mjd1001

There is a narrative among some (many) posters that Adams is unqualified, should be fired immediately, and that any news that comes out supports that. Sabres want t to make a trade? It proves Adams is bad because he should have done it earlier. Sabres don't make a trade? Its still Adams because obviously the team needs one.

Tage, so far this year: -11 goals (one goal off the league lead...technicallly tied for 4th in the league) -3rd in the league in even strength goals per 60 (among anyone with more than 5 games played) -Leads the Sabres in +/-, goals, points. Lindy hasn't used him Short handed much, but in the limited time he hasn't been on ice for a goal against SH (when you include last year he has the BEST/Lowest goals allowed per 60 PK of any forward with over 50 minutes ice time short handed) This is a big time loss for the team. To me, He is clearly the best player on this team this year, and has been playing like a top 25 player in the entire league so far through 15 games.

Who do you follow on Bluesky for hockey content? I see the Sabres have an account but no info. I haven't seen any of the 'insiders' there yet. For me mostly the same with Threads. Threads has a bit more content, but none of the big sources, and Bluesky seems to be growing quicker. (on a side-note, Bluesky needs a Windows Desktop app ASAP.) Twitter seems to be where most of the hockey news come from as of right now.

By a few games, whatever it is I hope they don't go on a 2-3 game losing streak and then bring him back a bit early. Some of us believe Tage is a 50 goal guy when healthy, but he's more of a 25-30 goal guy when he is 'good enough' to play but not at 90-100%. Make sure he's at 90-100% before you bring him back.

To me its obvious....With the Bills, football is more complicated and thus there are many, MANY more levels between the owner and the on-field product. There were interviews with Pegula himself in the past where he said he sat in on Bills staff and coaching meetings and he was in awe of how detailed stuff they talked about, basically admitting he didn't know anywhere close to as much about Football as the coaches. With the Sabres it is much different. There are posts all over this forum, but he THINKS he knows hockey just as well as those who work for him. The Ville Leino Signing, Erhoff signing, firing Botts because 'Pegula wasn't being heard' enough. pushing for certain contracts...etc. Again, there isn't enough time for me to hash all of it out, but if you search the internt for news stories from the past, or even search this forum, people have written/posted a lot of smoke and some actual 'fire' about him being very involved in decisions related to the on-ice product, often times against his 'hockey people' and many/most of those decisions being very bad. I had a long post about this last week, but Botts was basically fired because the Pegula's didn't think Botts was listening to them enough, they wanted the on-ice direction to be more of what they wanted an not what Botts and the hockey dept. wanted...and Adams was hired mostly becasue he would be a 'yes man', a 'front man' for what Pegula wants. The above is the difference why he is a competent NFL owner, but possibly the worst owner (and continues to be) in the modern history of the NHL.

Is it "complaint Thursday" yet? I used to have a huge spreadsheet with passwords on it, but it got to the point where I had 30+...I don't know, maybe 40 or 50, and I just gave up, only the necessary ones for work now. New password every month for some sites, new password every few months on others. Have to randomly verify with a passcode sent to my phone on record. Some passwords can be anything, others need a special character, a capital and lower case, a number....And then when I finally have a couple passwords I used, I get a browser warning every time I go to some damn sites reminding me over and over that my password may have been compromised and reminding me to change all of them. If something isn't broke, don't change it.

Last year he started the season with just 9 goals in his first 43 games. (17 goal per 82 game pace) Since then, He has scored 32 goals in 49 games. (54 goal per 82 game place) That is quite a turnaround in production.

Some of it is random, some of it is 'small sample size', some of it is luck. I'll put more into this as the season goes on (I happen to think Samuelsson is a very good penalty killer). But what it does show is those guys have not been part of an effective group PK'ing so far. That was a couple games ago, the updated list for PK: Cozens 13.78, Sameulsson 12.93, Tuch 10.47, Dahlin 9.7, Power 7.34. Cozen's numbers have gotten worse, Samuelsson slightly worse, Dahlin and Power a lot better. FYI, when you look at 'career' numbers, Tage is the best forward over the past 5 years on this team (of anyone with over 100 total minutes ice time.): Tage is at 6.72. Greenway at 7.3, Tuch at 8.3, Cozens at 10.1 over the last 5 years.

This comes across as when they win 3 in a row, they think they are great and that things will be easy just by them showing up. To me its interesting he said this. What will be MORE interesting is how they come out next game. If there a lot of sloppy plays and a lack of effort next game, then this quote may/will take on more scrutiny.

Get rid of offsides totally....let it never be called because its not a rule anymore. The only thing it does is remove offense. If someone wants to 'goal hang' in your zone, let them, the defense has the option to have a D-man hang back with him or basically have the goal-hanger have one less player to defend in their own zone. More excitement, more strategy, less play stoppages. Eventually the coaches may adjust to it but when they do, we still get less stoppages and less challenges.

That is a lot of minutes. More than half the game. Its either 1.) showcasing him for a trade (I don't think that is as much of a thing as it was in the past.) 2.) someone esle on the D-unit got injured. Or 3.) the coaching staff REALLY liked how he was playing. I'm guessing its #3.

Yes, it included overtime, but Byram with 32:34 of ice time. He was on the ice for more than half the game. For comparison, Gilbert with 10:19, Clifton 14:07, Bryson 18:01, Even power at 20:42...all 10 -20 minutes less than Byram.

As of this afternoon after the game...Sabres are now in a 5 way tie for 8th in the conference (playoff position). That could change by tonight when other teams play, but of the teams they are tied with, the Sabres have the best goal differential (+4). Still that makes them 1 point per game, on pace for 82...pretty sure that point-per-game pace won't be good enough by the end of the year, but for now...great. Montreal next...they are the 3rd worst team in the league in terms of points...dead last in goal differential..don't screw it up!

This will be an interesting game. I really don't know what to make of Calgary... -I only saw one game of theirs this year, a few weeks ago they lost to Winnipeg but at one point they were leading, but at least that game they hit everything in site (I think they were well over 20 hits through 2 periods) -They are a slow-methodical team. They have one guy who can fly, forgot his name but he's a bottom 6 guy. Other than that they don't skate all that fast. -I don't think the Defense has much depth, but the top 2 guys are good (Andersson and Weeger) and seem to be out there all the time. -No surprise from them in terms of who they beat and lost to when I looked at their schedule. They beat who they 'should' beat...Montreal, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Philly, and Edmonton (during the Oilers slow start) and they lost to the better teams they played so far (sometimes badly)...Carolina, Winnipeg, Vegas, Edmonton (most recently when they started playing a bit better) and Boston. So yeah, I think I could watch this Calgary team play 5 games before I had a feel for them. Should make the matchup interesting.

Here is another player I can't figure out, Elias Petterson. 2 years ago I watched him play a few games and I thought he was going to be the next superstar in the league. top 10, maybe even top 5 player. Then, he had a pretty bad contract extension negotiation with Vancouver. Last March 2, he signed his extension...8 years, $11.6m per season. -in the 1.5+ years before he signed the extension, he had 144 games played, 68 goals, 109 assists (39 goal, 62 assist, 101 points per 82 pace) -Since signing the extension, including playoffs last year, 45 games played, 8 goals, 17 assists (15 goal, 31 assists 46 points per 82 pace) That is a BIG drop in production. I searched a bit and didn't see much about him playing through an injury, and he's still getting ice time.

I'm not disagreeing with you, that is and has been the problem with this team. But I don't think it so much a 'consistency' thing as just a 'haven't been good enough team' ALL teams have stretches where they play well, all teams have games where they beat a superior opponent. In the past few years, its been true with the Sabres, Coyotes, Blue Jackets...a bunch of others. So the question is....are they a 'good enough to make the playoffs team' that just has huge lapses in consistency? Or is the perceived lack of consistency just a sign that they aren't good enough (as is the case with most other teams near the bottom of the standings?)

Great game last night. For myself, as I have said in another thread, I don't think 'big picture-playoffs or bust' as much as I used to. To me each game is a single game, I try to enjoy it as simply one nights entertainment. If I do look big picture though, I'm not buying in yet. I'd like to see this team get into the top 8 of the conference and stay there for a bit before I change my thinking. A big win against a top team helps, but they aren't close yet to where I need them to be to really even be thinking playoffs.

UPL played well, but Levi has now played only 1 game in the past 3 weeks. Not ideal for a young goalie that they team has said 'needs work' Do you not play UPL and give Levi a game even though UPL is playing well? Or do you consider sending Levi down to Rochester just to get 1 or 2 games in....Houser wouldn't play unless there is an injury, but he is playing really well in Rochester....do you consider making that swap for 2-3 days to get Levi some work and keep UPL in the net?

He hasn't exactly been stellar at center, and the mistakes he makes at center over the last 100+ games are so bad you don't need to be a coach to notice them. And lighten up, this is a message board, talking about what we see and giving opinions is what we do.

Ok, standings update with taking games played into consideration.... After beating the Rangers and Tampa leading late...it looks like the 8th and final playoff spot right now is at .542 points. Sabres now at .464. Win the next 3 in a row, they are at .558 and in the last playoff spot. They are at +3 goal differential right now. They had a positive goal differential last year and didn't make the playoffs, but in the Eastern conference over the last 3-4 years, if you are postive in goal differential, the numbers say you are 90-95% chance of making the playoffs.

I missed some of the game, did anything happen to Tage as far as an injury? I see Tuch had over 18 minutes of ice time, Peterka with almosty 16...but Tage only with 14:53 minutes. He didn't get hurt, did he?

He scored tonight, and early in the game when it was important. I'm still 100% on the Cozens to wing wagon though. Let him play like Tuch, just go full out with the forcheck. If he wants to throw his body into D-men, let at it. He just doesn't have the mentality, the hockey sense, the quick thinking to play center.

On the hit, I thought it was a penalty, I didn't think it was vicious though. Penalty yes. Something that required an immediate respons? ehhh....I've seen worse.

That gets his shooting percentage up past 5%. One more goal in the next game or two and he'll be back to respectability. No sarcasm there, he has something going, now keep it up.

Yeah, I think it was Granato (probably someone before him also) that said....when you have the puck you usually aren't throwing hits. Its a lot easier to get 'out-hit' when you are controlling possession.