DarthEbriate

With thunderous applause?

With Norris, you play him until he breaks and you hope to get at to 25-25-50 before he's lost to season-ending IR. In 2025-26, you call up Östlund. Rinse and repeat, but in 2026-27 you call up Helenius. And you hope that whoever fills in as his top-6C replacement is as good or better. You also hope he breaks before the trade deadline so that you can put him on LTIR, acquire someone with salary, and then maybe Norris is healthy and re-added for the playoffs. Note that this last item requires an owner willing to take on salary and is serious about winning, which... nevermind.

I believe there's a thread for that...

All the coaches are under contract for next season already, so probably the only way to retool the roster at this point is for the best players to start revolting. Tuch refuses to sign an extension; all the RFAs announce they don't want to be here, hunt for 1-year offer sheets and let it be known that if they're retained, they'll do the same thing again in 2026 until they reach UFA; and Dahlin requests a trade -- as a Sabres captain it's only right that he be moved to a contender. Then, sit out the season until he's moved, Peca-style.

And Adams and Appert in 2026-27.

He's not just a good goalie this year, he's one of the best goalies in the league the last two years. Minding the crease behind the Leafs and Panthers will do that to you, but make no mistake, Stolarz is good. Last year: 24-16-7-2 .925 sv% 2 SO This year: 32-20-8-3 .923 sv% 3 SO, make that 4 SO He's also riding a now 8-game winning streak.

Lose to Philly, then fire him sitting on 899.

The AHL line gets a couple good scoring chances. Östlund and Rosén both strong on the puck at times to maintain possession and make solid cross-ice passes that lead to shot attempts.

UPL's save on the replay -- the puck was going wide. It was all Luukkonen's plan. He slid past the side of the net, thereby freaking out Domi's vision -- Domi tried to go shortside, but because UPL was outside the net, the shortside was wide. Brilliant!

And it stinks he's been through so many surgeries; the league is better with him in it. But he's been practicing and traveling with the team for 4 weeks, which means he's been capable of hockey-related activities for months. It's just such transparent circumventing of the cap. And the fix is so easy: either a) once designated LTIR, they cannot play until July 1st/start of next season or b) you cannot ice a playoff lineup that is not cap-compliant. If the Sabres were good, they could sit Power to bulk up all next regular season, and Norris too. Then just unleash them and their $16M in salary at playoff time (after a conditioning stint, naturally).

Top 6 RW for every team currently with 94+ points (to include MIN & OTT) TOR: Marner, Nylander TBL: Kucherov, Bjorkstrand (technically, Guentzel is playing RW for them on the Hagel-Cirelli line lately) FLA: Reinhart, Tkachuk OTT: Giroux, Batherson, Grieg WSH: Wilson, (Protas technically listed as LW), Beauvillier CAR: Svechnikov, Blake (Fast on IR for season) WPG: Perfetti, Vilardi, Iafallo (basically their only player listed as RW is Niederreiter) DAL: Rantanen, Dadonov COL: Necas, O'Connor MIN: Boldy, Zuccarello VGK: Stone, Smith LAK: Kempe, Laferriere EDM: Nugent-Hopkins, Arvidsson, Brown My thoughts on Tuch: RW3 on TOR, FLA RW2 on TBL, CAR, DAL, COL, LAK RW1 pick 'em depending on the line makeup: VGK (Stone old), MIN (Boldy still inconsistent) RW1 on EDM, WPG, OTT, WSH

Well, look at that! Colorado completes game #82 and Landeskog is good to go after multiple years on LTIR, just in time for game 1 of round 1. Funny how that timing magically works out.

I think they're probably happy with him. He's starting 65% d-zone faceoffs and has managed to be a +7 +/- for them and isn't much of a point producer. He's doing his job. But yeah, Zibanejad is a mess this year, and Fox has gone from consistent top-10 Norris votes to... not this year.

Even with a bad power play, the glaring number for NYR this season is the defense 2021-22 | 110 pts | GF 16th GA 2nd 2022-23| 107 pts| GF 12th GA 4th 2023-24| 114 pts | GF 7th GA 7th 2024-25| 83 pts | GF 12th GA 21st

No. Casey Nelson. Will Butcher. Bryson can be a #7 on a good d-corps, where he'll always have a go-to guy as a partner. The Sabres are not a good d-corps because they are missing a couple key roles. But for them, he can be the #8. You want to keep him under 30 games a season barring massive injuries. I'd rather have Fedun, Pysyk, or Hagg ahead of him though, depending on the other guys in the lineup.

The "we were down one of our most important players" excuse is already baked into the 2025-26 end of year presser... if Adams is the one making said presser. But, this is what LTIR is for. You can ice a full-to-cap team for as long as Power is unable to play.

One side note before I forget it: we're going to hear all summer about assistant coaches (until they just bring back the entire band anyway). And Peca might be available because the Rangers could go for a radical shakeup. The defending President's Cup winning Rangers missed the playoffs. Mostly that's on Shesterkin being a pumpkin this year instead of a top-3 goalie in the league, but as we know well, forwards impact the defense significantly, too. All I'm saying is... don't hire Peca just because he's a beloved ex-Sabre without interviewing other assistants. Assemble a good, proven coaching staff.

Tuch: Aww, Uncle Owen -- you've got a bad motivator. Look! Uncle Owen Power: Hey... what are you trying to push on us? Muel-PO: Ohhh... That's a shame. Listen, I know another d-man, a real bargain. Perfect for EEE. Hear me out... LHD. JB-78, already under contract for next year and playing the top six. Still, it stinks for Power. Hopefully, it's just a bunch of swelling an a MCL sprain and in 6 weeks he's back on the ice and ready to go. And.. if it's an ACL and he's out until March... because of rehab and setbacks... LTIR here we come! Look at all that cap space available and then add Power for the playoffs.

Nothing should stop them from trading Norris. But I don't think other GMs are keen to acquire a $7.95M cap hit for a guy with a chronic shoulder injury and who couldn't stay on the ice after the deadline. That said, when healthy, he's a legitimate 200' 2C -- who can fill-in for a 1C for a week here and there, which is exactly what we wanted Cozens to become. Östlund needs more strength. Give him another season in Rochester.

Tuch does miss the net going for corner snipes sometimes. So do all goal scorers. Tuch has a career high shooting percentage this season at 18.4. That's really, really good for anyone who isn't just mucking around at the front of the net for rebounds.

It's possible, however unlikely, that Boston gets back-to-back top 5 picks and then adds Eichel to the lineup in 2026-27 via free agency. And they have Pastrnak, Eichel, McAvoy, veteran Swayman as their building role models for ... Martone and... not McKenna (he's a Penguin), but the #3 guy next year. But, as I said in another thread somewhere, I'm not sure Eichel will want to do that. The best thing about Vegas is they're always trying and he's just one of the guys -- not the savior with all the pressure. That's cool. ------- Now, if I were Boston's GM, I'd offer sheet Jack Quinn for 7x$15M. Take four top-10 picks, Sabres, please. I'd probably get fired if I were Boston's GM, to be fair. But I'd sink their little steering wheel for five years on my way out. Why is Parker Wotherspoon the highest-paid Bruin in franchise history with full NTC/NMC?

The final game on Thursday vs. PHI will likely determine the draft order of the two teams. Most likely, Sabres are 6-8 going into the lottery, depending on whether they beat Philly or not. PIT has one game left, 3 rest days, and host a checked-out WSH team that has been coasting for a month and has nothing left to do until the playoffs now that Ovi has the goals record. Crosby probably doesn't let the Pens lose that game. They're probably going to lock up the #9OA pre-lottery slot.

This reminds me, I do need a new Sabres t-shirt. My retro logo shirt purchased near the slug era has faded to near oblivion and has since re-become the actual logo. The ideal layout next year is: NHL: UPL (or traded for legit 1A) + veteran 1B (Allen, Lyon, Vanecek, Reimer) AHL: Levi + Ratzlaff/AHL backup --> Levi might become the Sabres 1B by midseason ECHL: Houser + Ratzlaff/ECHL backup Europe: Find a SHL team for Leinonen because so far he's only shown to be competent in Allsvenskan Sort of like they had planned for this season.

Matteo Costantini won a NCAA championship with Western Michigan (Gavin McCarthy was a runner-up with Boston University). Poltapov and CSKA Moskva lost their first-round playoff series to Dinamo Minsk (4-2). Poltapov 68 GP 17-23-40 regular season, and 1-2-3 in the six playoff games.

You're assuming that when Draisaitl, Frederic, RNH, and Hyman (and maybe, possibly, even Kane?) return to the lineup, that Skinner remains dressed. They're all day-to-day except Kane, who was practicing with the team in March.