Randall Flagg

It's also because a lack of depth made you play your top 3 D like it was game 7 for 3 consecutive months because you didn't care about adding depth, and now they can barely stand up out there.

A few weeks ago I had a dream where Kevyn was actually a genius mastermind. The Sabres won the lottery and moved up to pick 2 or 3, and he had sat back for the past year knowing one of Toronto/Edmonton would flounder and have to trade an unmentionable superstar - McDavid per request, Matthews after informing them he wouldn't sign. DreamKevyn gave a top 3 pick, 2024 #1, Rosen and 2 of the 22 first rounders to Edmonton for Connor McDavid

Man, i'm looking at some other teams' cap situations next year There are a LOT of teams in tough spots We just went through two years of blowing cap space and getting nothing out of it We better take advantage of the opportunities that will be available this summer

What I would do: Pray Nashville falls apart and is ready to start over with a new GM. blockbuster for their goalie. 2023 first rounder, top prospect (Östlund?), Olofsson for Sissons and Saros Skinner - Thompson - Tuch Mitts - Cozens - Quinn Peterka - Krebs - Sissons Girgensons - xxx - Greenway xxx can be a solid, gritty veteran with footspeed and playoff experience Samuelsson - Dahlin Power - Scott Mayfield Carson Soucy - Henri Jokiharju Johnson - Lyubushkin Other UFA options: Severson? TvR? Graves? Dunn? Loads of guys available who have played good defense on good defensive teams. Saros UPL/whoever What I think Kevyn will do: Skinner - Thompson - Tuch Mitts - Cozens - Quinn Peterka - Krebs - Kulich/Olofsson (i do think he probably gets rid of VO and lets kids compete for this spot) Girgensons - vet signing - Greenway Samuelsson - Dahlin Power - Jokiharju Johnson - budget signing Boosh - Bryson or someone similar UPL, one of the many value backups available around the league each summer

Is that an italicized emoji

It does what you would complain things like save percentage don't do. It does about as well as quantifying can do in describing goaltending. Where did the shot come from, what type was it, was it screened? what is the league average save percentage in that spot on the ice in those conditions? Aggregate that number for the shots a goalie faced in a game, there's what you get. It tells you the same thing the eye test does - elite goalies are elite, good goalies are good, and our goalies are horrendous.

Don and Kevyn engineered a feat to get the train back on the tracks, are proud of themselves for doing so. They seem to think it will drive itself just fine from here. I'm two cabins from the back and starting to hear ominous sounds below.

Well as long as we are sure Tage can have another 100 point season next year, and Dahlin another 85+ point season, we can start from there and hope to improve the ~10 points needed to firmly entrench ourselves in the playoffs. Should be easy, those seasons grow on trees

The Sabres have allowed 4.6 goals per game since the all star break. The Oilers have made headlines because their last 23 games have come with a historic 4.5 goals per game pace, numbers not seen since goalies couldn't stand on skates Since the all star break, the Sabres are, on average, making their opponents score at higher rates than the best streak of the best offense of the last 30 years

I almost yelled at liger earlier but saw you got to it And yeah I took a year off. We were out of milk

Something about hockey protects knees far better than football. I wake up sweating, shouting, gasping for breath after Bills ACL dreams in May.

These guys played like they knew their season was over after the Islanders loss That's a problem - the season was not over, and still isn't. I thought this is what guys like Okie, and what coaching staffs, are for. For about the 60th time this season, our goalie didn't lose us the game, but you'd also hope for 2 or 3 more saves and wonder what it's like to allow less than 3 goals the way some teams can Since the all star break our goals-against has been: 7, 5, 3, 2, 6, 5, 1, 4, 5, 7, 3, 3, 3, 10 You cannot win games getting the level of defense and goaltending that spits out those numbers. There is no reason to expect even a decent team to win more than 4 or 5 of those 14 games based on those numbers. I really like Samuelsson - I think that he has had one, and only one, shot towards the net this year that has resulted in a goal or something close to it. He takes shots at the weirdest times, when the defending team is exhausted, someone is open closer to the net, and they kill the shift. This is just an observation from one shift earlier in this game. Dude will be a good player for us for a long time. "What trade could have been made that would fix something like this?" This is easy - for 13 months we have known the issues with this team, as well as the bright spots. Our defense corps is constructed in a way that, to have a good shot to win, we need to play Dahlin like it's game 7 every single night, and when he's out, we have to do the same thing with a 20 year old. It's not that one deadline trade could fix this, it's that a derelict roster slowly deteriorated enough that a straw finally broke the camel's back. I'm sorry I keep saying this, but no, it doesn't have to be like this, and no, taking measures to mitigate it at any point in the last 13 months would not have harmed the future in any material way. Playing in meaningful games and winning them does not harm our future, you don't need to trade away the farm to do this. It would not be a bad thing to share, rather than own, the playoff drought record. It would not be a bad thing to get our teeth kicked in THIS playoffs as opposed to punting and hoping maybe that can happen next year When you use goals-saved-above-expected (a flawed number, sure, yadddah yaddah i don't think i need to qualify this but i will, and yes it gives a fuller, fairer picture of a goalie's performance than regular goalie stats) you see what any reasonable person would have predicted - Anderson is pretty good when used sparingly but we cannot lean on him, he is 10th in this stat for goalies who have at least 12 starts. UPL is 46th and Comrie is 60th. There are 32 teams. Making your kids go through nights like tonight is not a requirement to "preserve the future" and is more harmful to that future than what any fan has been begging for during the relevant trade periods If goalies like Saros do actually move around this summer, and aren't wearing the crest in October, the arena needs to be burned down. The plan cannot be to sit around and wait for Levi to be ready. Ullmark's first elite season came what, 8 years after he was drafted? 9? Kevyn and Don have done a lot of good things, they've brought this franchise back into the NHL. There are distinctly different skills they need to employ to keep it from slipping back again, skills we haven't seen from them yet. They have been great developers of talent. Can they coach a system that has a prayer this time of year? Can they add what needs to be added to the parts of the roster that need it? I wish I was more confident. @tom webster, I believe you when you said last year that Kevyn was looking for a partner for Power. He had an offseason and a TDL. I know he was in on Chychrun, I don't blame him for that in particular necessarily. Can he do this? Can he get what he needs? Can he find a goalie? Is he gonna try?

There is no doubt in my mind UPL and Comrie are our goalies next year

It's important to sap them of all mental and physical energy. You need the kids to feel like Sisyphus, to turn their joy into bitterness and despair. Or else the future is being compromised

Physical engagement is the best indicator of mental presence in the game

It's not either or, my friend Our goalies are as garbage as we all knew they would be going into camp, and we also can't play defense (hint - in the very post you quoted, I stated that there are two major problems, and this is the other one)

The best way to protect our future is to fruitlessly bury it

There are two major problems with this team. Goalies are one of them

Missed these

I do not understand how Skinner figured out how to pass at this age

Kevyn mis-judged things that absolutely need to be held against him

Tuch or not, I a couple months ago I had a hard time believing Donny when he said Tage had a lot of room to grow - typical coach speak, he's a top 5 scorer I see it though. He'll do it

Tuch opens up a lot of space, Islanders/Dallas is a tough task even with that extra space

Every skater on this team knows that a.) they've busted their balls and had a bunch of career years to bring this city its first playoff chase in ten years b.) they have a couple obvious holes, which were obvious since last April, and have not received any help for, in deference to "the future" Their effort when the rubber hits the road, and the roster and arena look like this, is no surprise. The same thing happened in 2019