matter2003

I mean, not a bad strategy to try and maximize attendance. In situations where the margins aren't great for minor league teams I can't fault him.

Only because Murray got impatient and started trading away all the assets the Sabres acquired for players that didn't work out instead of being more patient and letting them develop and draft well.

I don't think so. He is a good player but I never once thought I was watching a future hall of famer.

I'm not sure what the point is with Miller. He never scored more than 23 goals or had more than 58 points until he went to Vancouver and had 7 years in the league at that point. So yeah, he is outperforming his contract pretty largely now after a 99 point year followed by an 82 point year, but not even the biggest JT Miller fan would have predicted that.

Maybe if Berglund would have worked the way Thompson has to improve he wouldn't have flamed out of the NHL.

Ah gotcha... They moved print operations to Cleveland

Hmm...he is listed on Audacy.com and on WGR 550 and lists his employer as WGR 550. He has also been travelling with the team again except for West Coast trips. If he is being paid by WIVB it seems a little strange... His articles on games are on WGR 550's website, he talks in the pregame, intermissions and post game on WGR and he has regular spots during the week on WGR. WGR is the official Sabres radio station. That is a lot of time and content for Audacy if he wasn't working for them directly.

Your grade doesn't mean anything.

Paul Hamilton follows them with WGR 550...we would still have one even if the newspaper didn't have one.

Definitely not from WNY. Banned. I fought the ranch on wings crusade for years in the Midwest, don't need to fight it here.

They seemed to do well a lot of times keeping the puck to the outside but there were a few continual issues that seemed to cause problems a lot. 1) Goals on a quick play 5-6 seconds after losing a faceoff in their own zone. This happened way too much from what I remember. Would seem to get better and then would randomly happen again. Obviously they aren't going to never allow these but the number of times this happened was too many. 2) Goals off rebounds from point shots. Either because the goalie allowed a rebound or because the Sabres were not in proper position to stop them from getting their sticks on them. 3) Goals from guys wide open. This was another maddening thing. They would go 3-4 games where this wouldn't happen at all and then it would happen 2 times in the same game or 3 games in a row. 4) Goalies simply letting in goals they should have stopped. This was another huge one. Too many times our goalies let in goals that shouldn't have been goals. Clear look, shot coming from far out and not a one timer and just cleanly beating them in a way that shouldn't happen with the regularity it did for NHL goalies. 5) Inability to clear pucks out when they have control and a seemingly easy way to get it out of the zone. Too many times when they struggled, this was an issue. Again, wasn't constant...they would do great on 3 PKs and then be terrible on 1 and it would end up in their net. Seemingly it was an inability to eliminate all of the above on a consistent basis like the good PK teams do. They'd do it well for 3 games and then suck at it for 3 games. They'd do some of these things well during games but then be terrible at the others. They'd do all of it well for 3 out of 4 penalties in the game but suck at it for the other. Like everything else it seemed this season, inconsistency in their game was a constant, which was to be expected on some level as a very young team, but you would have liked to see more improvement in this area over the course of the year with how bad they were.

Maybe it is a case of fulfilling the dream is complete and now he can focus on other things like being home? How important those things are to each player are different... And if he does and wants to come back after the Sabre still hold his rights correct? Sort of like Pilut?

YTA for going to BWW...that place sucks. 😂

That will always be the Cup we got screwed out of with defenseman dropping like flies...if McKee even plays and didn't have a crazy infection prior to game 7 they likely win that game taking a lead into the 3rd.

How many teams win a Stanley Cup the first time in the playoffs as a group? Almost never. It even took the great Oiler teams 3 or 4 cracks at it to get their first one and they were nearly dismantled due to this. If you expect them to win the Stanley Cup next year you are likely to be unhappy due to having unrealistic expectations.

Did it matter to New Jersey who improved 47 points? I expect the Sabres will have a 2 year point improvement of the same ilk(probably closer to 35 points)...probably will end next year around where Jersey ended this year.

Unlikely. The team will have grown and improved with a year of experience. It might not be good, but it will be better than last year.

Spot on with the first prediction, very close with the 2nd, likely correct on the 3rd once Norris finalists are announced, way off on the last unfortunately.

I hate hate hate!!! they do divisional matchups for the 2/3 seeds. Just have it set up 1-8 by points and leave the forced divisional matchups out. Toronto starting out strong as usual I see... Not quite as bad as the NBA which is turning into a joke with their 9/10 seed playoff games against the 8/7 seeds. Why bother even having playoffs and playing the season if you still need playoff games with the final 4 seeds? Why are you rewarding a team potentially getting lucky in a game over 82 games of results? And now their in-season tournament next year? WTF is that,??

Who's spot would he have taken? Dahlin's? No. Power's? No. At best he was a 3rd option if one of those two was out but that was rare.

I think the league disparity is probably what hurts other sports the most. Football is the one sport where you have one consistent place to draw talent from and it's all in the US(outside a very very very small percentage of players that go through the NFL International programs). Every other major sport in the US...hockey, basketball and MLB have players coming into the draft from numerous leagues and countries. Then soccer, which is most popular worldwide, doesn't even have a draft, they have youth programs where players start training from the age of 14 or even younger at times and come up through their system and become part of the senior squad after being part of the U18 and U21 teams(or just make the jump straight from U18 if they are stars).

Not really. If there are 3 forward spots on each line and 32 teams then a 3rd liner would be like a 65th best player not 18th. And that's only considering offense, not including D or goaltenders.

And 91 points. Most in 12 years.

Pretty sad and says something about the other drafts then. Ie, if you are drafting the supposed 27th best player that year, you should be pretty certain he is a starter. Other than that, it's a pretty epic failure in your leagues draft process.

That's not true at all with kickers...they are one of the most replaced positions in the NFL. Even with relatively established players. Miss a few game winning kicks in a row or have a few bad games and there is a good chance they replace you. Some teams are going through 3-4 kickers a year because they just keep not performing well. The standard of kicking is so high nowadays that you almost have to be at your best every game. 55 yard kicks that were an expected 10% or less chance of making it 10-15 years ago are now considered routine kicks and they are looked at strangely when they miss. Best position for a long career with little competition is long snapper. Unique skill set that takes a long time to practice to do well at and hone, and not much competition. Those dudes can play 15 years easy, especially with all the protections they have gotten over the last several years with the rule changes.