JohnC

You're right that for the most part the Chiefs blunted the run game. But you still have to mix it in and keep their defense in check to prevent them from cutting loose and attacking the qb. Sticking with the run when there wasn't much production was the right approach to take in the game within the game.

What is a plerp?

I consider the Sabres as basically a middling team. For me, whether they are a .500 team or not is not a consequential issue. Even if they are a .500 team, so what! This franchise has become irrelevant as an NHL franchise. From a league narrative standpoint it is basically invisible. What's outrageous is that this descent has been going on for nearly a generation. That's ridiculous!

It's noticeable to me, too. There is also an "intensity" differential watching other teams compared to watching the too often flat Sabres. I do believe that the Sabres are a .500 team. What does that mean? You are striving to attain being mediocre. That in itself is pathetic.

There isn't any team that doesn't deal with injuries. Most teams play their backups significant amounts of time. There are a number of workhorse goalies but not as many as in the "old" era. It's inarguable that having a quality backup is important. But how much of an improvement is it with Reimer as the backup? What we got is what we got. Criticizing Lev's performances is warranted. What's also warranted is recognizing that the play in front of him on defense and offense is inadequate, to put it mildly. It's easy to point out particular deficiencies in this roster from the goalies to the forwards to the defensemen. The roster in general is simply inadequate not only from a talent standpoint but more indictable from an individual competitive level. The results shouldn't be surprising when you have a mediocre GM and a clueless owner. The most intolerable aspect of this team is that it is boring to watch. It didn't take me long to switch over to the Georgia vs Tenn college football game. There was passion on the field and in the stands. I have no doubt that when the injured players return the Sabres will be better. But so what? There is not enough talent or proper construction of the roster to sustain it for extended periods of time. Extended mediocrity becomes wretched mediocrity that is tough to take. It's so sad how irrelevant and invisible this franchise has become since the Puegula takeover.

Are you sure you didn't mean Adams re-signing being considered a "big" move"? That's more likely to be the case.

That's the solution for every game. Play hard and smart. Those traits weren't abundant enough in the Montreal and Islander games. Lost opportunities that were there for the taking.

That's exactly where I want Cozens located on the second PP unit. I agree with you that he's not much of a threat shooing from the perimeter. However, he has more utility when he mucks it up around the net.

The difference between this year and prior years is the coach. Lindy stresses net presence. He does have the ability to get in the tough areas and mix it up. We'll see. I didn't watch last night's game but from the highlights it seemed to me that he was around the net more. We'll see. Just a general observation not specific to Cozens is that this year under Lindy there is a greater effort by our players to hover around the net in our offensive zone and on the power play. Benson, one of our smaller players, and Greenway, one of our bigger players, are adept at it. And so is Zucker.

Assuming Cozens gets PP time, I believe that he should consistently be in the 25-30 goal range.

There is no question that unless your second line is offensively productive it is not fulfilling its role. It's evident that when a lower line is challenging the second line in production that you have a problem. I wasn't able to watch the Blues game but saw some clips of the game. It seems that Cozens is getting better as he gets more aggressive around the net, and with Quinn there is a slight uptick in his game. Although Quinn is a young player he has previously shown that he has a lot more potential to draw from. (Although not so much evident this season.) The Quinn malaise has really perplexed me. I thought that he was going to make a quantum leap this season. I'm not writing him off although much of the crowd already has.

Incrementally he is improving. That's better than incrementally sliding back. Cozens is more noticeably getting better. Benson is driving the line. The team's prospects are so much better if this line can play at a second line level.

Let's celebrate a home win. https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/watch/1st-female-nz-army-chief-maj-gen-rose-king-honored-with-haka/vi-AA1u64eH?ocid=hpmsn

I have little problem with the additions. However, that is not to say that addressing the lower lines and making them faster and grittier were enough. In my view, it raised the floor but didn't do enough to impactfully improve the team. In my opinion, the exchange of Mitts for Byram was a mistake. It was an equal talent exchange but from a roster standpoint it hurt the roster. What I was hoping for was adding a second line caliber. Overall, collectively his decisions lacked the required impactful addition that needed to be made. Taking a casual approach when you are managing a middling roster is insufficient. There is little urgency and too much satisfaction in toddling along. Simply not good enough.

There is no question that prior to making a hockey decision that the GM has to run it by the owner. But as @Thorner has pointed out, there is nothing unusual about that. The owner wants to be kept in the loop before a decision is made. I don't find that surprising or a process/sequence to be critical of. There are some organizations where the hockey operation is completely separate from the corporate owner. But in an ownership structure of a single individual owner, he being involved or attuned to what is going on (however one wants to describe it) shouldn't be a surprise. There is no question that the GM has a more limited budget to work with than many other organizations have. But that limitation shouldn't be an explanation for every hockey decision the GM makes. Of course, our GM has made some good decisions. This offseason, he smartly rebuilt the lower lines. But overall, his body of work is average in a competitive field where you are going against other GMs who are wiser and more creative in working within their own challenging and often limiting environments. I haven't given up on this season just yet. However, I'm not going to dumb down what good work and success are. Your record is your record. No more excuses.

I'm not going to get involved in whether KA is qualified or not as a GM. What I can comfortably say that as a GM he is mediocre (at best). He's had more than enough time to implement his mostly "draft and develop" rebuild approach and get to the stage where his constructed team is seriously competing. By any measure (record and performance) this team has not reached that basic stage. I'm sad to say that but what is obvious is obvious. A good GM doesn't simply add players. His job is to construct a roster that can be molded into a good team. It's more than basic bricklaying. It's about getting the right players who support the developing players and elevate them. The standard for this franchise is so low that when it wins three games in a row many fans get deluded into believing that this team has broken through and has crossed the threshold of being more than respectable. Then the inevitable relapse brings the fans back to the dismal world of reality. I've used this metaphor on a number of occasions so excuse me for the redundancy. KA is a checkers player in a game with chess players. The rumor that he is considering make a big deal makes some people excited. Not I. It's his freaking job! When your team is stuck in the muck of generational mediocrity it is incumbent on your somnolent GM to wake up and try something else to alter the meandering course. It's his freaking job!

When you own a business the measurement of success is your profit margin. When you own a sports franchise the measurement of success is your W/L record. It's not much of a challenge to make a judgment on Pegula's ownership of the Sabres. It's an unvarnished failure in a system designed for parity.

Are you sure that is Cozens? I thought it was the devil.

What's perplexing to me is that when he bought the team the new owner let it be known that hockey was his favorite sport. He loudly declared that his goal was to win the Cup. When he first took over, he recklessly spent gobs of money on overrated talent. Especially during the covid era and afterwards, he seemed to be more attuned to the balance sheet. (I have no criticism of the owner's spartan operation during the covid era with empty arenas. Surviving was a challenge for most businesses.) After that tough business environment he became more interested in the balance sheet than the team stat sheet. What happened? Did he become more interested in his higher profiled football team? Did his wife's devastating illness alter his interest in his sports businesses? I don't know. What's bothersome is that I don't recall him making many (if any) public comments about the hockey team and what he expected of it. Has he lost his desire and interest in the team? As an owner, he's mostly silent and incommunicado. So what do we have to go on about judging his commitment. Based on how the team has operated it's basically a low budget operation. That is indisputable. My hope is that under Lindy, this team gains enough success to the point where the team becomes a factor in the league and the fans come back to fill the many available seats in the arena. Just maybe that might be the impetus for him to take this franchise more seriously and demonstrate a greater commitment by increasing his support $$$. @Brawndo your posts on this topic have been exemplary. In detail, you documented the facts. They are indisputable. Some people get bothered by having to face a reality that is an uncomfortable reality.

I respectfully but strenuously disagree with getting rid of the offsides rule. As you point out, there will be to many "goal hangers" if this basic rule was eliminated. It would in my opinion dramatically alter how the game is played. So my vote is a hard no!

I'll always remember his profile picture. RIP and condolences to his family. That's a young age to be laid to rest.

When discussing the cap one can get sidetracked/misled when comparing one contract to another. The Mitts for Byram contract comparisons really don't get to the core of the cap issue. The critical issue when discussing the cap under the recent Pegula tenure is about the aggregate expenditure. And on that issue as stressed by @Brawndo the organization has for the past number of years been demonstrably under the cap max limit and bordering on the cap minimum requirement. Hopefully, as you also point out, the cap expenditure will go up as some of our younger players' contracts come into play. In general, our GM has done a good job in adding medium level role players to strengthen the bottom of our roster. However, that is not to say that this underachieving organization didn't have the wherewithal (cap space) to bring in a second-line player to bolster another line. Even with the additions of Lafferty and Zucker, another second line talent could have been added if the desire was there to do so. That desire didn't exist.

The one thing that Lindy is doing well is balancing out the minutes for all four lines. It helps that the lower lines are playing well and eating up some of the minutes that the second line would normally get. In the long run, spreading out the minutes will lesson the fatigue and battered factors for the roster as the season grinds on. The difference between this year and previous years is that the team is at a stage where there is depth that can fill in without a major drop in performance.

I don't see profligate spending in the Pegula era. However, I'm not out of hand dismissing the possibility that there will be an uptick in spending as this team becomes more competitive. Will the money more likely be directed toward our young players as their contracts come due rather than outside players? Probably so. What this organization desperately needs is more success on the ice so that there will be more people in the stands $$$ so the balance sheet becomes more balanced. If that materializes, I do so the owner more willing to open the wallet.

My view of Gilbert is that he is a pedestrian and fringe player. But, in this game, for some odd reason the refs were determined to single him out. We have all heard the term "the teacher's pet" but in this case he was the "teacher's target". The calls against him were both unfair and baffling. As like you, I didn't really understand why Byram got such an absurd number of minutes. I'm not saying that he shouldn't have gotten a heavy workload, but it seemed way too large. I would have added a couple more minutes to Power and Clifton.