Thorny

A lot of it speaks to the baked in mentality of being a Sabres fan in 2023 - “the key is to not.” Not. Do less - patience. Future - Tim Murray bad. Win now bad. Win later. In reality, the key isn’t to “not” do, anything. DO upgrade the “awful” goaltending. There is no try.

If you check the expectations thread around here most of us had it at ~ high 80s low 90s w/o expecting playoffs

I’ve been beating this drum for a while, as you can see above. We simply need to finish with 82 or more

And presumably we need to “play our game” to develop, anyways, regardless of where the goals sit re: winning. There simply isn’t any course of action available for KA this summer than to pay the cost to bring in a starter they can be reasonably confident in. That’s certainly not squinting hard and long enough at some advanced metrics ala Comrie, either. Not a buy low opportunity. A completely necessary addition that the rebuild likely depends on or just hope the Fort doesn’t collapse before Levi takes over the “perennial vezina winner” slot Adams has been holding for him unblocked. Either of the two Scoring isn’t at a premium in today’s game

Just gotta hope they can right the ship a bit over last 12. Playoffs are finished with but still some runway left to shift things

I’ve been as mad since but don’t think I’ve broken anything since Kasparitus (sp? (Just kidding I don’t care)). I don’t think I had anything left to smash after that regardless

7-13 since the break - - - Just.....just finish above .500, please do this at least, and try and have a big offseason. That’s all I got. Would be first time above .500 in 11 years. Even .500 on the dot would take us 10 years back

I thought it was you can only move UP 10 spots ie 11 and up can win could be way off

Well, we are officially in position to have an outside shot at Bedard: 22nd and below have a shot, I believe

Montour won’t be stopped. Apparently now amazing

@Gatorman0519i said personally I *don’t* like the “standings don’t matter” thing

For me, I had (still have) the earliest the GM could potentially be fired as after the 24/25 season. Next year, 23/24 playoffs are expectation. But that doesn’t mean falling short means canning. Miss in 24/25, yes, you can’t go 5 seasons as GM and not make the playoffs, that should be curtains. Granato however I thought could be open to replacement next season/after next season, with poor performance. Honestly, if it was me, this late season stretch could get bad enough, his status for next year could be on the table again. But it’s not my choice and there’s no way, absolutely no way, KA diverges in that way this summer, imo - - - honestly this line of conversation is just depressing after all these years. It’s closing in on “who cares” territory

See edit

12 years no playoffs, a GM goes 3 years without sniffing the top 2/3rds of the league... HOT TAKE?!! Good sir...

I’m fine with people saying the standings for us don’t matter this year, development year, fine. Even though I disagreed. But the “significant progress” line of thought needs to be critically examined.

It’s ok to be upset that Kevyn Adams took three seasons as a national hockey league general manager to get to 80 points. “Significant progress”

Dahlin might really screw around and end the year as a minus player. Would have been simply unfathomable as recently as a couple weeks ago. They urgently need to pull up here cause this nosedive is quickly getting dangerously beyond late season peter out

Dahlin gets his 50th assist - - - Honestly, when he got his 49th, I did not expect the Sabres to be this far back in the race when 50 came

Agree - and not only just because we are still measuring how much progress we’ve made. But also because this team has by their own admission made “vibes” and chemistry a huge portion of their focus and I can’t imagine a complete crash as we are seeing bodes well on that front. Not when “want to be here” is central messaging. “Here” can’t be a gong show

Yikes Granato yikes sabres

GM needs to assume heavy bias on both sides, and weigh the macro statistics take with the macro eye test take to an equal degree

Thompson with even one more signature Tage night w/4 points or so would go a long way to making 100 likely. Dahlin SHOULD hit 50 assists, might hit 70 points

One of these days Dahlin and Thompson will go off again and all will be right with the world