Georgia Blizzard

WTF ??????????????!!!!!!!!!!! I guess inaction is better than action with this GM Assuming he survives this off season, he needs Tage, Mitts and Cozens to be great, because his moves outside the draft have SUCKED

JR (John Robert Eichel)

Hasek is best player to ever wear uniform. Perreault is 2nd best, but, the most important and meant most to the franchise I see the Bills the same way. I think Bruce Smith was the best player to ever wear uniform. Jim Kelly is 2nd, but, was the most important and meant the most to the franchise.

My two cents. New Bills stadium will be built in Orchard Park adjacent to the west of current New Era Field on ECC land. The economics do not support a downtown stadium and Pegula has spoken at length about the economics. In the end, "the fan" ultimately must pay for all infrastructure investments under the NFL business model. In Buffalo, there are not enough fans (or corporations) with enough money to build a $1B stadium. With infrastructure and land plus actual stadium, that's what a downtown Bills stadium will cost.

got it, agree on that point. NBA is clearly seeing a shift of power from owner/gm to player. NHLer's have always lagged the other leagues on that dimension

Lebron - yes, he had to bail on Cleveland, but Kawhi and Durant ?? --- they both left solid teams, hell, at one point Durant was playing side by side with 2 other MVP's and Kawhi left one of the best run organizations in team sports As for McD, he is stuck, but, he chose to be stuck by signing for 8 years --

Interesting. I do everything right handed except hockey. I started playing and naturally shot lefty from the moment I hit the ice. Never gave it any thought and the coach never asked which arm we threw with or batted with, go figure. Edit: I do slide on my left side in baseball.

To St Louis fans everywhere, YOU'RE WELCOME.

Too many variables at this point to know whether it makes sense, but: If Mittelstadt doesn't show marked improvement and you don't trade for a 2C, you might not have an option. In addition, Skinner resigns, Tage, Nylander and Olofsson are ready, you have an abundance of wingers

Bottom line, you can do these things in parallel. I agree analytics are not the biggest area of need and not the first thing to correct, but, you MUST invest in the capability and you MUST be prepared to use it after you solve some of the more pressing needs. And, in today's NHL, you can't win without it.

Great coaches can do both, get players to focus on common goal AND use analytics to help them get there. The two are not mutually exclusive. I think that's the point most of us are making. It's like a race car driver having a faster car than his competitors. The faster car doesn't make a bad racer a good racer and doesn't win the race on it's own, but, it gives the driver of that car an edge or a leg up on his competition.

The fear of analytics some of you have is puzzling. Coaches and teams have been using analytics for decades, just in a different form. That's what manually studying film, using stop watches etc. was back in the day it was the analytics. The difference today, is the ability to factor in many many more variables and to do this EASILY because of technology. Properly used, modern day analytics mitigates paralysis, it actually creates clarity and allows for action and more importantly, correction. You can't think of it as mountains of data, it might start out that way, but AI, computing horsepower and the right analytics turns it into actionable information. Coaches that use these tools have a superior advantage over coaches that don't. Having said that, it won't turn a bad coach into a good coach, but, if you have two good coaches, it will make the one that uses it great.

Need to assign Mittelstadt, too

This is the problem !!!

Let's wait and see what happens in April.

My audio on Center Ice for games has been bad for a couple years. The ice level mike is turned up too high and the announcer mike too low. Frustrating. I never did the WGR app because of the delay, although I guess I could sync it up by delaying the tv ?

I think you are assuming other teams will over value a late 1st round pick and would give up a decent player for them, in general, they won't. Every team knows their value. The only time that gets distorted is when (a) a team is rebuilding and willing to shed current assets for future ones or (b) a team is on the cusp of winning and is willing to shed future assets for current ones. Exception to rule: Peter Chiarelli and GMTM :-)

Sabres won't make the playoffs without a 2nd scoring line. Worth the risk to try and move Reinhart around to create one

He has a 15-team no trade clause, so, for him to go anywhere anyway, he'll need to be cooperative

Cap issues are manageable assuming Sabres get more primary scoring from Mittelstadt, Thompson and some other forward not named Skinner, Eichel or Reinhart. Couple that with continued development of the defense, I could see a "stand pat" and retain our core working longer term. The issue happens if JBot has to go after scoring to supplement our Big 3. I don't see a realistic scenario to get out from KO's contract. The lowest payroll team this year is $4M above floor, no team is going to take on KO contract for that purpose. I'm against trading assets to pay for a GMTM mistake.

I think the issue is rather simple, Mittelstadt isn't a 2nd line center, yet. If he was, the picture looks MUCH different

Mitts or a productive 2nd line, to me, it is one in the same is only thing preventing this team from being a lock for playoffs. 1st line, D, Goaltending, PK, PP and checking line are all where they need to be. Mitts has to step it up

Great summary Mittelstadt's (lack) of development and McCabe's injury are the two biggest issues because we don't have a fix for either of those on roster or in Rochester Has anyone seen any progression from Mittelstadt during the course of the year -- I've seen it with Tage, Dahlin ? Would it make sense to send him to Roch for 5-10 games ? How long is McCabe out ?

They need to continue to enforce as safety allows smaller goalie equipment. Longer term, I'd love to see them expand the ice size to the international dimensions, too.

I wasn't sure if I was the only one who noticed but all his goal calls were understated and late. I mentioned to my son a couple times that I wasn't even sure that Sabres scored because of how late and low key the calls were