Thorny

You know, I hadn’t really thought about it but…..GMGPT has a nice ring to it. That’s a good idea, they should try hiring it

Sabres actually carried the balance of the play game 1 (somewhat due to score effects) but then got rolled in game 2. Tbh, for me it IS the losses and not how they happened. I’m sort of done with analyzing results beyond: “what were the results?” the team not only doesn’t deserve anything beyond that, it’s proven folly, anyways. The common denominator has been Ls regardless of what led to them, for years. It just doesn’t matter. Win or don’t. It’s year 5. Make the playoffs or don’t. Already drew a personal line

lol THE Buffalo Sabres

Right right that makes sense

Walrus guy? lol

But if we win that game..

It’s been an exceptional mlb playoffs so far

Because things were extremely heated at the time. You must remember that. I believe it was the Friedman interview. Eichel going out of his way to give Kevyn Adams credit during an extremely contentious time with the team pointed the finger extremely clearly, imo, at the guy above Adams You have to think about why he would single out Adams. What he’s trying to say by not saying it.

Plus, how important is a winning environment in Buffalo to the development of all the young players currently on the roster? Those players trying to get their career started and established on the proper foot? If Levi provides non-negligible value in this area, it probably makes the decision to keep him up a no-brainer I’d settle for sight, outright

That’s fair. Willful prisoners of the moment. as for the bold: same bat time..

Remember when Jack Eichel commended Kevyn Adams for taking a swing at 2021? There’s your smoking gun You have to read between the lines a bit, but it’s right there. He’s praising the GM and the most telling aspect was that he chose to do so. What does that create a contrast between? Weird, I used the term before I read your post. Great minds

It’s a good post. I just despise the incorporated logic of choice

Ya, unless Levi would still be readily available for NHL starts and I’m not sure that’s feasible - I’ve just heard people hint at him going to and fro from Rochester. You are right about the most teams thing. I think much of the angst is driven by how bad SandStorm seems to be. As mentioned, I’m not torpedoing Adams here until the results are bad. Presumably he could grab someone better than Storm if Levi or UPL goes down the 3 headed monster could have been an option, I guess, if they just completely parked Reimer until he was due to start. From what I’ve heard from folks like Jake Allen - it wreaks havoc on all three splitting starts but if Reimer literally wasn’t getting any and was just a failsafe, I suppose that idea could have worked. I think Brawndo comes down somewhere around there given his “better be sure” comment up thread

They say a team takes on the personality of it’s GM..

No you do need a second guy in today’s nhl

Maybe not for you, but this place 180’d their projections of playoffs based on 1 game. People somehow had the confidence to predict playoffs, a bold prediction given available data, yet whatever metrics they used that gave them the confidence to make such a prediction seemingly evaporated based on 1 solitary game, or two. I would frankly be shocked if 2 straight wins here didn’t do the exact opposite. People go from one extreme to the other, why would we expect different? Half the reason the losses get so low is because people are convincing themselves we are cup bound after pre season wins. 99.9% of the “if only THIS had gone better” analysis we do is shell-game frivolity. You are ALWAYS what your record says. You don’t get a more accurate, predictive mathematical result by shrinking the data you are parsing. The most likely result BY FAR this season is that the Sabres will win a lot of games, and they will lose a lot, people will yo-yo between “we back” and “we suck” for 6 months, when in reality merely looking at the standings at the end would provide one with a more accurate analysis than everything else put together

Not JJ. That’s interesting

We should remember we are, what, a two game win streak in the next 2 games from feeling the season is saved? Hold those horses just a little, sabrespace

Goes from an all-time logo to a new-age all-time logo

I mean, I’d much rather Levi be up and playing games than Reimer. Though, do you know if it was option to keep Levi in Roch but still call him up when we wanted him for a stretch, while keeping Reimer stashed on the roster? Unsure of the viability of that option but something like that may have been the best option

I won’t torpedo Adams on this until we actually see poor performance from the position. Presumably he could claim one of these Reimer type guys from another team should an injury arise to UPL or Levi

SandStorm, you are up

Have you ever heard that thing about how human beings generally pick the answer they want in advance, and then find the reasons to support it, after the fact? I wouldn’t be surprised at all of Adams and co pieced together a plan exactly like the one you laid out: and it’s the reason we keep failing. When you skewer and cherry pick the numbers so throughly, time and time again (a 20 game sample size here, a 25 game sample size there, a 13 game sample size over here, let’s focus on goals and not assists, let’s focus on our overall team record over a stretch of season demonstrably unreflective time and time again because wins when you are essentially out of it aren’t the same, ignoring of Skinner’s actually very good production to lion’s share of his time here in favour of a short stretch where he was benched…etc etc) what you end up with is a bunch of “well, maybes” that when compounded on eachother functionally make the result you want a shot in the dark Which doesn’t even break the surface of the most important ignored variable: the amount the presence of Mittelstadt, who often performed as our best F, buoyed the totals of the other forwards you keep mentioning. Not only through actual aid to production, but in terms of players being properly slotted in roles. It’s ridiculously hard for Cozens and Tage to *make up* what we lost in Casey because you are counting on improvement upon something they did WITH Casey! We’d be asking a lot of them to return to 22-23 form WITH the complementary roster they had, to ask them to return to form, WITHOUT the guy who was as good or better than they were when they were doing it, and THEN also find a way to *replace* the outright production of that facilitator without the facilitator is not really a hope, it’s a last resort. An unlikely shot in the dark. You *need* to adequately supplement the forward ranks, which brings us back to “waiting on the kids” if the best they can and will do is Jason Zucker and Beck freaking Malenstyn, a player we had literally never heard of before we acquired him. - - - If we cut to the chase, realistically the answer to almost every “when, how can we be good” question, as long as we are operating the way we are, is simply, and only “if the kids excel we’ll be good.” Maybe we’ve just said it so many times we forget the fact it’s really the only prevalent factor, here: the dna of this team is measured in “future” currency. If the youth ever surprises, we’ll be good. I don’t see much strategy beyond assemble young talent and hope for the best