Curt

Friedman said the other day that Lou wanted to add (1) a C and (2) goal scoring. Looks like he got two birds with one stone. I don’t think this means that any other team is more likely to want multiple rental pieces in a trade.

Well, at least it’s two guys off the market. Might hurry things along on Hall

I think it was always the case that results will need to be immediate next season. If they suck again I think the risk of demanded departure skyrockets. And as always, it depends on the specifics of the trade. I think this is too soon. Not enough information.

Didn’t someone say that maybe he isn’t even able to sign a contract until June because he is still under contract with Pittsburgh?

What I wrote really didn’t have anything to do with contracts, or even about playing the best players, so I have no idea where you are coming from. I actually disagree with you. I think Buffalo can get A LOT better with their bigger contracts still on the team.

For fringe prospects, opportunity at NHL playing time is more important than a winning organization.

Ok. I know Raty is a center not a winger.

I believe the advice is to wait 3 months before getting the vaccine.

I thought you said Raty should go 1st overall?

I just got the first Pfizer shot!

This is true regarding the HDC%, but they haven’t played good teams. Let’s see them play a few games against better teams and see if they can keep that up around 50%. Granato’s new system is awesome at improving SV%! 😉

Yeah, me too. I don’t think it’s an issue that Girardi played a different style. Girardi is hockey smart and Dahlin needs to learn when to take calculated chances and how to play correctly in his own end. I think that’s the idea at least. Dahlin doesn’t really need anyone to tell him how to play with the puck.

You take certain actions. Those actions have a chance of a positive or negative result, depending on things that are out of your control. If the things out of your control result in a positive outcome, that is lucky. Jeebus. You said that there is no such thing as luck, then outlined an exact scenario that demonstrated the existence of luck. Luck is not magic, it’s just probabilities working out favorably. Winning the lottery without entering would not be luck. That would be magic. Lol

That’s how it is for every team who does win #1/2/3 though. If the Sabres finished 6th worst for example, their most likely draft position would be 7th or 8th, because someone is likely to leapfrog them. So, yes, they have often dropped 1-2 spots, but that’s the most likely thing to happen. It may be a little counterintuitive that the team finishing in 6th worst place is most likely to draft 7th, but that’s the way it’s been. When they won the lottery in 2018 that was massively lucky. There was only about a 20% chance of them getting #1 and they hit on it.

Who is Pi’s favorite player? I bet he puts up sick stats every single game.

I don’t get it. Who would call that lucky? That’s not luck! That’s playing good hockey! They weren’t making luck. They were making a good hockey play.

What you describe is not luck. You are describing playing better hockey.

How? EDIT: not snarky, a honest and serious question.

I just wanted to come back to this because this is so weird too. (1) It’s about to be an Olympic year. (2) NHL players are going to play. (3) Eichel is injured right now so it makes perfect sense that he wouldn’t make the team.

Don’t you think that they have looked better though? Even if the xGF% doesn’t reflect it, they seem to be playing looser and with more confidence. Maybe it’s just some combination of facing bad teams/goaltending, Ullmark being back, extra pep from the new coach, and the results of puck luck coloring my perception a bit. I don’t know.

Let’s see how they look against a couple of teams that are actually good. Encouraging so far though.

Just a note to throw out there. People are kind of blaming Steve Smith for Dahlin’s, I’ll say stunted, development the past two years. One thing that I had forgotten was that Smith was actually on Housley’s staff as well during Dahlin’s rookie year. So, we are not only seeing Dahlin without Krueger, but we are seeing Dahlin for the very first time without Smith as his defense coach. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the season goes for him. I’m optimistic so far.

The Sabres were out shot and out chanced in this game, by NJ, who are a bad team. The difference was goaltending and some nice finishing by Buffalo. The team still is not playing well, but they look looser.

They have not been unlucky in the lottery. In 2018 they got extremely lucky.

I don’t know, but I’m definitely not going to hold onto due to sentimental value, or some intangible reasons. It has got to be purely an evaluation of hockey talent.