mjd1001

With regard to online ordering: Amazon. Ordered a case of soup from them that no local stores carry anymore. Came in 2 weeks ago, wrong flavor. Checked the order, we ordered the right item, they shipped the wrong item. So, asked for a replacment/correct item. 2 days ago it came in. Same wrong item. When they ship something wrong, do some sort of cycle count in your warehouse already to make sure items are slotted correctly. This is getting annoying.

I don't DISLIKE Byram, its just I need to see him take another step up. Forget about taking over a game, I just don't ever really see him using his talent to even take over a single shift all that often. Thats the eye test. As far as results/analytics go, he had a chance to be the #1 guy back there when Dahlin was out and he wasn't that good and the team was awful. His analytics...when he is NOT with Dahlin they are actually pretty bad (below 50% in most major categories). WITH Dahlin they are better, but EVERYONE's are better with Dahlin. I mean, I kinda do like Bryam for his visible skill, I just want him to step up a bit more and make more use of it. I just don't think we have seen him take advantage of all the skill he has yet.

Agreed on the last point especially. We know versions of the saying "Can toughness be taught" or "you can't teach toughness". But you know what you CAN teach? You can teach a guy with his height and his size and his reach to position himself better to take away lanes, to use that reach to push the puck away from opposing players better than you could with a guy who needs to take an extra step or two to get there because he has less reach size. We've had 'big-ish' guys supposedly with talent who were physical and hit (Bogo, Risto) that had awful positioning and didn't use their size strategically and they weren't good. On the other hand, here on the Sabres you also had 'big-ish' guys that didn't hit, but used their size and reach and positioned themself well and ended up being pretty darn good in their own zone because of HOW they used their size (Schmelik and Tallinder) Power is taller and has a bette reach than all of those guys, and arguably more upside offensive talent. If/when he learns how to position himself, how to take angles, how to make the 'smart' play in the defensive zone, he could/should be better than any of them.

For all the talk about Power, I am more confident in Power than I am in Byram right now. To me it seems as if Bryam is closer to his ceiling, and that ceiling is a very skilled guy who underperforms that 'raw skill' and the end result is a slightly above average D-man at best. With Power, I still think, and expect, he will be better than that over time.

Well, we all know this and its been posted in other threads...but to the topic, why they may not be good? Day ONE of camp. Tuch nursing an injury. And UPL. and Greenway. Already.

As per my above post, I don't either, but the contract may or may not look that bad by the end of it if the cap does what they think it will. For example, lets say he got 8 years at 9m per year. That is a lot, and toward the end of the deal when Tuch is 36-37 its likely to look bad. I don't think its outrageous to say the cap might/should be at least $140m in 8-9 years from now (considering they are estimating it at 113.5 in just 2 years) Well, last years cap was $88m I think? A $9m deal when the cap is $140m is the same percentage of the cap as $5.6m was last year. That wouldn't be that bad. I know a lot of assumptions there, but you pay in the back end of a deal to get the guy signed up front.

I'd love a shorter term deal from the Sabres point of view. If he went long term and got $8.5m per year (maybe more), with the cap going up so much that won't look that bad in a few years. But at the same time, I'd rather have the short term deal to take someone to 33-34 years old and then re-evaulate from there.

I really hope that Thompson and Norris aren't on the same line from day one of camp. If it ends up that way fine, but try some different combinations first.

So UPL injured.. Greenway injured... Tuch has something, And this is on day one of camp. What's the over and under on number of days before Norris or Dahlin comes up with something also? It's frustrating.

That Greenway extension is looking to be the worst signing of the past 12 months at least.

Im surprised it took this many years for tickets, even for a home opener, so be so far behind the rest of the league. Lets see, at $33 per ticket (I'm assuming no taxes/fees on that?) If I wanted to go with one other person, wife, kid..whoever. $66. Add in parking (is that up to about $20 now?) Lets assume not much in the way of concessions and certainly no full meals, but maybe one drink and one snack per person. At arena prices that is another $30-$40 for 2 people? So, for the team that hasn't made the playoffs in a decade-and-a-half, in one of the 'worst' arenas in the league, getting some of the worst seats in the house and having some pretty undesirable food, I might still be looking at $150 per night or more? On a weeknight/worknight/schoolnight? When I could watch it at home for free and if the game is awful tune into the Thursday nigtht NFL game instead? I'm not a person that goes to games anymore, but even if I was, between the quality of the team, the quality of the Arena/Arena experience, they would have to give me SOMETHING for me to spend any money to support them.

Doan is going to be one of the main things I watch in Camp. I could see him struggle to make the team and ending up going to Rochester.. I also could see him being a definite top 9 forward that contributes to this team winning. He is the guy, more so than other players like Helenius, Wahburg, Rosen, and Östlund....that I see the widest range of outcomes from come opening night.

10 reasons they could continue to regress 1. The Atlantic division is deeper than ever. Det, Mon, and Ott are actually improving while the Sabres have regressed The Sabres have regressed? I personally don't think the on ice talent/mix has shown a lot of regression in the offseason. And detroit is kind spinning their wheels, maybe not bad but I don't see a jump out of them. 2. Adams traded away another young developing scorer, who has improved each of his 3 NHL season, for two depth players who may or may not have upside. I'd also say Kesserling is more than Depth. 3. McLeod is almost certain to regress. He is a career 11.9% shooter who had a career year last year when shooting 20.9%. I'm guessing his shooting percentage may be a bit lower, but I think he could also have more ice time and shots to balance that out. 4. The goaltending is woefully inadequate. The save % of our 4 goalies last season were as follows - UPL .887, Levi .872, Georgiev .875, and Lyon.896. League average last season was .893 in all situations. If it doesn't get better, yes, this is a reason they will be bad. 5. Norris unlikely to play enough games to adequately replace Cozens. Norris has never played more than 66 games in a season and has averaged only 47 games a season during his time in the NHL. Remember he was shutdown after only 3 games last season following the trade from Ottawa. Cozens was a net negative. He HURT the team when he was on the ice. The team is better having any guy replace him who doesn't make the same mistakes. 6. The entire failed coaching staff returns including special teams failure Appert and defensive failure Wilford. I'll say this might be an issue. I don't know much about the ins-and-outs of NHL coaches, but I would have liked to see some changes. 7. The team again refuses to spend to the cap and with the cap rising quickly, the Sabres are likely to fall further behind. Remember that teams that don’t spend to the cap rarely make the playoffs. I think they are pretty close to the cap. 8. The defense remains defensively suspect. Byram, Power, Samuelsson and Bryson are still inept defensively. Kesselring and Timmins maybe upgrades defensively over Joki or Clifton, but neither has ever been a full time top 4 defenseman. Timmins has averaged less than 16 minutes a night for his career and last season was his first in 6 years as a full time NHLer. Kesselring played under 18 a night last season and while he did fill in the top 4, as soon as Utah got healthy he was relegated to the 3rd pair. He did have a solid all around season, but it’s fair to wonder if he is ready to pair with a player as defensively inept as Power for 22 minutes a night. It’s also fair to question whether the addition of two 3rd pairing D is enough to elevate a group as terrible as the Sabres have been defensively for years. Yes and no. They need to be better, but this D-group takes a lot of s**t when the failing should be put more on lack of support from the forwards. I personally need to "see" Kesserling play well on this team though, I do agree he was really only a fill-in on the top 4 last year. 9. I am a big fan of both Benson and Kulich, but Sabres are betting on their continued improvement, plus rebounds from injury prone guys like Quinn and Norris, plus continued success from Zucker and McLeod, to keep the offense working. Also don’t forget we don’t even know who the 9th top 9 forward will be; will it be the injury prone and scoring challenged Greenway or a bet on another young player with 62 games of NHL experience in Josh Doan. That’s a great deal to ask and comes with a high risk of failure. If the offense regresses, it raises the odds of another regression by the team significantly. Agree on a lot of this. You want Kulich and Benson to get better, but they won't be better until they actually do it. Norris has to play a full season. Quinn I don't have much confidence in. Greenway I don't think should have been re-signed. This can be an issue. 10. Kevyn Adams is still the GM. Doesn't matter that much if the moves he made improve the on-ice product.

They haven't lost a game yet. I'm not going to be negative just for the sake of being negative yet.

I get the impression Eichel really likes playing in Vegas (the city) and the organization isn't bad also. The only way I see him leaving is, well, 2 ways: 1.) Vegas isn't big on giving him top dollar, for a guy who HAS had injury issues and is entering his 30's when the new contract starts. 2.) He wants to play in Boston.

Every time they update the software on my phone. I don't need my phone to sort all of my pictures for me and to take them out of the main gallery and throw them into sub galleries. I don't need my phone dialing screen to look different. Where for the past.... I don't know how many years...I swiped up to answer a call and down to reject it.. I don't now need to swipe right to accept it and to simply press a red button to reject it. When I want to attach a picture to a text... I don't need to have my pictures in the bottom 15% of the screen where I now have to select another thing to swipe to open up my gallery further. And this one totally boggles my mind. I open up my contacts but it doesn't show contacts. It shows my call history. There's a tab for contacts. I pressed that and it's selected and it still doesn't show my contacts in alphabetical order. If I want to see my contacts in alphabetical order, I now have to touch my screen three separate times. Basically with each and every update for the phone, it now takes more taps and more swipes to do what I was able to do with less taps and swipes the year before. Maybe I can dig into settings to simplify this or get it back closer to the way it was... But after every time you do an update I should also have to dig through my settings and try to figure out how to fix what you now broke in the name of an upgrade.

On a side not but related....sometimes the networks take it too far. About 7 or 8 years ago the Indy500 was on TV and I was watching. Like it often happens, 2 cars were fighting for the lead with only a few laps left, swapping the lead ever 1/2 to lap. Some geniuses decided to not even do 'split screen', but to put 2 pictures on the broadcast....one in the upper corner, one in the lower corner. So what you ended up seeing was some empty space and each picture was only 1/3 the size of the screen. What was the split screen for? Well, if you wanted to watch the last couple laps, the cars fighting for the lead, it was now in the upper left corner of the screen, maybe taking up 30% of the screen. The other view? Close up of the faces of the wives, with their hands covering their mout looking nervous. Auto racing is famous for that. I don't remember if its worse on the Indycar broadcasts, Nascar, or F1, but on occasion they will show you the winner cross the line, and there are other cars still finishing the race, still fighting for position. But nope, the Camera cuts to the wife/girfriend of the winning drive so we can all see how happy SHE is. Doesn't matter if your favorite driver was in the middle of a pack fighting for a top 10 finish that may move them up or down in the standings. Gotta show everyone how happy the wife is 3 seconds after the winner crosses the line. I get it pre race or post race. I don't like it but I get it. But when a big race is on the last lap or finishing, no one is being 'drawn into' the broadcast at that moment for much other than to see who wins and how they do it.

No idea what this poll is about...so...while i like polls, I can't vote honestly.

Unlike most other people.. I don't really need him to be physical at all to be happy with his play. If he scores 10 to 15 goals... Gets 30 to 40 assists... And most importantly uses his size and reach to get to loose pucks and get them out of the zone before the opponents can get to him... Then I don't need him to be physical. In a way... Him learning to use his reach to clog up passing Lanes and to reach loose pucks and tip them away from the defender more effectively than a smaller guy does.. That's a form of using his size in a way I would accept. All things being equal it will be great if he would be physical and hit more, but if he does the other things and uses his size positionally, he can be an effective two-way defenseman without it.

For the most part I agree. Some points of my own: 1. Tage: Dahlin and Tage are the 2 best players on the team. Barring injury I expect close to 50 goals out of him. HOWEVER, the caveat as far as the team being better is last year he lead the league in even strenght goals (I think) and almost had 50 overall. There is a chance he can still have a 'monster year' but it won't be an improvement over what he gave you in the past. 2. Benson. I hope he gets better,I'm guessing he will the question is how much. I really, REALLY liked him on a line with Kulich and Tage at the end of last year. I'd forget about slotting my perceived #1 wingers with my #1 center, #2s with #2s and just go with the players that 'mesh' the best. That gives me Tage with Kulich and either Benson or Doan (if Doan shows he is a legit NHLer in camp) 3. Norris better than Cozens. Yes 4. Quinn replacing Peterka. This is one I'm worried about. Of any forward that got regular minutes (top 9 minutes), I have long said that Cozens was one of the worst...not only on the team but in the LEAGUE in terms of him hurting you more than he helps you. Last year Quinn was even worse. I hope what happened to him gets fixed. Quinn getting regular minutes can either be good (there might be the most room for improvement over last year for him compared to any player except UPL) or very bad (They make the same mistake with Cozens...that Quinn hurts you over and over but you keep putting him out there). 5. Kesserling. One of the things I'll be watching. I don't really know much about him, haven't seen him play much, and his analytics are ok/good, but not spectacular. 6. Doan. See Kesserling above. He could be a borderline AHLer/NHLer, but I'm more hopeful for him than that. I see a realistic ceiling of him actually playing 17+ minutes a game and helping the team, possibly on a line with Tage and Kulich. (I wouldn't count on that, but it wouldn't surprise me) 7. Lindy and the Roster. Yep. Last year I get the impression he was feeling things out for a while. That should be over now. 8. I'm hopeful, but I don't have much to add to that. I'm still thinking Byrum is a little overrated in terms of what he brings. 9. Really need the overall D to be better. Cozens gone and Quinn getting better will be the 2 key things here. The D-unit, hopefully the additions make them somewhat better. 10. It has to be better, right? With UPL, reversion to the mean?

Doesn't bother me at all. There is a difference between a 'hardcore leaf fan' and a Bills from from Toronto. Again, for me its about expanding your fanbase. If I like a team, I want them to do what they can to expand that fanbase. No gatekeeping.

I'm fine with this, actually happy. Why would you not want to expand your fanbase?

Not sure what is a good playoff matchup for the Bills among the top teams. I get what you say about Baltimore, but the Bills have had chance after chance and can't beat the Chiefs in the playoffs. And when Cincy was good, they haven't looked all that good vs them. My personal opinion is the Bills have a slightly worse overall roster (or at least more injury problems) vs the other top teams in the conference usually, but how well Josh Allen plays can make up for (or doesn't) that slight difference in talent.

Well that's different. Of all the teams that are are in the playoffs now, I would think the Jets would be the least hated... Of course nothing is universal.

It is rare you sign a guy who is almost 30 to a long term deal and the end of it is anything but bad. But, almost all teams need to sign guys to those deals to keep them around, you just hope to balance it out with some younger guys on cheaper contract.