Curt

Before the draft lottery? I would not.

If they can get to 85 points, then that would exceed my preseason expectations. It would also likely mean that they fought through this season until the end. That’s what I want to see.

No thank you! You don’t have to commit long term to 4th line players! This is an amazing line.

Disagree. It’s not a good mindset. ”We aren’t a playoff team, so who cares if we win, let’s beat people up.” A victory does mean something. They need to practice closing out games. I’m tired of watching a 75 point team who collapses in the 2nd half of the season.

How does the dolphin inhale using that thing? Doesn’t seem very ergonomically friendly for the dolphin respiratory setup.

3 piece vest? Seems like a lot of pieces. I usually just get them all in one piece. Who has time to be assembling vests?

Thats dark.

They do get special treatment in the sense that their players are barred from playing in the AHL until age 20. Something that limits the options of playing options for their players and helping them retain some of their best players for longer, which is a financial benefit for the CHL. This restriction isn’t placed on players from the NCAA or Euro leagues.

Listen, I’m not saying that we need to yield to management and blindly follow whatever management does because “they know best” or “they are the pros”. But this is a little presumptuous of you. You “know” Botterill got played because he is inexperienced. You “know” Botterill isn’t smart. Truth is, we don’t know any of this. We can speculate, and in some instances we have evidence of one thing or another, but we rarely know most of the information that goes into making a decision within the Buffalo Sabres organization.

So, my take on this. First. Culture is a thing. Every workplace or family or any other group of people has a culture. It’s just the general set of practices/ how things are generally done/ how situations are generally handled. Some cultures are more conducive to success than others. Second. It’s really hard to establish a culture where everyone pushes each other to be successful when the group lacks the needed tools for success and knows it. Be that a workplace that’s chronically understaffed, lacks the tools needed to do the job, or a hockey team that is consistently lacking in talent and losing a lot of games as a result. It’s hard to stay fully invested when you are consistently let down by a part of your team. For example: depth scoring or goaltending. In the past couple years, I’ve seen the Sabres “quit” to an extent in the 2nd half. Just putting forth a lot of really poor, uninspired performances. I think that is probably a sign of a poor culture. I don’t believe that Botterill has upgraded the roster talent to the extent that it should be expected to be a playoff team. I think that makes it harder to improve the culture, which is a stated goal of the organization. As this season winds down, I’ll be watching for signs that the team culture is improving. Will they have multiple long losing streaks punctuated by dispassionate performances and finish with 70-75 points? Will they keep putting out solid efforts, winning a couple/losing a couple and finish with 85 points? That’s what I’m looking for.

Good players don’t want to come play on terrible teams. If Buffalo was good, plenty of players would like to join the team.

Hmm, interesting. So think NHL teams may start sticking prospects in the AHL for half a season even though they feel that they are NHL ready, in order to preserve an extra year of RFA status. That’s possible.

Hold up. What’s this? Play doh? or Plato the classical age Athenian philosopher? ”Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

It’s not bad. Late 1st and Calen Addison for 3.5 years (4 playoffs) of Zucker at a reasonable price. Galchenyuk is probably going to play half of a lost season for Minny then walk. He is FA. He isn’t actually adding much value here.

He can reliably carry it through the neutral zone and enter the offensive zone with possession. That’s valuable and something that only 2-3 other players on the roster can do as well as him. He doesn’t often turn that into a good scoring chance because he just isn’t that good. If he could, he would be a 1st line player, a star. Once in a while he can, but not often. That’s why I say he is a good puck carrier for a 3rd line or on a top-6 line with two very good players. 3rd liners are imperfect, but useful players. Johansson is useful, but he isn’t great.

Those two guys have been in trade rumors forever. Wouldn’t have minded if Zucker ended up a Sabre. Galchenyuk, eh, not do positive about.

Agree. Johansson is a nice example. As a 2C, he’s going to be disappointing more often than not, but he can help a team create offense and I think he is a great guy to be a play driver on a 3rd line, or the 3rd best player on a top-6 line that needs some puck carrying/playmaking ability.

Modern or old time, it doesn’t matter. They are adequate at neither.

Under the current CBA rules, any 18-19 year old player who doesn’t play at least 10 NHL games has their ELC “slide” by a year. So if a 19 year old player is signed, but doesn’t play in the NHL, it doesn’t matter if he is in the AHL or CHL, his ELC doesn’t have a year burned off of it.

It shouldn’t affect how young player contracts are handled. Just because the player becomes AHL eligible doesn’t mean that they automatically need to sign their ELC. The CHL isn’t going to turn away good players. They’ll fight to keep them. They are running a business after all.

No team gets its best results every game. Between qulaity of competition, luck, and travel schedules, a team will show better some days than others. Im not excusing lackluster, uninspired play, but I truly believe that the team lacks the talent to consistently put forward playoff team type performances.

This whole post was very nice and well done. Thank you for the effort.

They don’t have enough forward or goalie talent to be a good team. That’s why they often are not good enough. They can be good enough against teams playing poorly or when they get a little lucky, or when they have an especially good game, but they are not consistently good enough because they lack the type of talent you would expect a playoff team to have.

I’m not being argumentative. It’s not so simple as you say. Everyone seems to have their own definition for what “driving” means. By your definition, there are probably only 30 in the entire NHL. Others have different definitions in mind when they use the phrase.

I watched the play about ten times. The pass went right through Jacks feet. He was right there, but a little late on the back check. Dahlin was caught 2 on 1 down low.