That Aud Smell

Nah - @PASabreFan drops those gems all on his own, afaict. It's why he swooned when someone characterized the power play as execrable. Still counts.

I see this take a lot. It makes me squint my eyes and think: "Find Josh his first-ballot-HOF, position-transforming tight end" (or other catcher of footballs). Okey dokey.

I'll agree with you on the coaching front -- clear advantage to the Chiefs there. I haven't taken a look at the cap issues the team will confront -- but that must be true, I'm sure. That said, I have a sneaking suspicion that, on balance, the Bills' roster will be as good or even slightly better next year. They will take steps back in some places, but should be able to get better in others. One thing that they likely won't repeat is the overall health that the offence enjoyed in 2023. That was remarkable. I guess the injuries on the defence sort of balanced things out in that regard.

Pardon me if I'm cutting in: Anyone care to share a take on where Power is in terms of development and/or how he projects as an NHLer? I've mostly stopped paying attention to how the team and players perform. But given that they've committed to the guy long-term, I am curious to get perspectives on where he's at, where he may be headed. For my part, he generally makes me say meh.

Imo, of all the teams that the Chiefs faced in the playoffs, the Bills looked the most capable of beating them (and, sure as eggs is eggs, I damn sure thought the Bills were gonna do it!). (Yeah, yeah - the 49ers took the Chiefs to OT. Even so.)

This squares with my memory. I recall the discussion here about how the scouting department was being gutted, whether the Sabres were going to the "video scouting" model, the role that analytics would play in creating player evaluation efficiencies (Karmanos? (sp?)), and so on. This would also square with Adams' having assembled talent but not built a team.

Hmm. Interesting. I'd lost sight of that dynamic surrounding the hiring of GM KA.

Agreed. I've posted here about the Sabres having too much of the same kind(s) of guy(s). "Good vibes only." GM KA has assembled talent. He has not built a team.

How you say ... that does not ... pass the smell test.

This is perfectly stated. I feel like there was a hit on a Sabre back in the 2005-2007 window that was like this one (when the rules and norms were different, of course). Reflexively, I want to say that Connolly was on the wrong end of it. Pominville perhaps? Same idea: Player on offence is stretching, reaching as they enter the zone, and their head is therefore low, and the defending player is coming through to deliver a big bodycheck.

This makes sense. Interestingly, there are parallels to other sports. In my experience, highly competitive youth soccer teams and leagues involve less (or even no) cheap sh1t and minimal drama from the sidelines. The lower level the play gets, the more nasty stuff you see from players and, Lord help us, the worse the behaviour of the parents on the sidelines.

Same! Softball, though. I never played anything other than street hockey as a kid. In my situation, the gal was 5 foot nothing and of slight build. Again, this was a bar league softball game. She knew how to play organized softball (same ideas in hard ball) -- i.e., basic base running etiquette and situational awareness. I grew up playing soccer, so I did not have the same understanding. Oof, as I made my toward and around second base. When I crossed home plate a little while later, my own kids (girls (6 and under)) booed me for running over a girl.

This is an impressive inventory, @dudacek - thanks for sharing it. Some of the Sabre teams of my middle school and early high school years (so, running roughly from 83-87) are ones that I recall disliking. That especially goes for those days where Bowman had drafted a bunch of wunderkinds, but all I remember is the girls being in love with Paul Cyr and Sean McKenna, but the team itself seeming like less than the sums of their parts.

As one of my kid’s coaches used to pointedly observe of certain players: “Enamored of a skill set he does not possess.”

This is also arguably relevant to an assessment of Connolly. My remarks above were really directed to "soft" being raised in response to the guy needing season-ending surgery. The above seems like a fair point of discussion. In his career to date, Samuelsson has regularly missed a few (or more) games here, a few (or more) games there. Does he (can he?) not play through injury like other warrior-mentality players do? If in fact he's not playing through the same dings, nicks, and knocks that other players are playing through ... then ... yeah - arguably "soft" by NHL standards? A problem with this inquiry is that we can't really know what he's not playing through.

Thanks for this take. It prompted me to recall how @X. Benedict once dealt with repeated statements here (circa 06-07 and perhaps beyond) to the effect that Tim Connolly played a soft game, was a soft player. X acknowledged that, yes, Connolly was not a physical player as it's traditionally thought about, but that he was nonetheless a physically courageous player in that he routinely placed himself in dangerous situations in order to advance the puck, the play. Nothing soft about that at all. That view fundamentally and permanently changed how I viewed the player.

I find the "soft" talk - both here on this board and elsewhere on teh interwebs (Twitter mainly) - to be ... well, not what I'd prefer to see from fellow Sabre fans. That's putting it as charitably as I can. The player being "injury prone" is a fair discussion, or even observation. But soft? The guy's not soft. He's unlucky, apparently. And, yes, probably injury prone. Dude had to pack it in so that he could get surgery. But that doesn't make him soft.

I went back just now and looked at the official team account's first Tweet about this. They still have it posted with his last name misspelled. The team has the check mark, premium account, or whatever. They can go back and edit that post. But they haven't. They won't. Mickey. Fu**ing. Mouse.

The dead money cap penalty for moving on from Diggs next season would be prohibitive and ruinous. The best hope is that they draft a big upside guy who flashes early and Diggs returns to form. In general, Diggs is a declining WR1 whose game should age well. He’s a route running technician.

The thing that keeps coming to mind for me: Like all pro athletes (good "pros," anyway), these guys are year-round world class hockey players. So I'm confident that, if Quinn's well enough to play NHL hockey, he'll be raring to go -- even if there were only a few games left with Buffalo mathematically eliminated. He'd want to get that run in as he heads to the offseason.

Lol - simmer down. The medical insights of actual physicians - such as @Wyldnwoody44 - are valued here.

Oy. There’s a ramping-up period after a player is cleared to return to play. And I inferred that it’s 8 weeks for a return to play.