elijah

It is going to be awkward, but I won’t and certainly wouldn’t expect the other fans to feel shame. They’ve been BEGGING for a playoff team for years now and the majority of the year it looked like they were again going to be let down and so the fans leave the arena empty. Why waste your money to keep funding a disappointing product that consistently lets you down? If by someway the Sabres end the drought on a miracle run down the last 8 games and they make the playoffs to break the drought, then the fans got what they wanted and will happily return to the arena. Not their fault that the season gave absolutely no reason to believe we’d be here, and also not their fault that the past 13 years gave them no reason to have any faith and hold on to believe we’d figure it out in the end Also on top of all that, if they happen to make the playoffs I don’t care that they’d have likely finished 8-0 to do so, it’ll still be largely and mostly due to the teams around them absolutely dropping the ball TL;DR - The arena should sell out and will likely do so, and the fans should do it with no shame at all. They’ve sold out games consistently the past 3 years that we’re dedicated to reminiscing over better times, it’s not like we have a weak fanbase that doesn’t care to support the team. It’s a very strong fanbase begging to support the team but just don’t care to support the garbage product the drought era has been.

25, I stick out quite a bit in terms of age here it seems. Didn’t really realize before

Last year the 12-14-2 Sabres beat a West Coast team at home on December 13th before going on a West Coast road trip where they’d extend their winning streak to 4 games beating Colorado, Arizona and Vegas and begin to turn their season around. This year, the 12-14-3 Sabres are coming off a win over a West Coast team at home before hitting the road heading to the West Coast on December 13th where they hope to extend their winning streak to 4 games by beating Colorado, Arizona and Vegas and begin to turn their season around. Go Sabres!

Last year at Christmas time the Penguins and Capitals were in playoff spots and went on to miss the playoffs by 1 and 12 points, while the Islanders and Panthers took their spots who were out by 3 and 9 points It’s not ideal to be out of a playoff spot 40% of the way into the season, but to say your playoff fate is settled at that point is simply not true If you can keep within 3-6ish points by then and find momentum with two of your top six forwards returning to the lineup the season is far from over just because you’re out of a spot come Christmas time Granted I don’t know if I truly believe that’s possible at this point, I just still think it’s far too premature to declare this season a wrap and unless we go on a horrific run over the next month or so they’ll still have until atleast Christmas before I throw away my hopes on the season personally

I keep personally banging the drum to wait until around Christmas time to make a full assessment as to what the team is, it’s a long season and things change. Team’s round out to full form at different paces, some sprint out of the gate and die before the stretch, some come out slow and find their momentum at the stretch. That being said, we’re starting to get awfully close to Christmas time without finding or even having a glimpse of said momentum

You lost me at Power should be in the minors, it’s a shame because the rest of the post made a lot of sense but there’s no reasonable post in the world that should include that sentence

We’ve got to stop neutering the offense in favor of a more ‘complimentary’ style of play, it’s your strong suit and things don’t seem to be working with the play style you’re trying to force. Got to change it before the season gets away from us and it’s another wasted year. Oh wait, this is the Sabres not the Bills Go Sabres

Personally I’ve been against it, his analytics kind of turned to garbage and the hip injury is worrisome But emotions will have to take over logic if it actually happens, I’d be excited and eat my words. At the very least hopefully he’d help fill the arena and just be a little more useful version of Olofsson

seems like this has gained quite a bit of momentum in the past 2 hours

Off topic from Mitts himself, but the amount of discussion around pull-ups in that thread and the assumption that they’re easy is a sure sign of a lot of people that have never actually attempted a pull-up I’m not a professional athlete by any means but I’m mid 20’s, workout 5 days of the week weight lifting, weigh about 205, bench 235 and row 185, played sports all my life — I can only do 8 pull ups on a good day. Was he at the biggest interview for future professional athletes and maybe lacked some preparation? Sure. But let’s not sit behind a computer screen and keyboard and act like pull-ups are some exceptionally easy task when they’re actually pretty difficult and require a good bit of strength that a 160 pound 17 year old might not have. I don’t know why that irked me so bad but it did lol As far as Mitts, it feels like the asking price goes up with every game. If the intent is to sign him and have him as part of the core, KA has to get it done sooner than later. It seems like he’s played himself into the Tage/Cozens contract range, but if KA waits all season before resigning him he may play himself well past that range into an area that doesn’t seem feasible for our long term plans

Aw man, that hurts my heart. It’s too bad that this theoretical conversation has to end because he realistically isn’t getting traded 😔

Ryan Johnson stays, Mitts needs to get extended sooner than later, overall we ‘stole’ a win. 4-1-1 in the last 6, keep it rolling.

Surprised by how many responses in here include Tage/Dahlin, that’s not even a thought that crossed my mind Feel like at the point that McDavid is getting traded it’s a prospect haul type of trade, not an exchange of elite players If I’m Edmonton and it comes to trading McDavid, the last thing I want to do is add another elite player and more B prospects to a roster that clearly lacks the depth to win

Unlikely to ever happen (or is it?), but a slow Oilers start along with not winning anything this far in to his career makes for fun speculation. Was having a conversation about it with my friends and it just seems like something that’d be impossible. It seems like the Oilers would be crazy to take the highest offer any team could reason to send their way, and visa versa that any team would be crazy to offer what the Oilers asking price would be. My best theoretical offer would be Cozens + Peterka + Kulich + UPL + ‘24 1st + ‘25 1st + ‘26 1st for McDavid, and that just seems like it’d be too little for the Oilers and too much for the Sabres. A little off the wall and definitely just a useless exercise, but with the Oilers down to the Sharks in the battle for last place, it was a fun what if conversation that came up. Curious what SabreSpace thinks about it. Not even just in terms of the Sabres but with any team in the league

If you’re going to discount Wednesday’s game as getting beat by the Flyers, surely it’s only fair to acknowledge that yesterday the game was actually quite even, if not the Sabres slightly better, despite the score saying otherwise right? As far as the different focus, maybe it’s not showing as well on the ice as we’d hope for but I think through media interactions and glimpses of play that DG is trying to develop the guys into more defensively sound players after letting them fly free all last year. It’s an adjustment, it’s going to take a little time I’m not saying it’s got to be all sunshine and flowers, the start is actually enough where I’m getting a little angst that maybe the playoff expectations may be a let down. But that being said, it’s just the slightest bit of a worry because after all it’s only game 11. Can we give it until your Christmas benchmark before the collective meltdowns among fans start to happen? There’s 71 games left. They went on an 8 game losing streak last year and recovered enough to be alive through game 80. There’s things to be concerned about surely, I won’t be as ignorant as to say there’s no reason to complain. But the reaction and sentiment in this thread specifically just seems to be a bit premature for where we’re at in the season