Thorny

I try not to even think about that right now because it’s so daunting. Just getting in has proved so difficult. Once we do you basically need to figure out how to build a whole second variant version of your team

1 goal on 12 shots, 2 goals on 5. Think we can say goaltending is the difference so far

Jets getting raced early, good thing they’ve got Hellebuyck Jinx

Mittelstadt begins his journey to the Smythe

Is the white out ever dumb without the home team wearing white lol

Boston and Carolina. What a surprise, the rich keep riching

Maybe Peterka? Debrusk has pretty much settled in to what JJ gave this year. So JJ would have a higher upside but would we say no to another 23-24 JJ?

Good player

No, his “good play” was a product of a common post trade bump and he returned to the poor play he had demonstrably shown all year in Colorado. It wasn’t the “Granato effect”

I wouldn’t say that’s the last good Sabres team tbf

Beauchemin framed this post

NHL players barely contribute 3.5 wins themselves over a season never mind a much shorter stretch. They finished 7 points ahead of us, and sat in an actual playoff spot almost the entire year. That’s FAR more significant than a late season charge like last year to “remain in it”. It was never mathematically likely we’d make the playoffs at any point either year after like January. This year was like October. They were far far closer imo, yes they still suck. The wings. They couldn’t make the playoffs with a what, 91 point cut off? A bad team made the playoffs, the cut off this year was “be the best bad team”. Anyone that missed stinks, yes

Let me guess, a leader will emerge precisely in correlation with the age of the roster becoming more in line with the rest of the league The sheer power of this player, or coach, to ensure space time continues operating without a hitch Again, they don’t associate with the same concerns as the fanbase, was posting about this yesterday. They don’t consider the playoff drought theirs, they all “want to be” sabres but aren’t taking on that particular, defining aspect of who the Sabres are today. They responded most to an attack on one of their own, an attack inside their bubble they simply don’t claim the playoff drought. We’ve heard them say it. We heard Tuch say it DURING THE SEASON, “look, I believe we’ll get there, we are the youngest team in hockey” Well, they did finish with a flourish in 22-23. Adams failures on this front, though, were 2-fold: 1) determining that stretch was more reflective of the roster than our record last year as a whole. And, much more egregiously: 2) operating as if that stretch was more reflective of the roster than our record last year as a whole. We have the asset base to the extent it’s frankly negligent for Adams not to have taken steps to failsafe our playoff berth for this season, or, shock, aid in a finish higher than our aim of mediocre at best if everything goes right

I mean, if he was picking between the two and the deciding factor was who was more likely to make it, Detroit was far far closer than we were. And make it if Larkin returns from injury a game sooner

Maybe since Dahlin in 2018

@boston

There’s an idea

You showed up 1 minute after the teams shook hands

Botched anthem

We need this guy gonzo

Problem is Adams has already decided they are they guys he doesn’t want to move. May not move anyone with a big contract, may have to settle for moving someone we can judge they saw as a POTENTIAL key piece because of trading for him, a Krebs type move. Would be Adams adjusting his strategy without betraying the core of it- I mean I just feel if anything the big contract players are the thing he has the MOST conviction about Casey trade the right idea a left shot D man is just brow furrowing

I dunno if Casey was in the BLB I believe I coined the term but I could be wrong lol ya running a search it’s me referring to the “blinding light” of the youth a hundred times (I must have specifically been quoting Adams) and then you adding “brigade” to it and me and you alternating back and forth using the term for now 3 years haha i suppose Casey counts if it’s been that long

Agree with most of your post, but the “would have made the playoffs with a league avg PP” remains a silly narrative imo that’s taken off and ran for the fences. At least the certainty it’s stated with league avg pp nets us 13 goals over 82 games. We missed the playoffs by a whopping 7 points, and there’s a 4 team separation. i know we need to conveniently fail to grant any of these other teams any improvement, while we grant ourselves a fixed pp for some reason, but even in that case it’s incredibly far from guaranteed merely fixing the PP to average bridges the gap we won half our games. Mathematically speaking half of those 13 goals are going to be spread over games we already won. So 6 or 7 goals? Maybe 3 or 4 present in games we lost by a solitary goal and MAYBE we then win those games in OT or whatever It’s maybe 3 wins. We are out by 7 points. It’s a mineable (and necessary) area for improvement but if we operate as if it’s the only variable we need to fix we won’t make the playoffs, or at least won’t be putting ourselves in a very safe position to do so

And they seemed to go out of their way to defend Granato only once the fans turned on him. Once it was a matter of protecting one of “their own” from the outside. Highlighting and drawing an active divide between the players and the fans. Which, as you point out, seemed to manifest also in aim (players more concerned with Granato fallout, fans with playoffs fallout), and add in the stick salute fiasco for seasoning They are focused on their process while we are sitting at 13 years, it’s sort of the most I’ve ever noticed a divide between the fanbase and the players and it’s pretty troubling. But perhaps recent quotes point to a renewed focus. It’ll need to come from the GM though both in messaging and roster supplementation

UPL. Also call me crazy but I have a *sneaking* suspicion Laurent Brossoit isn’t the 10th best G in the league