mjd1001

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.

Agreed. Hopefully once the new Bills stadium is open, they will look to do something bigger with the Arena. If they wait too long, the thing that will be best for it will be a few thousand sticks of dynamite and a wrecking ball. I don't like the special discount menu for only season ticket holders. Yeah, you want to reward your season ticket holders somehow, but for the rest of fans, you basically telling them "you aren't good enough buy more tickets or we'll get you to pay up in other ways".

I changed the title of the thread to team you want to see win the cup the least, instead of 'most hated' (as the topic was meant primarily as the team you least want to see have that ultimate success.)

Because there is a difference between a team that is 'hated' and one you don't want to win the cup. There are many fans that may be feeling something close to hate (probably disgust) with the Sabres, but if you are on this board, the thing that would make that go away is winning the cup. Of course, the 'other' option is there, so if anyone wants it to be the Sabres, they select 'other' and simply respond and let us know.

That is why New York and Toronto are basically the same versios a city just in different countries. And people from NY city, they were it as a badge of honor that they have the 'right' to be rude to each other.

I think its a general "new york" thing. Some local broadcasts that are broadcast around the nation saying things like "from the greatest city in the world" or "The world's most famous arena (you may or may not agree with those things...but they like to shove it down everyone's throat). My personal experience is fans of NY teams are the most likely to go to someone else's arena in larger numbers and being arrogant. My wife and her entire family are form NY city. She grew up in Queens the first 30 years of her life, and worked in Manhatten. After moving away and having a couple years to adjust, she kinda agrees with that. She says you don't even think of it growing up, but you are told that you live in the best city in the world, everyone wants to be like you but they are just jealous...and then when you meet people from other areas you can just treat them as a 'lower class' without even thinking about it...because the news in NY city, the papers, the sports teams, the culture...just instill that into your head over and over and over. Now this is my personal anectodatal experience, others may disagree...but living for a few years in Boston and going to Fenway, and also being in Yankee stadium a few times, this is what I see. Go to Fenway wearing another team's jersey, and the locals around you will make a quick comment joke with you for a few seconds..but then the rest of the game they will talk to you, they want to talk about the Sox AND your team and baseball in general. Now in New York, go to Yankee games with another teams jersey on, and its more likely you will be sworn at (doesn't matter if little kids are around), EVERY SINGLE RUN the yankees score someone will get in your face about it, and you are likely to have a beer (or other beverage) thrown at you or spilled on you if you engage back with those fans in any single way. There are 'good' fans in NY, and 'bad' fans in Boston for sure, but the numbers of the bad ones are weighted heavily toward the NY side of things. Others may have had different/better experiences, but in about 6-8 trips to Fenway over the years, and almost as many to the Bronx, that is what I have observed.

-2 times in the past 3 years 30 goal scorer (36). -Big time Plus player on a minus team. -One of the single best forcheckers in the league (my opinion). -Led league in shorthanded goals last year. -Injury issues have mostly gone away as he played a full 82 games last year and 75+ his other 2 years. -Plays all phases of the game. -Loved by the majority of the fanbase. 29 years old so 'right now' in the prime of his career. -6'4, 220 AND an above average skater. -When I watch goals against, he is rarely the problem. He skates back hard into his zone. He rarely chases the puck and leave guys wide open. Basically, he's sound defensively (at least compared to the Quinns, Cozens, Peterkas of this forward group) Get it done. If its a 6+ year deal and looks bad at the end of it when he is in his mid 30's, I'll worry about it then.

Ok, there isn't much new on this forum in the last week or two, so I thought I'd try a poll. My cousin and me were discussing the teams we would least like to see win the cup. I think on this Forum Toronto, Boston, and Philly would lead the way, but maybe a poll would be fun to see what the split is. So, what team would you least like to see win the cup ever. (of course, Sabres not included in any results) I thought Boston and Toronto would be the top choices, Philly and the Rangers for some. I threw Florida in there because maybe people are getting sick of them (although we we more talking about long term, not just this year) I thought of adding Dallas or Montreal or Ottawa, but I don't see much hatred for them anymore. For me, I'm going with the Rangers. Yeah, there are times they play the Leafs and I want the Rangers to win, but for the most part, they are the most annoying fanbase when they are good in my eyes (worse than Toronto and MUCH worse than Boston.)

That all has occured through 3 different coaching staffs, so a lot of it I think comes 'from above'. There is a lot of evidence that Cozens was well favored by Pegula.

My previous favorite topic, Cozens and how he hurt the Sabres so much. As far as helping the PP, Getting rid of Cozens is step #1. In the 20 or so games after he was traded, the Sabres were 13 for 52 on the PP without him (25%, which would have ranked about 6th or 7th in the entire league). In the time he WAS with the team, they were about 16.9% with him (5th worse in the league). Finding a guy who can score more than him, or at least someone who isn't a black hole out there (once the puck goes in to Cozens, it never comes back out.) How much did he hurt the Sabres PP? Well the eye test tells me he didn't have vision or passing ability to set up anyone (not all, but many of his PP assists were incidental, not intentional), and many of us think he doesn't see the ice well. As for the stats? -In his time with the Sabres, he is 2nd among forward in PP time (only Tage has more), so he has had tons of opportunity. Most of it on PP unit #1. -In almost 760 minutes of PP ice time with the Sabres over 5 years, he had a total of 12 PP goals. He averages about 2.5 PP goals per year. There are about 180 other forwards in the league with more than 12 PP goals over the same time, many with LESS ice time than Cozens had on the PP. -He averaged 0.95 goals per 60 on the PP for his career. Who on the team is better than that? Benson, Quinn, Greenway, Tuch, Thompson, Zucker...along with a bunch of guys no longer with the team (Reinhart, Okposo, VO, Skinner, Peterka, and Mitts to name the most prominent ones) BTW, Josh Norris in a pretty big 200+ game sample size is at 2.8 goals per 60 on the PP, scoring at almost 3 times the rate of Cozens. -107 guys over the time Cozens has been in the NHL have had over 750 minutes of ice time on the PP. Where does Cozens rank in terms of goals among those 107 guys? 106th. 2nd last. The only guy who scored less PP goals than him with that much ice time was Ryan Strome, but he only had 1 less goal than Cozens but had 16 more assists, as he spent some time on the point. -Go back a season to him getting hurt in the fight vs Philly for one additional example: In the In the 4 games BEFORE he got hurt Cozens was on the powerplay. The sabres scored ZERO PP goals in any of those 4 games. In the 2 games Cozens missed, the Sabres scored PP goals in both of those games. When he came back he went right back on PP#1 and they went another 4 games without scoring a PP goal. -In the past decade, 10 forwards have over 500 minutes PP time for the Sabres (Cozens is one of them). Cozens PP shooting percentage? 9.6%. The rest of the forwards combined? 16.3% (none of the other ones are under 10%, just Cozens.) Needless to say, since he has been in the NHL, Cozens is likely the worst forward in the entire league in PP production that got used on a regular basis. Zucker had 11 PP goals in one season with the Sabres, 1 less than Cozens had his entire career here.

I'm not a Canadian, but I live right near the border (less than 5 minutes from the River), and we have some Canadian friends that we got to know over the years from visiting for a day or weekend at the cottage. This is strictly my experience and certainaly anecdotal, but I agree with your comments above. No serious conversations specifically about this topic, but over the last 6 months or so having a casual call or message with them, I didn't hear any stories about any of them having a problem crossing the border. What they have said, however, is they don't like/appreciate the way Canada is talked about by the USA now and they just don't care to come across the border and 'support' the US businesses like they did before this started. If there is a specific reason to cross the border, I get the impression they will, but the casual trips, the vacations, I think those have been put on hold by most of them. (again, I'm talking about only a handful of couples/familes from Canada that I am friends with)

I agree. it seems a lot of people here are more interested in constructing lines based on 'fantasy hockey' or the NHL series video game than real life. Sometimes your '3rd best' winger might be a better fit, style wise, to play with your 'best' center. It might not always be about the best 3 players are 'first liners' and the next 3 best are '2nd liners', its about who fits best with who.