That's No Moon

Nah, they aren't the walking dead they're dead dead.

Levi panning out above the A will be a surprise. Short goalies are very rare these days.

What change in goalie? Lyon replaces Reimer; they are basically the same player. UPL is terrible and without MASSIVE improvement from him the team is in the same place in goal next season. They have a goalie they are basically stuck with for the next 4 years at 4.75MM AAV, a journeyman backup, and a 23 year old 6' prospect. People seem to be pinning a LOT of hope on Levi to be the rare short goaltender who is successful in modern hockey because other than him the pipeline doesn't have anything else coming any time soon.

I can look at the results and see they don't know what they are doing. There isn't and hasn't been a comprehensive plan. They throw stuff at the wall. The most recent "plan" with Granato was to play wide open hockey with skilled players. That's fine and it's fun. They then didn't invest in a proper goaltender to bail out the young defense and the forwards who backcheck about as energetically as a rotting corpse. Now they are changing course to become harder to play against. Great. The STILL don't have a goaltender or a plan to fix the god awful power play. All the coaches are coming back. Why? Shortly after Botterill and his staff were fired and Adams was hired, I spoke face-to-face with a pretty connected NHL person who would know. This person said out loud that nobody in the league respects Adams. At that time, it was over the way he got his job. However, with the essentially closed society that hockey is, I am quite certain that those people haven't forgotten and it impacts every single thing Adams tries to do, from trades with other GMs to work with agents and players, from people who flat out refuse to work for Adams. Normally people like that are cagey about saying too much specific, this one came right out and said it without prompting. And no I didn't write off the Bills during their drought. The thing that was different about the Bills, even when they couldn't make the playoffs, it was apparent that they were at least trying. What's more than that is supporting them through that time was as much about keeping the team in Buffalo as it was about anything else. My beef with the Sabres, frankly, is personal. I brought my oldest son to the last Sabres playoff game. He was 5. He was starting to play hockey and I was looking forward to going through his childhood with hockey and the Sabres. He's now 19, away at college during the season, and they never played a playoff game again. Not only that they became a joke during that time. People who apparently know better than me hired Ron Rolston, Ted Nolan 2.0, Phil Housley, and Ralph freaking Krueger to be the coach. They also hired Dan Bylsma and Don Granato who got CLOSE to the playoffs but couldn't close the deal but at least looked like they had half a plan while they were losing. If management had gotten Granato a goaltender he would have made the playoffs but it was more important for them to not block the kids. Idiocy. Pegula is a putz and what's worse is that he thinks he knows how to run a hockey team which makes it 1000% worse.

They've drafted very well and often signed or acquired decent players; there are former Sabres all over recent Cup winning teams. In terms of having cursory knowledge, I used to watch every game. I don't think I've watched a full Sabres game in about 3 years and I've truned down free tickets to games the last 4 years. I turn them on, get disgusted quickly, and then turn it back off. If you want to ding people like me for that that fine, they just aren't worth watching or aggravating myself over. It's beyond clear that they have absolutely no idea what they are doing and that Terry has made the decision not to spend on the team. They are the Pirates of the NHL and I'm not here for that. When they get serious about trying to compete then I will get serious about watching them again.

If they get more than 50 games out of Norris I'll be surprised and it remains to be seen if the new defenders are actually better or just different.

Yeah, we'll see. Toughness is a team mentality sort of thing. You don't have tough players, you have a tough team. Either the guys who want to play that way will drag the shrinking violets into it or they will become violets themselves as they realize that the other sacks of crap don't have their backs or give half a darn. This team is a gutless sack of crap until well proven otherwise.

Fair, but there is now another one in the NBA with Malik Beasley and the Feds are involved. The issue is, and I have said several times, with prop betting. It is MUCH easier for a player to influence the outcome of a prop bet than they are the outcome of the entire game. What's worse IMO is the prop betting erodes confidence in the product more than the outcome of the game. Did the player drop that pass intentionally or not when the O/U on their catches is at 5.5 and they are sitting on 5? Etc. There are tons of examples of head scratching moments that, without prevalent prop betting, you forget about and move on. However, when there is money on the line for just about every single thing happening in a game the strange things stick out more and make people ask more questions.

Miami has spent the 11th pick overall, Jalen Ramsey, Jonnu Smith and a 7th round pick to acquire Minkah Fitzpatrick, Austin Jackson, Jason Strowbridge, Johnathan Marshall, a 7th round choice and finally...Minkah Fitzpatrick. That's some solid asset management right there. With the Steelers QB situation, or lack of, they have to be all in this season. If they deal Watt it will be for immediate help.

As much as I'm thoroughly disenchanted with everything Sabres, you can hook this Bedkowski fella directly to my veins.

I wonder when we get to the point where players frequently refuse to sign with the Sabres. Brendan Lemieux did that and got himself dealt as a 2nd rounder.

It's horrid.

I was just as excited that the Sabres chose him if that matters. We will be fortunate to see him on the ice in 2029.

***** and the Blazers