Pimlach

Wow. Lots of Red shirts. No call.

Great hockey. This series has been refreshing. As an NHL/AHL fan since about 1966, this is thrilling stuff. When I think about that many years, its been way too infrequent since I’ve seen this level of play. I wish there were less teams.

Brady with a huge hit. Holy smokes

Would he do that to Marchand as Leaf, without Brady out there with him? No.

Was not expecting that. Bennett plays big in big games though.

Slavin. My oh my. Great defender.

Mathews can be a tough guy playing with Brady. Sabres need a Tkachuk.

Canada power play loaded. USA PK amazing. Larkin amazing play

Eichel. That was sick.

Whitefish Montana?

I like that Slavin. A lot. Sanderson scores. Nice

I don’t talk politics here, but I can’t believe he said it again. I saw coverage on tv and quickly said this to my wife, “I really hope he doesn’t say uhhhggnn, never mind …”.

Sad to hear about McAvoy. My respect for him as a player went way up because of this series. He was a big key in the win against Canada

Great shot McKinnon, and through a very tight space.

Put this game in a time warp, it’s 1976, and The Knox Bros lure this game into the Aud. Terry, do better. Buffalo should be hosting this.

The Canadian fans did a better job with the anthem than the singer. Ooooffff

McAvoy out is big. Maker in is big. Eichel playing at home.

Especially Eichel. He will get some Hart Trophy votes.

All this talk about the Rochester GM and coach brings up a few things. 1. Karmanos was more qualified to be a GM than Adams. Dig into their experience prior to taking their jobs at Buffalo. It is not even close. 2. Adams was hired to save money (EEE) and to rebuild with a home grown approach. He probably masterminded the plan along with Terry. Trade the best players away, stockpile picks and prospects, develop picks/prospects, have no blockers, no big vet contracts, just play the kids, extend the kids, and assume they are good enough. Do all this with a rookie NHL coach and staff, and stay under the cap to enable signing your home grown players. Of course this has not worked and it has made it even harder to get good players and good coaches to come to Buffalo. The EEE plan just added 5 more long years of losing to the string - but at least Rochester is good! 😞 Of course adding Lindy, a guy we know and like, was supposed to take the team to another level too. Unfortunately, I think this EEE master plan has another year to go with Lindy still on contract. 3. Putting Karmanos' work in perspective - Good job, but lets not forget it is easier to GM in the AHL, you don't have to deal with the parent club culture issues and NTCs. Still, Karmanos could not be any worse than Adams. It's hard to be worse than last place in the conference and 0 playoff appearances after 5 years.

Anyone know who decided to give him an A? Adams or Ruff? I suspect Adams.

I don't see it that way Stoner. The analytics say we have ONE very good defenseman (Dahlin) who carries whoever he plays with. If a team has only one good defenseman they will lose a lot of games, which the Sabres do. I did some quick research, Dahlin was out injured for a large part of the 13 game season killing losing streak. He was gone for all the games between Dec 3 and Dec 20, and he was playing hurt prior to that. When he came back he had 4 assists and we finally won a game. Take away that miserable 13 game streak, just play .500 in that space, and the team is playing at a wildcard spot right now. The analytics say they if you trade Dahlin and don't replace him with a better defenseman, your team will get worse. Chances of a real NHL team trading away a defenseman better than Dahlin is ZERO. The analytics and the losing streak tell me that Power and Byram did not step up. Should one of them be traded? Yes, but only if the GM can make the NHL Team better right now. No more trading for futures, get better NHL players using one or more of them in trade. Which takes us to the real problem, a problem created by Pegula and his band of bad GMs. Which is, who will come here?

True, but not to teams like the Blues, Knights, Panthers, Lightning and others. The hiring of three consecutive unqualified GMs is a bigger problem than how good the players have been. There are good players on the team right now and there were good players before them. None of the GMs could build a roster and hire a coach staff.

Power will be the next Sabre to go somewhere else and then become a very good player while playing in a better environment. He could fetch a lot in a trade. Teams need (and covet) puck moving offensive defensemen and he was leading all defenseman in points while playing 5v5 for parts of this season. He was playing good hockey prior to the big losing streak. The Sabres just do not have a solid partner for him. Dahlin, Power, Byram all have a similar game. Dahlin is clearly the one you keep. A good GM could improve the overall team by trading either one of Byram or Power. Power is the one I would keep for another season, but if the return for him is right and it fills major holes with immediate help then move him and keep Byram - but don’t offer him a long term big contract, he is still a prove it guy The bolded is Kevyn Adams kind of thinking and it’s exactly why he fails as a GM. It’s not about winning trades, it about building a balanced NHL roster.

What has to happen is not magic. The “young core” has to stop believing that they are too young to win and start winning. Things like 13 losses in a row can’t happen. Players like Dahlin and Thompson have to put the team on their backs. Leadership and hating to loose has to emerge. Start winning and players will think differently about coming here.