each of us, and many other fans, to assign a higher probability to those things happening than we'd/they'd be comfortable assigning to OUR situation with THIS group. Remove hindsight from the equation, I don't think this year's Coyotes and this year's Sabres have similar chances of a breakout like that. Like, just because wild stuff happens, doesn't mean we have as much of a shot at a good season as Carolina did at theirs. Especially because of how excellent the shift-to-shift hockey of the Hurricanes had been for a couple years, compared to our base! I realize how obnoxiously pedantic I'm being and I do apologize. Overall, my point is that Ralph's words, and the fact that crazy things can happen, don't override the way I look at the players we're throwing out there, a lot of whom I've watched very closely, pausing shift after shift to re-watch over and over again. I'd never tell you it can't happen but I would argue heavily that an organization that has the recent and distant track record of this one is less likely to be in a position to make that story happen than the ones that do write these Cinderella stories, for the most part. And so while I'm going to completely bomb my season predictions, it's not going to be because it's impossible to ever see this stuff happening, but because some almost-well-situated organizations are just going to have things work out while others aren't, and we haven't shown we're deserving of that belief yet

The dude had rockets on his skates, his disinterest in playing defense versus bailing for the pass wasn't laziness, and it wasn't even as bad as Patrick Kane's same tendencies that were somehow never talked about. And I'm pretty sure IB isn't completely reliable but HAS broken real news?

I don't really want something like that affecting how Jason values Risto, I think he should hold firm the way tom says he is. That was honestly never justified though, because you can make a "controller off" GIF of any player

I get it, but the Islanders also added THE coaching guru and THE defensive coach, which took a team with the most goals allowed since 2005 save one team (IIRC) and made them allow a lot fewer goals, which covered the fact that their forward corps reeeeeeeally took a hit. That hit was noticeable, they just rode that new style and a spurned, low-expectation driven attitude further than you'd have guessed. So they were affected by the loss of Tavares, they were just more effected by what anyone would have called a potentially organization-stabilizing/saving coaching hire beforehand. I'm not sure I see us sitting with that same kind of potential in any respect, even if a guy like Dahlin absolutely takes off. Because I don't think they've come close to "getting the best talent you can" over the last few offseasons, and I don't think Krueger is a can't-miss kind of hire a la Trotz. I hope he is. I also hope Jack wins the Art Ross, while Dahlin scores 75 points. I don't see a meaningful difference in the amount of expectations I should have for either of those cases based on all we could possibly know about Ralph now I'm sure he liked the guy, he also only scored 4 goals (24 pts) in 40 games under him after previously having what would likely be the best season of his career in his rookie year just before. RNH was never the same player after he played Krueger hockey. Of course, I don't actually believe Krueger ruined RNH, but I'm not sure saying so is different from saying that Krueger made Yakupov good.

Did he also ruin RNH, a first overall pick with a wonderful rookie year that was followed by a very disappointing one with Ralph? If not, why attribute one to him and not the other?

I'm down! What's the attendance like?

I'm listening to the game right now from Norman, OK. Had a fun time at Dwyer Stadium this summer.

Which makes a lot of sense given the way he looked out there most of this year.

Has he given us any reason to hope more than "new coach could mean anything"? The last time Ralph was in the NHL, his Oilers (in the shortened season) were 16-13-7, in a playoff spot, and coming off a 5 game win streak with 12 games left to play. They went 3 - 9 - 0 to finish the year, and missed. That is IDENTICAL to the story of the 16-17 and 18-19 Sabres as well, in a condensed form - right when the calendar turns and it's feeling like there's the time and possibility to go on a run and make it, the bed gets shat, in spectacular fashion. I've seen arguments to the effect that more of a buy-in from the players is what could have prevented these seasons from turning out the way they did, and you're expressing your hope in that type of buy-in, but the presence of literally the exact same type of season from a Krueger team in the only one we have a recent sample for, I'm not saying it makes me pessimistic or skeptical for how he will affect our team, but it certainly provides zero push towards feeling that type of hope any more than I would with [insert NEW coach name here]. It's my belief that the 10 game win streak was completely absurd, and itself provided far more of a drive/belief for those players than any coach can. Can you imagine how giddy those guys must have felt in that locker room after San Jose? All they could talk about for months after was getting that feeling back again. The thing that was missing that kept them from ever getting back to it wasn't in their heads, or in the locker room, it was in the tape, and the roster structure. I certainly haven't docked Ralph any points for anything he's said, because that wouldn't be fair, but I haven't heard him once indicate that he understands what the real problem with this team is, more than vague generalities about getting the best out of guys and what have you. Which again is completely fine and doesn't mean he has no idea, I don't expect him to necessarily say anything useful, but it also doesn't make me GIVE him points for the things he is saying. At least we're not getting the "didn't watch any tape from the previous year so Moulson gets the first 15 games" vibe yet. But I'm not inspired or given extra hope by his words, because they, and our reactions to them, are fundamentally identical to the sentiments expressed by Dan, Phil and our reactions to those sentiments at the time. And the supposed character difference between what he does to a room when he enters it (compared to a Phil) that people gush about doesn't point to the thing that in my view is actually wrong, so it's kinda neither here nor there for me. I don't doubt that there's some amount of room for improvement via Ralph's massaging of the locker room psyche, but 100% of the time I'm focusing on my hockey team becoming an elite hockey team, and the single biggest jump that I think they can take towards that end involves a lot more change in what happens on the ice than off of it, change that cannot happen via the brief, irrelevant tactical clues we've been given to this point like "instincts." Which is fine, but until I see that, it looks like a frustrating ~80 point season to me dawg

The Raiders are fining Antonio Brown (for at least the second time in the last few weeks) for not showing up to mandatory team practices/walkthroughs and he's complaining about the fines on twitter or instagram or something

All teams with RFAs have no idea how much they're going to pay them and if they can even afford it maybe? I saw something (posted here probably) that argued there literally isn't enough cap space in the league for what the explosion in contracts indicates for this batch of RFAs. And there are a lot of them, not just Marner/Laine. Tkachuk, Konecny, Werenski, Connor, etc. etc.

Yeah, I just don't think we've heard anything that's going to guarantee the on-ice product becomes better, just that the players might be less annoyed. I think some people would take the above quotes to mean the coaching is going to get better, but we won't have evidence of that until we see the team on the ice doing things that they've practiced that are better than anything they've done in the last decade. ie I get exactly zero increase in hope or optimism from any of this, even though i certainly don't have NO hope or optimism

Say one of the teams involved is Winnipeg, whose defense is such that they would be interested in Ristolainen. Winnipeg has no idea if Laine is going to get a 2 year bridge deal at 6 per, or an 8 year deal at 11 per. Further, if they lose Laine, they might be less inclined to trade forwards for Risto, and more inclined to go for Gardiner, who is sitting pretty with interest from teams like Winnipeg, Buffalo, MTL perhaps. And if Laine gets a BIG contract, maybe suddenly Risto is not affordable for them at all. Jason is interested in Peg's offer, and is willing to let it play out before he moves on to a team like Anaheim. something like that hypothetical, maybe?

I think you're leaning too much on points here. Kyle's production has been fine the last two seasons, while his play simultaneously (when put above the fourth line) is a large part of why we failed as a team. Using Roslovic's point totals in 9 minutes a night with Appleton or the Copp line or whatever (I know he's gotten run with Little-Laine last year, but Laine was a ***** awful ES hockey player last year and it made any line he was on ineffective) just doesn't tell us anything about what he could bring us relative to Sheary or Kyle or Vesey. We need to actually watch Jack and project what his game could bring next to some of our players, the stats aren't going to say anything. All I'm saying is that I don't think anyone here has really watched an appreciable amount of Jack, and we KNOW that a lot of the guys you list were plain bad NHLers for us. FTR I basically have no interest in acquiring him for anything, much less Risto

I definitely get the sentiment. I don't think it was necessary to shove whiteboards and analytics in the players' faces to improve our transition game from this: to this: Likewise, you probably don't need to tell the players a single stat to get them to improve their offensive zone play from stuff like this: (note how stuck to the perimeter, and stationary, the Sabres are, particularly the ones without the puck. And in the Minnesota clip, look at how confused, crossed up, and headless-chicken-like the forwards are at the front of the net in the end) to stuff like this: (Note how the players off the puck swoop around to cover far more surface area than the Sabres forwards, who largely stand and watch, do, and notice how many position-switches and how much north/south motion for off-puck players Philly employs to try and confuse the defense) My one "however" with this whole discussion, though, is that this stuff probably needs the metaphorical white board. I am not convinced that Okposo's instincts (nor those of anyone else) are to revert to these rather intricate, obviously-practiced motions and timing plays. I'm pretty convinced we'd see a lot more random shots, chaos in front of the net, stuff that doesn't actually make us more reliably dangerous offensively. I don't think "not thinking out there" is the process by which the Sabres can incorporate this stuff, and I think it's really important that they incorporate it, because I think it's the best way to open up space in the offensive zone, which is the easiest way to pull them away from being the least dangerous offensive zone team in the NHL, which several shot-weighting metrics indicate they are. If you're at the bottom of the league at something, improving THAT THING is the quickest way back to rejoining the NHL for fun things like playoff pushes. Krueger's most important job is NOT getting these guys to pull together, even though that is important. He's got to fix tangible on-ice stuff too, because that hindered the Sabres this past season far more than any lack of will/belief. These guys fought their ***** off for 2.5 months after that win streak before finally caving in when no help was brought. We all saw how pained their interviews were, desperate and trying everything to get back to the magic of November. These guys didn't not care, they didn't not try, and they weren't all pulling in different directions, they were just overmatched both tactically and as a roster. We have no idea if Krueger is capable of coaching modern NHL hockey, no matter how good he sounds right now, and for our sake, I hope he is. We'll see over the next couple of months.

The season before this past one he scored at a 69 point rate (missed games due to injury) on a team whose superstar forward line propelled their team to 255 goals. He's going to a team that last year scored more than 30 goals more than that. He's 28, not 32. And your point about those being forwards remains a good one - Defenders appear to stay at their peak at later ages than forwards do, from everything I've ever seen and heard talked about. Rielly's not going away, but he's not as skilled of an offensive defenseman as Tyson Barrie, who will take over that role, as Babs knows how flawed he is defensively and how comparatively good Rielly is in his own zone. He is going to score more than 59 points if he plays 82 games, and it might be more than a ten point increase depending on how quickly he can steal the #1PP.

The touch he showed on the one Sweeney pass versus the zip on the other one was so encouraging

Any updates on your end, tom?

But do you think going to a top 3 offense in the league, if he can win a role I believe he's going to win, would not produce a statistical jump? It's certainly not going to decline.

Things like that article are making me LOVE football again. It's such an interesting sport that I really know so little about. I encourage anyone who enjoyed the dive to watch Brett Kollmann's youtube channel.

I'll save you the time, Jason - Scandella and Sobotka lost their jobs

He spent the bulk of his time on their fourth line. I doubt he's worth a Risto trade, and don't think he'll be great, but I don't think his point total is close to indicative of what he would bring a team like Buffalo in a new role even this season. It's more reflective of Winnipeg's wing depth. How many points would you expect Sheary or Mitts to get in 9:45 a night behind some of those wingers?