mjd1001
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Posts posted by mjd1001
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5 minutes ago, Gatorman0519 said:
I’m glad we won but these are bottom feeder near AHL teams. Not jumping up and down yet.
Can't argue with that. Next 4 games, if they can get 6 of the next 8 points....You will have my interest back at the all star break.
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Dahlin is going to have close to 25 minutes of ice time. No way you should be playing him that much with a 3-0 lead.
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Toronto might be in trouble.
They are currently in a playoff spot. However, they have gotten 59.5% of available points while playing the 2nd easiest schedule in the league. Also, with no injuries at all to their top 5 'core' players.
To miss the playoffs the danger point total is 95 for the season. If they get 56.5% or less of the available points (not much worse than they have been) they are in trouble. Oh, and for the rest of the season, they have the HARDEST schedule in the league.
They are good enough to be comfortable in the playoffs by years end.....HOWEVER.....Buffalo's top 4 scoring forwards (Thompson, Tuch, Skinner, and Cozens) have all missed games (25 and still on the rise), Torontos big 4 (Matthews, Marner, Tavares, and Nylander) have missed a total of ONE game between them. If/when injury luck turns on them, its going to be an issue.
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1 hour ago, Thorny said:
On a run of favourable scheduling here and it honestly doesn’t really end until February. We knew for a while now January is where we’d need to make hay to keep playoffs within reach. 3 of the final 5 to wrap up the month are against non-current playoff teams and in fact all 3 are below 26th in the standings which is where Buffalo sits. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think taking 4 of the next 5 is the sort of math we’d be looking for if we want to keep calling this possible.
We’d be at 50 points in 49 games. To get to 94*, we’d need 44 over final 33, which is a 109 point pace. Quite unlikely, still. But, 7 teams played at a 109 point pace or better last season: maybe we can do it for a couple months (hope springs external).
At least it’s 7 teams: at our current record (42 points in 44 games) right now we need to play at a 112 point pace rest of way to get to 94: something only *1* team did last year. It’s kinda funny that winning 4 of our next 5 only bumps down the pace we need to play at by 3 (112 >> 109), but I guess optically it just seems more achievable (however unlikely) from that point.
Sabres are 4-2 in January, taking 66% of points so far. 80% over the final 5 is what I’m looking for. Coincidentally, 4-2 is a 109 point pace. Bumping that up a bit over the final 5 makes sense because we’d want to be playing at level above a 109-point pace vs the bad teams if we want to maintain that 109 pace over the longer, more difficult stretch that comes after.
Finishing January with an 8-3 record overall would be a 119 point pace committed to record, for the month. That sort of output over one month would at least keep visions of something similar over the next 2 dancing on the fringes of the imagination
I like to run the numbers like this every week or so, but it takes me a while, thanks for doing the updated work.
In simple terms, they need to play like a top 3-5 team in the NHL from now until the season ends to have a good shot at the wild card.
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12 hours ago, K-9 said:
Glad you’re not among those Bills fans who do begrudge Belichick his luck in getting Brady in the 6th round and then develop into one of the best of all time. But many Bills fans are the very definition of the word when it comes to Belichick and Brady.
I think you misunderstood my point about great coaches and great QBs which is that I can’t think of a coach who has earned the reputation for greatness without also a great QB along side him. They tend to go together as I said.
I agree Tomlin is also a great coach, but it’s worth remembering that he, too, had a HOF QB at the helm for 15 of his first 17 seasons with the Steelers, which further underscores the point about how the two go together.
Don’t know that I can agree with the idea that Tomlin has gotten a “variety of teams to the playoffs”, either. Both he and Belichick reached the playoffs just once without their HOF QBs so far.
Tomlin is, I think, 37-30 without Big Ben at QB, just over 4 full seasons of games, and either with him, or without him, he still has never had a losing record. Its not as many games as BB, but when you are talking 4 full seasons of games, AND the last season or 2 of Big Ben he was a shadow of himself, worn down and beat up, that says something to me positive about him I can't see at all in BB.
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18 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:
Is that post from a reliable source? Maybe it is, don't know who it is though...
But, can't really blame him if its true.
-4th worst team in the league. 11 (ELEVEN!) points behind the Sabres with the same number of games played.
-Stutzle, their 'superstar in waiting' is pulling a Cozens, going from 40 goals last year at age 21, to barely being on pace for 15 this year.
-Tkachuk is playing well, but his production is down from last year when may were hoping for it to go up a bit.
-Managment changes all over. Front office and coaching is a mess
-No matter who they put in net, they don't look good
As hopeless as we think the Sabres are, Ottawa is that even more. If he wants out, I can't blame him too much.
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1 hour ago, K-9 said:
I’m not one of those who begrudges his luck in having Brady, either. Every HC who has been dubbed as “great” can tie his greatness to a great QB as well. The two go hand in hand.
Many of us who don't think he's all that great do not 'begrudge' him for having Brady. Its what he has done without Brady that is telling.
If you have a sample size of what he does with a HOF QB and a large Sample Size without a HOF QB, then you have something to go on to compare. Just because others may think any coach with a HOF QB is a 'great coach', I don't, thats the lazy argument. Show me what you do without a great QB...and I'll show you/tell you if you are a good/great coach or not. Tomlin has faults, but he has gotten a variety of teams to the playoffs without great QB play. BB? Not as much...
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18 hours ago, Doohickie said:
Which is why I think he's not a good coach, let alone the best every.
Sure he has been 'gm' also, but even if were just a 'coach', that 'coach' has a large part in decisions about players, and he has tried many, many times and had many opportunities to pick and develop another QB, most (all?) have failed.
And as others have said, sure Tampa had a good roster, but Brady is 1 for 2 in Superbowls with another team with another coach...add to that a look at Peyton Manning...several coaches that were fired or middling without him that had an unreal record with him. And Finally, Tomlin. There is a guy who has had more than 1 or 2 seasons with bad QB's and has had winning records. Take the HOF QB away from BB, and he's just...bad. As a head coach he can still design a good defense, so maybe that makes him 'less than bad' but in my mind he's certainly not good.
40 minutes ago, Quint said:I look at it 2 ways...If they edited the comments out, then Political correctness is continuing to accelerate at an alarming rate. But the other side is....the 'other side' of that argument has no problem pointing it out and making a point of it either.
I am starting to find the people in these 'culture wars' who make a big deal about something to be even more tiresome than the thing they are making a big deal out of, on both sides of it. There seems to be a need to always make a huge deal out of 'Look at that! Look at what THEY did!"
Great, someone did something and now you are so offended you have to let everyone know about it. Wonderful. Just please keep moving along and don't let me know until someone is showing up at my front door looking to commit a crime...and don't tell me that It's coming...don't try to scare me into thinking it will happen. Let me know when it does, until then, take your thin skin someplace else.
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15 hours ago, ska-T Chitown said:
Has anyone suggested that perhaps (like, tiny chance) GMKA had a multi-phased plan? Phase 1 was "wanna be here" and "stockpile". I am guessing KA is quite pleased with the potential he has achieved via his draft and stockpile approach. Perhaps now that he knows he has an actual abundance of prospects of a certain ilk at mostly the same positions, he will initiate Phase 2 ... turn prospects back into viable and meaningful pros?
I am grasping at straws here ... I know. I am glad we have a solid pipeline of prospects that are not in the NHL, but something about a bird in the hand being worth more that two in the bush and probably a few other proverbs about appreciating the here and now vs pining for a future that may or may not materialize.
Thanks for listening to my TedTalk, off to Target and then to drink some bourbon.
That sounds good and I agree with it...and despite losing interest in watching them this year....when your entire first line misses major games AND your 3rd/4th best player (Cozens) does his best Ville Leino impression on the ice...well, you at least have SOME reason why they can/will do better. The ONLY thing that holds me back from buying into it is, Adams has said, and Granato has said MULTIPLE TIMES that development time is basically done, that this year is about winning.
I'm patient, I like MOST of the guys on this team. I enjoy the journey (the team building phase) almost as much as I do the immediate wins. So I'm not in a rush to make wholesale changes and I like seeing the improvement in the roster, even if there are ups and downs. But again, the organization had key members come out and say that year was about winning...so....??
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1 hour ago, Pimlach said:
The object of a trade is to improve your team. The Blues added a great player, plus they dumped two players past their prime and on bad contracts, and won a cup that ended up with ROR getting the MVP. The Sabres got no immediate help improving their team. The two vets were garbage. They got a future pick in Ryan Johnson, and they got Tage, who 3 years later has developed into a good player that might be a great player - maybe.
The Sabres did not improve their team. They have continued to lose. It’s been 6 years with no playoffs since that trade.
The Sabres did not improve their team at the time of the trade, but what Tage has turned into has improved the team. And what St. Louis does with what they get...has zero impact on whether it was a bad trade for the Sabres. St. Louis winning the cup did NOT cause the Sabres not to win it.
Buffalo now is likely better for the trade. ROR did not make this a good team when he was here...and the couple years after he was here they were not going to be a contender if he was still here by his addition alone. However the team IS better for for what Tage has turned into comared to what ROR would give to this team.
If anything I can not only say it wasn't a bad trade for the Sabres, it probably actually was a pretty good one. Why? If that trade could be 'un done', the Sabres wouldn't be much better (again, you had ROR for years and you didn't have a good team), but you would also lose Tage and i for SURE would not want to do that.
If I'm pretty sure that un-doing a trade would not have turned this into a winning team in the past, but undoing it would take away that is likely your 2nd best player (and a top 20 goal scorer in the league), then I'm not un-doing it and its a positive trade.
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Maybe there is a hybrid solution to what everyone is discussing here. You keep Levi with the big club, he practices with the team, he gets a spot start every now and then.
IF UPL goes on a run where he plays three, four, or five games in a row and Levi doesn't get a chance to play, then you send him down to Rochester with orders to give him two games on a weekend.
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12 hours ago, thewookie1 said:
My hope would be to convince him at 4x5.75mil as it gives him and the Sabres flexibility
I would love that, but I'm afraid it's going to be a higher amount than that. Especially with it looking like the cap is going to go up a decent amount the next couple of years.
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I think there can be a middle ground, but it all depends on the cost. Samuelsson is slgned long term, so does that make him part of 'the core'? Maybe, but he certainly isn't as good as/as valuable as Dahlin or Power's potential.
So, can you sign Mitts to a long term deal but have him be the 4th-7th best forward on this team? He still would be part of the core, correct?
As far as how good he is...he is not al all star caliber player, but he is valuable. He seem to be a 20 goal, 50 assist guy. More importantly, it appears he would be a good 2nd line guy, but if you need to bump him up to the first line, he can adjust and help linemates without brining them down. He can and maybe SHOULD be a 'core' guy, but I think he can be that without being a 'star'.
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I'm hopeful, but I need more convincing.
This year, his basic stats are now middle-of-the-pack for both GAA and save percentages (15th and 17th), out of 36 goalies who have 20 or more appearances. Put that into the context that he has been playing much better lately, AND he is playing behind an 'average at best' D-men group and "really really bad" group of forwards in their own end....and it can be argued he is a top 10 goalie in the league so far (closer to 10 than the top, but 'top 10' sounds better). Lets see it continue.
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14 minutes ago, Thorny said:
Looking back, trading ROR away was absolutely disastrous for the team. It led to that core collapsing, Botterill being fired, and an additional 6 years (and counting) in the wilderness since. How one could look at that trade and not call it terrible is beyond me. You are just guessing with no real logical backing that keeping a good player wouldn’t have mattered. Whereas, we KNOW we’ve been terrible since and we KNOW the lack of forward depth led to the collapse of that roster, Eichel and Reinhart and Ullmark leaving, and the lack of depth we still see today: because we are still in the process of rebuilding
Your argument respectfully isn’t a very good one. “They didn’t do anything here so it doesn’t matter that we dealt them.” By the same logic we can trade Tage today because we haven’t amounted to a single playoff berth with him. This is what you are actually arguing: worst case scenario is that we are bad once we move him, right? Which, as you laid out in your argument makes the trade inconsequential, as we merely maintain the status quo. No harm no foul. You can see once broken down like this it doesn’t make any sense.
When will people learn and except it’s the *collection* of talent and about building depth, and a team? “We never won anything with Eichel and ROR”. You mean, when Eichel was 18-20 years old and we were literally recovering from a scorched earth tank?
Be serious for a minute
They were a bad team with him here, they were a bad team after he was traded. I didn't see them getting better with him on the roster. End the story all I need.
Just as much as my argument is incomprehensible to you, Yours is to me. I didn't see them turning the corner and turning into a playoff or cup contender with him here. So how could trading him away... Were you got arguably a top 10-20 scorer in the league in return.... Be awful? I don't get it.
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I don't see the ROR trade as being one of the worst ever. Not even close. Same thing with Eichel. A trade being bad for the sabers has nothing to do with what they went on to do with another team.... It has to do with what they did for your team versus what you got in return is doing.
When ROR and Jack we're here, the team was bad most of the time, never made the playoffs. When they traded them, same thing. You can make an argument that things you got back for each of them might be worth it in the future or are worth it already.
For me to qualify as a bad trade... It has to be one that you look at in the future and say... Oops, that one really really hurt us. I don't think if either of them were still here, especially under current conditions, that this franchise would be turned around in any major way.
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7 hours ago, #freejame said:
6K has been good. Time for the Bills to take care of business
Enough with the 6k stuff, its not sticking.
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3 hours ago, K-9 said:
That’s all well and good and I’m sure many of us have nostalgia for those games and the snow days off from school when a pickup football game was the norm.
But no NFL game has ever been played in a blizzard. Ever. Heavy snowfalls, sure. With windy conditions, certainly. But never in a qualified meteorological blizzard, with “sustained winds or frequent gusts over 35mph and visibility of less than a quarter mile for an extended period of time (at least three hours).”
The 1948 NFL championship game in Philly came closest with over a foot of snow fall and winds of 20mph and even though the scribes dubbed it “The Blizzard Game” as it came to be remembered, it just didn’t qualify.
Orchard Park is currently meeting every qualification as I type this.
I'm going to go back to what I said earlier... What is the reason anybody wants to watch a game and whether like that?
You have Josh Allen, you have James Cook, you have Stefan diggs... You want to see them hindered? You want to see Allen not be able to throw the ball on target?... You don't want to see downfield plays... Cook make cuts and accelerate at full speed through the hole? I don't get it.
The game against the colts a few years ago was fun to look at for a couple of minutes, but it wasn't good football.
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8 hours ago, ExWNYer said:
No, I don't want a meddling owner but I do want an engaged owner who at least seems like he gives a sh*t about his franchise. You obviously missed the point.
Its a middle ground. You don't want an owner watch a junior game and fall in love with a guy and tell the GM to draft him...or have him watch one series and see a middling guy play great and demand he get signed (Leino). On the other hand you don't want him/her to be totally absent.
I'd think as an owner, I'd want every single major decision to be run by me...I'd want to sit in on the pre-draft meetings. But at the end of the day, my management is telling me what they are doing and WHY they are doing it before they do it....but the owner has to know that those guys know SO much more about hockey than he does....so its more being 'informed' of decisions and having them all explained to him instead of him over-riding them. Maybe the owner can be involved, or even make a decision as to when to 'rebuild' vs 'reload' for an aging team, but other than that, not so much direct involvement.
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Nothing is really jumping out as me as anyone I likely see gone. Really nothing. Maybe, MAYBE someone like EJ tells Adams he'd be open to be traded to a contender (as he doesn't really have ties to Buffalo/Sabres) so you flip him for a 3rd or 4th...but I can't see much else when I look at this roster and how the management handles it.
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1 hour ago, LGR4GM said:
What an ignorant comment. The weather isn't good here and 60k semi drunk ppl driving around in it is how ppl end up dead. Sorry it inconvenienced your enjoyment.
I don't get the enjoyment part either why people want that. It looks fun to watch for about 5 minutes but then....
Seeing a QB like Josh Allen over and underthrow WR's due to the wind...seeing WR's not able to make cuts. OL and DL basically stand there in a stalemate at times becuase they have no footing. When I want to watch FOOTBALL, I want to see the best athletes do things to the limit of their abilities. I want great cutbacks. Pinpoint throws 20+ yards downfield. I want to see a sack because the best DE made a great move and shot around the other teams best OL who didn't have the speed to cut him off. Jumping one handed catches. THAT is THE sport.
I sometimes find it funny when people say that 'real football' is played in bad weather. Really? Watching guys slogging around 1/2 speed in mud or snow... watching passes go through guys hands because of the weather. FG's that are barely a matter of skill but turn into a guessing game for the kicker to if/where the wind gust is coming from after his foot hits the ball? How is that more enjoyable to watch and how is that 'real football' more than watching the best athletes be able to perform in the best conditions where everyone can show of their skill to the max?
I don't know, I guess when I say I like football, I like the running, the catching, the Athletes at their best allowing them to do those things at their very best. Not an added random layer added on top of it that takes away from the pureness of what the sport is.
Whenever this comes up and I post something like this...I rarely get a well thought out response...I get some 'eyeroll' or 'disagree' emoji's at the bottom of my post but no one usually stands up with a well thought out response.
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You can make a case that the Dolphins took a step back this year.
Last year, wild card team. This year Wild card time.
Last year, forced to play with a backup QB and still were within a couple points of defeating the Bills on the road.
This year, have their starting QB and losing soundly, almost a blowout loss, to KC on the road.
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2 hours ago, Big Guava said:
The expected snow total for Buffalo has climbed to 31.0".
Likely you are north of the city?
Here is a link to the only place that matters during localized events like Lake Effect Snow for anyone interested.
https://www.weather.gov/buf/Winter
Here's one for ya.
I grew up in the Depew/Lancaster area....most family lives near there (Depew, Lancaster, Cheektowaga, W. Seneca). When we moved back to the area we decided to buy a house up near Lewiston/Youngstown just north of Niagara Falls.
Lots of pluses and minues of anywhere you live, but as of now we only have a dusting of snow and it was mostly cloudy today but the sun peaked out a bit earlier. A small part of me misses being part of the heavier snow..but every time we get behind the wheel of a car...not so much.
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13 minutes ago, #freejame said:
Sam Reinhart 100% played center his post-draft season tryout. I drove to Raleigh specifically to see him play and was pissed Teddy played him only like 8 minutes.
Sam Reinhart 100% caught a lot of ***** for “not playing physical enough” and being “weak on his skates/can’t stand up.”
Sam Reinhart 100% was the best netfront Sabre since Vanek and nobody has come close to him since.
He’s the one that got away. We dicked him on his contract timeline because we haven’t had a real front office since Darcy ***** Regier.
Andreychuk, Vanek, Reinhart....not 'drop the gloves' guys, but guys who are willing to stand in front of the net and take abuse to get the 'garbage/tip in goals' that fans don't give enough credit for because they aren't pretty.
As a young kid growing up I even then was amazed at the junk Andreychuk took....he's so big but he doesn't hit or fight...he is so slow....trade him. All the guy did was score goals for this team and dominate on the PP, but he didn't 'look' good enough for many fans.
When you have a guy like that, don't under-rate them because they don't pass the 'eye test' as being skilled enough. They are often times more valuable than the ultra-skilled perimeter guys.
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Around the NHL 2023-24 Season
in The Aud Club
Posted · Edited by mjd1001
Zach Hyman.
-31 year old. Former 5th round draft pick. Didn't even break into the NHL until 4-5 years after being drafted. (4 years in college and 1 year in the minors...even in college 3 of his 4 years he was single digits in goals)
-Averaged 14 goals per year with Toronto his first 6 years before being traded to Edmonton.
-Signed a long term, $5.5m per year deal that Toronto thought was too high to match
This year:
-27 goals through just 40 games.
-on pace for a 55 goal, 90 point season
Having 2 former 1st overall picks as linemates sure does help!