elijah

Love and hate the underlyings. I trust them and put a decent bit of weight into them, so it breaks my heart when we’re doing good and they say not to trust our results quite yet. However, you can see before the Tage, Tuch, Greenway, Muel injuries that we were hovering around 50% xGF%. Can argue that we’re winning in spite of missing our best offensive player, and Greenway who plays a strong analytical game. Maybe we just stole a couple wins with our star out and the analytics start to trend back upwards once we get Tage back? One can hope. The analytics don’t mislead you very often.

Seems like the needs are the exact same as the offseason, a viable backup goalie in case Levi doesn’t work out, a Power pairing, and a middle 6 scorer. Shocking to say the least, I’m not sure anyone saw that coming.

To this point, I don’t think the Sabres are the team leaking. All of the quotes posted in this thread seem to be from another teams perspective or just general feelings around the entire league Not that that makes it anymore likely that Adams does anything significant though

Another report from Dreger. Not sure that I believe but 3 reports in 24 hours has to mean atleast something? Maybe? Probably not

I should add to my take .. I’m a believer in analytics and Byram has struggled mightily not just as a Sabre, but for most of his career outside of the cup year. Trading Byram in a vacuum for any sort of decent return I would be very fond of. However unfortunately with the context of a 13 year playoff drought and the rest of Adams tenure, trading Byram for anything short of a Mittlestadt equivalent would be mind boggling

Lol, this would make me furious. Could’ve just kept Mitts at that point

Part of me feels like this deserves a thread, the other part of me says .. haven’t we been hearing this forever just for Adams to sit on his hands while we get tamed with ‘internal cap’ rumors? Feel free to merge if needed, but thought it was a little more worthy than the Around the NHL thread and didn’t see any other thread fitting for it. My question for y’all is, what’s the ‘big move’ that would be available? Seems like this type of desperation and urgency would’ve been fitting for the offseason rather than the first 2 months of the season when you’re going to have to sit on your hands for another 30 games until teams are more willing to make moves. Other reports today indicate the Penguins are willing to maybe send some pieces out Bunting or Rickard Rakell?

1) Sabres point total? realist - 91, realist/optimist/fan - 96 2) Will the Sabres makes the playoffs? No/Yes (see above, so edgy of me to pick both sides) 3) Sabres leading goal scorer? Tage 4) Sabres leader in total points? Dahlin 5) Sabres MVP? Dahlin 6) Sabres ROY? None 7) Best off-season acquisition McLeod 8.) Worst off-season acquisition? Zucker (maybe he still produces while playing, but continues to the oft-injured trend) 9) Biggest surprise? (positive or negative) Jack Quinn, second leading goal score and top 3 in points on the team (would it even be a surprise?) 10) Breakout player? Benson/Quinn 11) Will any Sabres players or coaches finish as finalists (win?) for any major awards such as the Norris or Selke? Dahlin & maybe Ruff 12) Unsong Hero? McLeod 13) Who will be the first Sabre traded away this season? Krebs/Greenway 14) Will KA make any in-season acquisitions before the deadline? Yes 15) Will the Sabres be buyers or sellers at the deadline? Buyers 16) Other Bold prediction? {Such as KA gets fired mid-season ;)} 17) Any other thoughts? did i miss the player expectations threads that i think @dudacektypically does? i enjoy looking back on those each year

the charts look good

Idk names well enough to throw out suggestions, but stop expecting 4/5 defensemen guys to be a suitable season long 4th defensemen. Jokiharju, Clifton, Samuelsson, etc., let them be bottom pairing guys and get someone that’s solidly been a second pairing defensemen to come in and be a second pairing defensemen Seems like we continuously rely on guys to come in and play their best game and play at their ceiling for us. It might work for the Boston’s, Tampa’s and Florida’s of the world, the teams that already have foundations in place but we don’t. We still need to lay that foundation. Dahlin Byram Power XXX Muel Clifton Joki RyJo You’ve got the money and you’ve got the assets, go out and get someone proper for the role. Don’t worry about blocking people or having too much depth, too much depth doesn’t exist and if someone outplays their role you can worry about that down the road and trade someone to make space later.

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