SabresBaltimore

I was later to the Sabres (late 90s) than the Bills (late 80s). I grew up listening to Van Miller and RJ. Both were legends. It was never the same after they retired. Now both are gone. RIP to a legend.

Yeah. I get it. But a lot of Europeans speak multiple languages. I couldn't find statistics on how common Russian is in the Czech Republic. When I was looking to see what languages he speaks I found this page: https://www.visitczechrepublic.com/en-US/57cff387-4684-472a-be8a-bd86d792898e/page/language Which says:

I'm not sure what to take from that. Isn't Czech the main language in the Czech Republic? I assume he speaks that, which is great for Kulich and Rousek. He may have had Russian players on his team, but that doesn't answer my question. We have Russians on the Amerks and our head coach doesn't speak much Russian. I was just thinking it'd be more likely Prospal does speak some Russian, which would be a nice bonus for helping with some of our upcoming Russian prospects.

Any idea if Prospal speaks Russian?

Sounds like Subban won't be back in Rochester?

I don't know anything about him, but I would have to assume a contract extension would have be sorted out before we trade for him? I guess it depends on what we give up. If we just bring him in for 1 year and then have to either pay or let him go, that seems counter to the way KA has operated with most trades thus far.

I typically haven't paid much attention to the Amerks before the last few seasons, and certainly not the ECHL. It looked like there aren't 32 ECHL teams, and I didn't see any ECHL team with more than one NHL affiliate (I remember at one point we split the Portland AHL affiliation with Florida before returning to Rochester). It looks like the only NYS is in Glen Falls and is affiliated with the Devils. I'll be curious to see who we end up with. Does anyone know how much influence we have on the team? The Pegulas own the Amerks, so it's easier to keep things in sync, but I know nothing about how things were being down in Cincinnati.

If you could guarantee me at least 1 Cup, I'd do it. But there are no guarantees. Plus our goalie depth right now looks sketchy beyond Levi. So I'm a no. I'd rather trade some combination forward depth/picks/UPL than Levi for Hellebuyck as a stop gap. And if that's not possible, then I'd try to get a lesser quality starting goalie that improves our tandem over Comrie/UPL.

I crashed my car in college. The air bag going off felt like being punched in the face. I think if I wasn't wearing my belt, it'd have really messed me up. I always buckle up.

Even if he's not going to play, it sounds like they are trying to get him with the Americans for a bit:

I like the signing. Far less than we've been paying him to be a bottom 6 forward for most of his time in Buffalo. He's a great locker room guy and still contributing on the ice even if it's not on the score sheet. Also worse case OK can sit in the press box if the kids are tearing it up. I'm hoping this is "one last hurrah" though as we transition to a younger leader group of Dahlin, Cozens and ideally Tuch. My guess is next year unless Girgs is back Cozens or Tuch gets and A, and the year after one of them gets the C (likely Dahlin, though my vote would be Tuch). I have really liked Girgenson's work ethic and all, but I hope this means they don't bring him back. I think he's going to want more term than I'd offer him. I'd consider bringing him back on the same deal as OK, but with the understanding that he's a depth forward and may not play every game.

For me it's a combination of places I read about/discuss sports (in person, twitter/facebook, these forums, a private slack server, sometimes reddit). I couldn't put a number on it. But I have friends who are this way. I had to mute a friend on facebook simply because I couldn't stand his constant negativity about the Bills. However the main people I discuss the Bills/Sabres with in person have similar attitudes as I do. They want to see us be good and hope we win, but aren't losing their minds when we don't. I do also want to mention that while I'm more about the "journey than the destination", I certainly don't want the GM, Coaches or Players to be that way. I want them to be trying to win every season. However a GM more than the others has to be realistic about what is actually possible. If you delude yourself into thinking you have a legitimate chance every year even when your team is garbage, you'll quickly find yourself out of a job. It's a delicate balancing act. I hate to keep using football because teams/cap management etc aren't exactly the same, but look at the Rams. They went all in and got a bit lucky and won a Super Bowl. But now they are going to be in a terrible position for a few years to come. Most fans (myself included) would take that trade. But there are no guarantees. The Rams could have just as easily lost a game and then be in terrible shape with nothing to show for it. Many teams have done that in many leagues. Good franchises and GMs find a way though. I think it's just too early to judge if that's what Adams is doing, or if it will all crumble in a few years because he was too concerned with his own prospects. For now I like the more cautious/long term approach Adams has been taking, but the longer we get into his tenure, the less patience I'll have.

So my take on GMKA is when he got here he was faced with a perennial losing team, that had bad culture who no one wanted to play for, and an underwhelming pipeline towards the future. Another GM might have come in and just done what they could to make the playoffs now, it has been over 10 years after all and fans are impatient. Or they could try to fix the fundamental problems of the franchise at the cost of a longer rebuild. I think he's gone a long way towards fixing the fundamental problems. I can't say for sure, but I doubt he thinks we'll be a perennial team just from home grown talent, but having a good pipeline of young talent and the ability to develop them properly is important to offset the big contracts you have to pay to your vets. He talked a bit about a guy on his staff who is really good at salary projections, so he's factoring all of that into his plans. He talked in the presser about how they've been handling the cap so far, and that they are moving into "the next phase" of cap management, which I think we've already started to see with Thompson, Cozens and Samuelson. I expect to see something with Dahlin and hopefully Power soon. We won't really know if he's delusional about being a perennial playoff team until we're a few years down the road. Given the additions he's made so far, I think he'll be willing to bring in the "right" Free Agents. However, I'm not sure that will matter. Unless we win the cup every few years, there will be some portion of the fanbase that will be unhappy. You can ask the Bills how well being a perennial playoff team has gone for them. I've never seen so many people angry we still haven't won the super bowl rather than just enjoying the fact that we have a great team again. I'm not trying to tell other folks how to feel, but as much as I want a cup, it's a long season. I want to enjoy the whole season, not just put all my joy on the final outcome. That's a recipe for disappointment. I do hope we get to a point where we're trying to capitalize on the window of our young talent and manage to finally win a cup, but I don't think next season is the year to do that yet.

It sounds like from the presser today KA is trying to lock up Dahlin and Power sooner rather than later. If he can do that with one or both this offseason, that will really help them to know how much they have to spend on a 4D.

Here's the link from Twitter for GMKA:

Here is a link to watch on Twitter:

In my mind, being a first round draft pick doesn't mean "top end player" it just means you're expected to be an NHL level player. The overall #1 or even Top 5 (and maybe Top 10 depending on how deep that draft class was) are a different story though. Those I'd expect a lot more from than players taken later in the first round. For reference, Krebs was taking 17th. I think he's shown this season he can be a valuable NHL level player. To me the lingering questions are if we have room for him and what his ceiling will be. I don't think we really need to decide this offseason, unless a GM from another team really wants him back as part of a trade, in which case I'd be OK moving him depending on the return. My guess is we have other prospects teams will be after instead, and so we have a year until he needs to be either re-signed, traded or cut (don't see this one happening). Right now I think they'd choose to bring him back on a cheap deal unless he does something to warrant getting paid more.

I'd like to see us improve at face offs too. I'd maybe put that 3rd (or 4th) on the priority list behind improving defense and goal tending. Ideally if we can get a good PK/shutdown center who is good on the dot in 1 player, that'd help a lot. Cozens was our best FO guy, with a 48.3% win rate (45.6% in Defensive zone FOs). He lead the team in FO taken too, by a large margin with 1,174. Next closest was Tage with 813 (361 fewer Face Offs taken than Cozens, probably due to him moving around more). Tage had 43.1% overall, with an abysmal 34.8 in DZFOs. Mitts was 3rd with 736 taken for 45.9% (42.5% DZFOs) and Krebs 4th with 556 taken for 45.1% (42.9% DZFOs). Jost was pretty terrible for his 428 taken: 38.3% won (36.1 DZFOs). I hope all of them work on their face offs in the off-season. I think those numbers further make Jost expendable next year too. NHL Face Off Stats (Sabres 22-23)

Yeah, that's way worse. I have one Ravens friend who are angry the Lamar Jackson sack in the playoffs wasn't called personal foul and seems to bring it up every so often, but in general most people around here are at least neutral to positive about the Bills. This being such a transient area though, there are a lot of fans of other teams too because so many move to this area for work and bring their fandom with them.

I don't really get the reason for the delay. If I was him I'd look at the Amerks and want to be part of their playoff run, and I'd look at the Sabres and think I could crack that roster within 2 years. I can only assume he thinks he's good enough to play in the NHL next year, and is trying to consider if some other teams out there will give him that chance. I'm not losing sleep over it though. I'd like him to sign and play in the AHL next year. We need more defensive depth/prospect, but it's more his loss than ours if he walks.

I live in Maryland, so I try to avoid talking sports at work. I don't really want to talk about the Ravens or Commanders. Hockey isn't super popular here. I don't mind talking Caps, but the co-workers I've had who are into hockey are few and far between.

I really mean/want a middle pair player who can play top pair when needed. Is that a 2-4? Either way not a 4-6. When Mule went down they often moved up Joker. Sometimes Bryson or I want to say Clague. That shouldn't happen.

Yeah, not sure why I wrote it that way. I just meant middle pair. I mean there are typically 6 defenseman dressed, but I don't think I've heard anyone else say middle six when talking about defense either.

I will be a lot more surprised if KA doesn't bring in a middle 6 defenseman to play with Power who can play top minutes with Dahlin if/when Mule gets hurt. Then he might bring in another vet depending on what he does with Stillman/Clague/Bryson. As to goalie, I fear he may stick with some form of what we have. However the fact that neither Comrie nor UPL had a game down the stretch when we were still in the hunt is telling. He may hope UPL can continue to develop though. But UPL isn't his prospect, Levi is. I don't think him trading UPL is out of the question, but will it be for a Vet Goalie who can compliment Levi depending on how well he's playing (more games if he's struggling/needs more time). I could see him hoping Comrie just had bad luck with injury and bad defensive play. I hope not though. At this point I'd bring Girgenson back on the same deal he's on, and move on from Okposo if he's not already planning to retire. That means we need to add some additional 4th line/PK/Sandpaper guy to take his spot. I'm expecting him to make a few moves either way, but they may not be as big/flashy as some fans would like. He's definitely going to still stick to his plan of developing in-house talent over free agents. But he's also show he's willing to bring in the right guys from a trade (see: Tuch), so I don't think it would be unreasonable to see him move some forwards/prospects for the "right" trade. It will really depend on what he can get this offseason and if he thinks the price is worth it though. Moving on from Eichel was the right thing for all parties, and I doubt anyone expected Tuch to be as good as he's been. I think they were banking more on Krebs developing into a solid middle 6 player and Tuch was more of a stop gap/ until that happened/additional value for losing Eichel. But that's just total speculation on my part.

Last one of the season. No Tage tonight, so no shot at another 5 goal game (or really just 3) to get to 50. Still, let's hope the boys finish off strong and blow their doors out. Who is your bet for starter tonight? UPL? Comrie? Or will they give another game to Levi?