elijah
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Posts posted by elijah
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I vaguely watched the Sabres in my childhood, I’m 24 so I watched as a casual fan (pretty young one at that) while they enjoyed their success from ‘05-‘10. Once the drought started my fandom wasn’t strong enough to stick through the bad years really and they became more than irrelevant to me.
Then they drafted Eichel and I started paying a little bit of attention again. Right around the Skinner trade I kind of hit a point where I was like, well, I’m a diehard Bills fan, I’m a diehard sports fan in general, and I’m from Buffalo, why am I not paying attention to the Sabres?
Problem was, being a diehard sports fan in general it drove me insane that I didn’t understand hockey and was just watching casually understanding that goal = good, goal against = bad. When I watch the Bills, I’m able to digest on field play and the offseason and roster management at what I would call an above average level. With hockey, I had zero idea and I couldn’t stand that so I needed to learn more.
At that point I had just made my account at TwoBillsDrive and came across SabreSpace. It seemed like the majority of the community here were intelligent and understood the game (definitely more so than over at TBD 😬) so I lingered and just read and observed to digest and try to learn. I did that for probably about 2 years before making an account.
Now I’ve had the account for about 3-4 years and have watched 90%+ of Sabres games for 5-6 years. I still don’t contribute around the boards much, but I think I’m at a point where I can confidently digest roster management and am slowly starting to actually see the gameplan, individual player peformance and coaching impacts develop live on ice during the games.
You sick f**ks did it to me. It’s no longer 1.) Bills …………………………………… 2.) Sabres, it’s now 1A.) Bills, 1B.) Sabres. I’m fully addicted, and right as I escaped one drought, I was strangely deranged enough to jump on board another drought lol
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14 hours ago, Getpucksdeep said:
You get one. During the middle of your Saturday. And then you wait another week if you have a job to be to in the morning. Terrible terrible schedule.
And some of us (me) are lucky enough to work Saturday’s and also miss that Saturday game 🤦♂️
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I keep seeing Power estimates around $8M-$9M, doesn’t that seem a touch inflated? Genuinely asking, I’m foreign too and still learning the ELC/bridge/long term contract world
Also, has Mitts moved himself from whipping boy to extend early this off-season in hopes of a bargain deal before he continues to build his game next year?
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24 minutes ago, Zamboni said:
Dahlin. Assuming he signs for 7 or 8 years …
Give or take ….
”steal” anything under 9.4 mil per
”fair” anything from 9.5 to 11 per
”a lot” anything over 11.1 per
At least That’s how I see it
I think you could walk that “steal” number right up to anything under $10M tbh
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My guess independent of the Thompson & Cozens deals: 8x$11.5M
My optimistic hope with Thompson & Cozens deals in mind: 7x$9.75M
My middle ground with all context added: 8x$11M
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As a relatively fresh hockey fan, and more so Sabres than NHL, I haven’t watched a contending team (closely) yet so I don’t know how the roster gymnastics work.
But our 13th forward currently has 26 games played of our 50, provided the rookie next year isn’t Savoie due to whatever rules his league has, couldn’t the rookie ‘earn it’ in that 50% game share bouncing back and forth between AHL and NHL? Or are there rules - i.e.) number of call-ups and send downs maybe - that would prevent that?
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Do with this what you will.. Personally after being completely done with Mitts early in the season, I’m starting to embrace him as a key middle 6 piece for the team moving forward.
Mitts production regresses to the mean as his recent on-ice efforts start to turn into on-ice results, being a key piece to the playoff charge? I’m here for that vibe
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Wasn’t it Mike Harrington a week ago or so that was saying that tickets were too inexpensive and fans didn’t have a right to complain, and now he’s saying tickets shouldn’t be rising?
Or do I have the wrong guy?
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1 minute ago, inkman said:
Is this good or bad
Good thing
Despite whiffing at the puck on a solid one time chance immediately after me posting it lol
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Quinn looks like a freak so far
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On 1/24/2023 at 11:09 PM, JoeSchmoe said:
Bjeaken
You won’t convince me that this thread wasn’t created solely to sneak this in 😭
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Trade Olofsson for some assets, and swap in a dynamic 5v5 scorer in his place? Does it work as simple as that?
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Don’t think postponing this game should be something of consideration at all, sports help through tough times and the case will be the same even when it’s sports that are causing the tough times.
The city could use this in my opinion, my only wish would be that the game be at home. I’d like to be there for this one and feel the weight and relief of a moment of silence from the crowd in unity.
Go Sabres, give us a positive distraction for a few hours tonight 🙏
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11 hours ago, Pimlach said:
1. Maybe, but lots of hockey left.
2. TNT will pass 50. Dahlin will score 20, Skinner 32, Tuch 28, Cozens 20.
3. The rookies will get going again.
4 The defense will get healthy, no trades to help us until the deadline when we get a D prospect.5. No one but Power will be most improved from start to finish
6. no
7. KA waits to deadline. Trades Mitts for a D prospect.
8. goaltending will be average.
9. Good season but no playoff , the conference is stacked.Hit it right on the head, saved me some typing
Only difference I’d say in my opinion, for #5, Olofsson will see quite a glow up once Mitts is traded and they’re separated for good
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17 minutes ago, Doohickie said:
I can't see the Sabres postgame... 3 weeks ago who couldn't do it? UPL?
Yes UPL, the OP implies though that DG was hinting that the Sabres organization were the ones saying that
In context of the interview I think what he was actually implying was that fans/media were saying that UPL couldn’t do it
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2 minutes ago, Marvin said:
Welcome back!
I’m here daily, just more of a lurker, 49 points in 3 years lol
Thank you though 🍻
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Good God UPL
Have yourself a night buddy
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For all of the “we have to play at an X point pace”
Even after the OT loss last night, the Sabres are 5-2-2 since the losing streak. That’s a 110 point pace. They were 7-3 before the winning streak, a 115 point pace.
Maybe I’m crazy but I’m here to buckle in for the ride
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Feels like some excitement is slowly creeping back in to this team and that’s fun
I, as some weird deranged Buffalo sports fan, will watch every game I can whether it’s 8 game losing streaks or 6 goal first periods
Friends and family around me however seem to slowly be picking up on rumblings that this team might just actually be a good team with two stars and a few other budding stars, while just being held back by a couple things and are starting to tune into the games more frequently
With that said, split these Pitt games and grab the dub against LAK and that feeling will just continue to cement itself even more
Go Sabres
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how do we feel about keeping this thread open but deleting the first post 😭
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8 minutes ago, tom webster said:
You have no idea what motivates every player on the team.
I’ve made this point ad nauseum but everyone is motivated by their own values. There was a time that Wayne Gretzky and Alex Ovechkin dreamed of playing for the Sabres. Mario Williams came to the Bills because he saw a deer in Jim Kelly’s back yard. Buffalo’s proximity to Canada is a huge draw. Some people want to play close to home, some want to be as far away as possible. Athletes are no different than the rest of us. Believe it or not, some of us still reside in Western New York because we want to and don’t tell anyone, I actually know a few people that yearn to come back.
This was a hard concept for me to understand as a kid, why wouldn’t everyone take pay cuts to win championships?
The older I get, the more I realize I’m a big fan of warm weather. I’d personally take a pay cut to play and live in the south, even if that meant playing for a perennial loser.
It’s different for every athlete, they have different things that motivate them. They’re real humans too.
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I’m sure there’s going to be a large portion of the board that won’t appreciate the analytics and will shake their fist at the fancy stats but ..
According to moneypuck, the Sabres won on the Deserve To Win O ‘Meter in 2 of the games (Arizona & Carolina), and they were 5% off from a coin flip game against 2 of the NHL’s top 3 teams (Boston & Vegas), as well as Tampa and Ottawa
Admittedly a touch skewed by the Arizona game, but at 5v5 the Sabres have actually WON the expected goals battle 14.49 to 14.15 over the 7 game losing streak.
They’re scoring 1.7 goals per game compared to their 2.6 goals expected, and allowing 3.8 goals per game compared to their 2.7 goals expected.
When you look at all scenarios instead of just 5v5, that’s where the xG battle flips, and now the Sabres are losing 21.84 to 27.77 over the losing streak.
Blah, blah, blah fancy stat this, fancy stat that .. TL;DR - Fix the power play, let your finishing catch up to where it should be instead of hitting 2 posts per game, let the goaltenders get back on track and get rid of this putrid streak of puck luck and suddenly the Sabres look like an average NHL team again like most expected before the season.
No one loves or likes losing 7 games in a row, but this isn’t a bottom 5 team in the NHL. It’s a rough stretch by a young team, as we all also expected to happen in the offseason, combined with some terrible puck luck. If any of these games were to have happened in a vacuum outside of the losing streak, no one would have batted an eye. A mid to high 80 point season with vast season long improvements over last year is still very possible, and on my own end I know it’s still very well expected. There’s not many excuses for losing 7 in a row, but it’ll snap eventually — hopefully sooner than later — and we’ll all forget about it and be happy with the progression the team made this year without even thinking about a top 3 pick.
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In past years it seemed the fancy stats didn’t necessarily back the hot starts.
This year? 10th in xG% (52.81%) and 11th in Expected Goal Differential/60 (0.3). That can certainly change, but at least it supports the idea that the Sabres are actually winning by playing productive hockey rather than by fluke comebacks and puck luck - so far.
It’s hard to buy in this early, we’ve been burned so frequently over the past few years.
My (completely arbitrary) mark for November to continue in that direction would be 17 points in the 14 games, and that does seem entirely possible. (0-1-1 @ TB, @ CAR | 2-1-1 vs ARI, vs VGK, vs BOS, vs VAN | 2-1 @ OTT, @ TOR, @ MTL | 2-1-1 vs STL, vs NJ, vs TB, @ DET — seems achievable, no?)
And even if they were able to string Novemver together like that, I’ll be trying not to get my own hopes up until the New Year. Even the 10 game win streak year went well past a third of the season with the Sabres 1st in the NHL.
The groups incredibly young, a tough losing streak has to be lingering here somewhere. I’ll start to truly buy in and move the line of expectations after we see what they look like after half of the season has passed.
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Things we love to see:
- Dahlin was clearly the best player on the ice
- They seemed ready to battle back and recover in the second until the Seattle PP goal
Things we hate to see:
- Tired, empty effort
- Mittlestadt slacking on the way off of the ice on Quinn’s ‘goal’
- Dahlin and Power as a pairing in Mule’s absence should not be the answer
- Breakaway, after breakaway, after breakaway
- Does this first line exist? Just invisible outside of one shift in the second
- Outside of Dahlin, there wasn’t a single player that made you say ‘wow’ at any point in the game
- The powerplay 🤢
Unpopular opinion:
- Krebs passing could be used on the powerplay
Onto Montreal
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2023 trade speculation and rumors
in The Aud Club
Posted
the tweet says: My prediction for the Sabres deadline is that they trade for a defenseman and it’s not someone we have been discussing at all
If you don’t follow the original account that jeremy responded too I would go ahead and give it a follow, one of my favorite accounts on sabres twitter