JoeSchmoe

He's next on my list after Bjork.

The correct answer is Bjork.

Crosby for a long time was the face of the league. He's probably still the most respected player in the league given all the new blood that grew up watching him. Kane's always been a one of the best skilled wingers in the game, but had a checkered reputation and has always been a notch behind Ovi and Sid.

I live in Canada. There's no need for ez Pass here other then when I'm crossing a bridge into the USA or Grand Island, or using the Thruway once or twice a year to go to the Adirondacks.

Just a PSA on how much border crossings have shot up in price. Apparently it's still $4US on EZ Pass. I just ordered mine. Any word on what Rainbow or Queenston-Lewiston are going for these days? Does anyone know if there's a backstory behind the price hike?

I don't think any of those big 4 were highly regarded outside of the Sabres fanbase. As someone that only saw their scoresheets, I never understood the hype. Once I actually saw Bailey and Baptiste play, you could see the tools were there... they just couldn't figure out how to use them. That's where Bjork sits today and will likely soon be out of the league.

When we were high in the Tim Murray days, he foolishly traded a lot of the prospects away. Besides, I don't think we had anyway near the volume of prospects we do now. It was Eichel and Reinhart that had us so high.

I don't recall ever being this optimistic though since the Eichel draft. And in that case it was all about Eichel. Never can I remember so many good prospects. We've got potential star level prospects (Power, Quinn, Levi, etc), potential NHL regular candidates (JJP, Savoie, Krebs, Samuelsson, etc), and we have a ton of wildcards... more than I can ever recall that could make the jump to NHL regular or star status. Obviously, not every prospect will stay on the path they're on (for better or worse), but our cupboard is so well stocked that statistically, the odds for a few players to break out is really in our favour.

I'm 46 and think 99.9% printers are a complete waste. I'm not an eco guy either... But they're a remnant of the old world. At work, there's a generational divide, those that print and those that don't. As a 46yo, I'm happy to be on the young side.

Same here. Same few people controlling the narrative of every thread. I got out and reported my experience to the board admin. Not sure if they cared or not, but since then, I see this board seems to be gaining popularity as opposed to their Sabres page shrinking.

I give this guy a 0 on the credibility score for naming Portillo, UPL, and Leinenon as our top goalie prospects, but forgetting the guy who's quite possibly our top prospect right now at any position. 🙄

That's true. I say for sure though prime Hasek was on a much higher level even. Also Montreal has lost some real significant pieces since last year. But point taken... that Cup finals appearance was on Price's back.

That said, Hasek level goaltending gets next year's team in the playoffs... Possibly deep. Problem is, no single player has had Hasek level impact on one team since Hasek.

After every Leafs 1st round exit, I ceremoniously always come back to this beauty of an article from Sept 2017. I can't see any fanbase or media writing this stuff... but it has provided me and my anti-Leaf friends plenty of entertainment. https://torontosun.com/2017/09/11/simmons-vaulted-by-big-3-this-maple-leafs-team-is-a-champion-in-waiting Edit: I thought I'd post the opening few paragraphs of the article... "You can see a Stanley Cup from here. Maybe for the first time since the Stanley Cup season of 1967, you can see it. You can envision it. You can believe in it. You can close your eyes and actually picture Gary Bettman calling Auston Matthews — assuming he will eventually be granted the captaincy — to come up and grab the Cup. The Toronto Maple Leafs: Future Stanley Cup champion. This isn’t a dream or a joke, it’s a path. It’s a destination. The seemingly impossible eventually becoming possible. For most of our lives, we haven’t known anything like this at all. You could hope, but it was never realistic. You could predict, but it wasn’t logical. There hasn’t been a Maple Leafs team in 50 years that looked to be anywhere near the part of champion in September. Even that old 1967 team — and it was old — didn’t begin the season as any kind of favourite. But as the Maple Leafs open training camp on Thursday, you can honestly say that for the first time since the 1960s, the one most of you never saw or lived through, you can look at this group, especially the kids, the coach and the management team, and you can see a finish line. A finish line ending with a parade."

Any thoughts on this? Personally I don't like the dive job.

I know we were close in points for the season as a whole, but after Tuch came in, how close were we? I feel like we ended the season much better than either of those two. I'm also hopeful that the elimination of the hot puke line of Eakin-Bjork-Hayden will give us a massive addition by subtraction. They were by a fair margin the worst line in hockey last year. God help us all if Bjork finds a way into the playing time. 🤮

I agree with his tact about staying the course with the prospects. In the end though it will all boil down to improving in goal. Given FA hasn't opened up yet, it's too early to be upset.

Agreed. The objective of the game is to outscore the other team. If you're playing guys that can't score, you're at best playing for a tie. The concept of the traditional 4th line is akin to playing prevent defense with the lead at the end of the 4th quarter in an AFC playoff game. 🙈

Then it wasn't meant to be. If we're going to spend any future assets, it should be on a goalie mentor for Levi and maybe a veteren RHD.

This is so clearly the case. I'm not sure why the Buffalo boys can't just wait another year and keep ALL our young assets including picks. And if he doesn't want to take a hometown discount to come here, I don't want him at all.

You're competing for him on the open market against teams that can use him now for a legit cup run... Not just to make the playoffs. Unless the Hawks learned nothing after the Debrincat, you're going to have to give up an asset you'll need in 3 years. Wait a year, give up nothing, and if he's truly interested in leading the Sabres to winning their first cup, let him sign his hometown discount contract.

If we stay the course, the team won't be realistically cup contending for another 3 years. What's Patrick Kane look like then? Worse yet, if we trade the future for Patrick Kane, the team loses the very assets that gets them to cup contention in 3 years. The reality check is this only a thing because he's from Buffalo. Hopefully some team that's in cup contention for next year trades for him sooner or later to put the speculation to rest... Then Buffalo can MAYBE get him on a hometown discount UFA contract the year after.

His stat sheet from this year looks quite a bit better than Rosen and he's a year younger. Plus, going by memory he's about 10lb bigger than Rosen was last year. Still we got him at 16 vs 13 for Rosen. Comparisons to last year's bad pic aside, he's by no means a sure-fire player in the league... but it looks like a good calculated gamble.

Trying to think this through, and I think I'm pretty good at not getting too excited about any one draft pick... There's too many unknowns. On the other hand, I often get really excited about our young prospects after short sample sizes. I thought "The Twin Tylers" Myers/Ennis were going to lead this franchise back to cup contention. But they didn't.

My opinion on mock drafts runs deeper in the NFL than the NHL but...