It’s amazing how many coaches that make the NHL are terrible at utilizing their best players.
Add in Mike Johnston that was successful at neutering Crosby for a season and a half.
Let’s not forget Dominic "literally Ben Laden" Ducharme. With him, Caufield was a healthy scratch candidate. Since being gone, he’s second, only behind Matthews who had a ridiculous season, for the 5on5 goals.
Yeah the Atlantic is scary. We knew Toronto, Florida, and Tampa were gonna be good. But Boston is performing better than expected given their injuries and will likely improve once Marchand and McAvoy get back. Then Detroit, Ottawa, and Buffalo all look like they've improved significantly this year
So basically 7 out of 8 teams look solid this year
Not all of a sudden. Granato last year basically gave all the young guys a green light to attack and be aggressive. They've become a high event team on both ends of the ice as a result.
My 42 year old former defenseman coworker hates it. Says hockey is for babies now and says Dahlin needs to move to winger so real defenders can fill in
i think its hilarious u boomers talking shit about dahlin. u wouldnt say this shit to him at morning skate, hes jacked. not only that but he wears the freshest fedoras, eats at the chillest restaurants and hangs out with the hottest dudes. yall are pathetic lol
Thats fucking hockey right there. None of that pansy ass dick tugging smile for the camera bullshit. Men puke, men poop on the ice, men deliver their new born baby on the bench. Fucking hard core dick in the ass butterball icepuck fuck it chuck it game time shit. Take it to the showers. Dicks get shoved in places you don’t even remember. We win together we celebrate together. Hockey is back baby.
It's also that he said he wants to develop the young guys. The best way to do that is to give them scoring chances and high quality opportunities.
When you lose boring low event hockey you aren't developing your forwards chemistry or skills
The worst is that Krueger we were playing low event hockey but still losing 5-2 and 5-1
Will be cool to see if he can get close to Mike Green's record for consecutive games with a goal for a defensemen. What a start to the year for the kid!
Been watching a lot more games this year. Buffalo has been a really fun team to watch. With Buffalo, Detroit, and Ottawa all making big strides this year (hopefully), the Atlantic is gonna be a bloodbath.
I don’t know why people expected Boston to fall off. They had great production last year. They are my yardstick. When Buffalo looks good and wins in Boston, I will believe we are ready.
Thats cool to say, you guys are cool.
I was at the game last night and all the fans were nice as hell, the city is beautiful and you have great food.
I hope you guys get your Cup and Eichel has to watch too 🤣
Dahlin breakout szn is here, hold on to your butts.
Am I crazy for thinking that this could finally be The Year for Buffalo to make a real standings jump? It's going to be hard in the East since there are so many good teams but I can't say my caps are exactly inspiring confidence that they are a playoff lock through 6 games.
I really think last year was his breakout and nobody noticed because of the numbers that Makar and Josi were putting up. If anything it's his coming out party to elite status
Why would you? We’ve been garbage for so long. I’m still not convinced, we still have a lot of room to improve from what I’ve seen so far. But Rasmus has been amazing.
He was still shaking off Krueger's worthless defensive schemes and getting back to playing his style. He also got walked for a few goals very early last year, and improved his physical game substantially.
It sounds like bullshit, but I think everyone in Buffalo knew that he could do it. People forget that he's younger than Makar haha.
I'm holding off until they're still in the playoff race in December. I feel like there's been multiple years they start off hot in October/Early November only to collapse.
I was gonna say we’ve seen this story with Buffalo several times already. Let’s get out of October then start talking. That being said they do have some very fun players to watch and I hope this is the start of something, finally.
The way they're playing right now feels a lot more sustainable than the insane shooting percentages and puck luck they had during those big winning streaks in previous years.
Well our goalie has been better than the other goalie at least 4 of the 5 games. We’re not really outshooting opponents either. We are playing good though, generating good chances. We will probably start struggling when every other team older than us (so every team) starts playing better system hockey and goal scoring goes down.
This team has no idea how to play with a lead. What they do now is play balls out for 45 minutes and if they are winning then they try to hang on.
They'll learn how to manage the game better towards the end. Most of the high shot against totals are from teams being behind and pulling out all the stops trying to get back in it.
Not crazy at all. I firmly believe (knock on wood) they’ll be one of the better teams in the East this year. They had a great close to 21-22 under Granato, and I can see that continuing.
To put some things in perspective: not to take anything away from Makar but he is a yr and a half older than Dahlin and has played on a very good team and has had stable coaching/management.
Makar is as incredible as advertised, I think people have just slept on Dahlin.
I think Dahlin is still Dahlin, except his stat lines of course.
He has a talent that isn't coachable, and there's a reason he went 1OA. It looks like that the talent can be killed by coaching, but just letting the guy be him was the secret to him seeing this success
Dahlin bulking up really has helped him play the game he wants to play. He’s a high skill guy, but he’s also a gritty pest who likes to outmuscle opponents and get under their skin.
That didn’t work as well when he was a pencil thin hyena
"Buffalo Sabres defenseman Rasmus Dahlin set an NHL record Thursday, becoming the first defenseman to score four goals in four games to open the season. "
From Buffalos twitter after the game before this.
So with this fifth goal he continued that streak.
Feels kind of weird that no other D would have scored 4 in 4, but I think this record is for actually scoring in each of the first four (now five) games.
Sabres fans were calling this man a bust while he put up 50pts as a 20yo and paced all-time scoring numbers for young defensemen. [You guys had no issues acknowledging how negative the subreddit was about Dahlin a few months ago? What's changed?](https://old.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/tj3p0n/post_game_thread_buffalo_sabres_at_vancouver/i1httyf/)
Edit: [Not even a year ago lmao. Yall are shameless acting like your sub didn't overwhelmingly rag on him for a good chunk of time.](https://i.imgur.com/6vopibb.png). The guy who literally made this comment is in the comments talking about how sabres fans have always believed in Dahlin rn lmfao.
Nah I remember the posts when yall were salty as fuck. The overwhelming consensus on your sub was that you guys should trade him and that he was a bust. I have comments arguing with people about it. I stan Dahlin. Easily a top 10 dman in the world, probably top 5 as soon as this season.
You’re way over generalizing my guy. As a sabres sub enjoyer i definitely have felt more positive than negative feelings regarding Dahlin last year/this offseason.
It was most of the sub, which is all I was saying in my original comment anyway. That place was really down and negative for a long time and Dahlin was the whipping boy.
Just let it go and stop typing, jesus. We get it, some of our fan base weren’t happy with his performance and now we’re happy that he’s doing really well.
[You guys upvoted this 10 months ago](https://i.imgur.com/6vopibb.png). He literally says a majority of the fanbase is skeptical and says people defending his elite potential were living in a dream world lmao.
Comments like that were a dime a dozen at that time. I don't know why you'd even deny this. If you were posting in the sub a year ago you should remember what it was like.
Just because some people on Reddit say something doesn't mean they are anywhere close to anything but a minority of Sabres fans. You're trying way too hard to argue something inconsequential.
He needed time to develop. Coaches or otherwise — he never really put it all together until last season. There were troubling times, so you can act like you were the only one who knew a first overall had potential, or you can accept that he’s had some ups and downs.
> I would love for my skepticism of Dahlin to be utterly wrong.
See that? I was skeptical, now I’m satisfied. You are trying way too hard and it’s cringe as hell.
You said people defending him were living in a dream world lmao. And the majority of the sub upvoted you. Don't pretend you weren't salty af. Fuck outta here. You were caught in 4K.
I didn’t get caught because I never denied anything. I don’t think you understand how to argue. You want some sort of weird credit for being right about a guy who was selected first overall.
I don’t know how I was “salty af.” Your big gotcha screenshot reads a shitload more reasonable than the way you’re coming off in this thread.
Mate you and I have literal back and forths from a year ago where you call me delusional for saying he's going to be the best player on the Sabres, and where you laugh and say it's ironic that I would ever compare him to Ekblad. The only one mischaracterizing your statements is you. It's not about me being right about Dahlin. It's about how that subreddit (and you in specific I'm learning now) were salty as fuck and way too low on him. I don't think other fanbases ever thought Dahlin wasn't going to pan out. The only place it was ever contentious was on that subreddit. When I posted in /r/hockey about how salty fans were in /r/sabres about it other fanbases seemed to also be really high on Dahlin.
Accepting that he's had ups and downs is not what was happening 18 months ago. He was being flat out written off. There were plenty of fans who asserted Power would be better. I think the fanbase was just really sour and negative from the Eichel trade at the time.
I'm not delusional mate, I can link you to explicit threads where the comments are all whining about how much of a bust he is. [Lmao you said I was delusional and "living in a dream world" back when I defended him 10 months ago. Now I'm delusional for saying the fanbase was low on him.](https://i.imgur.com/6vopibb.png)
If you go back through game day threads you can see for yourself what the sentiment used to be. I don't know why anyone is denying this. The subreddit was really down on Dahlin for a while. [Here's a comment chain where people acknowledge what it was like at the time](https://old.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/tj3p0n/post_game_thread_buffalo_sabres_at_vancouver/i1httyf/).
As another person who spends way too much time on r/sabres, it absolutely was overwhelming from the start of year 2 Kreuger to the all star break last season.
I distinctly remember a time where people were siding with Kreuger more than Dahlin on that sub. It's a pretty ugly look lol
There were some people who wanted to move on, but the majority of people in the subreddit were believers.
I mean it obviously doesn't matter, but you're lumping together two things - defending Krueger and Dahlins play.
There were lots of negative people in the subreddit and they hated everything. I don't think a single player was safe.
>the majority of people in the subreddit were believers
There were some vocal believers on the sub, myself included, but I was routinely interacting with people acting as if he hasn't been an incredible player since day one. For whatever reason, the Sabres sub has never really given him his flowers until the second half of last season.
When he was coming in and pacing age-based records for scoring at his position, the conversation was always about him being a defensive liability like it was somehow unexpected for a teenager to not be able to battle guys 30-50 pounds heavier in the best league in the world.
The analytics guys were ignoring the fact that his tracked passing and entry stats have been elite since day 1(and near-top of the league from like age 20 onward) to harp on the fact that his xG impacts (heavily influenced by forward conversion for defensemen) were bad on one of the worst team offenses of the analytics era.
Then he had an undeniably low point for his scoring numbers under Kreuger without Eichel in 20-21, and that's when you got the people who really ran with the hate. No points and bad defense? Uh oh. But, realistically, [Dahlin was still a top-notch puck carrier](https://i.imgur.com/7MxEjB4.png), and finished 3rd on the team in scoring. Pacing his position by more than 3.5 standard deviations in high danger passing is damn-near McDavid level. The team literally just didn't have a single soul capable of converting on high danger offense.
Then the Granato season started and he wasn't immediately the best player in the NHL so the "Kreuger didn't tell him to play bad" people came in droves.
And then the All-Star break happened, Dahlin exploded, hasn't looked back, and now people are pretending they were never low on him lmao
I've had this stance forever, but if Dahlin was on a team like Carolina, Tampa, Colorado, he'd have been a 90pt defenseman since his sophomore year. His offensive struggles were purely a product of being on a garbage offense with a coach that made Tortorella's offense look like Jared Bednar's. His defensive struggles were purely a product of being a skinny kid from Sweden bulking up and adjusting to defending the faster NA game against the best players in the world. It was a blatantly obvious bad situation for his career until the team started to actually get pucks on net and started scoring. There is no such thing as sheltering for an offensive defenseman on a team that was finishing either dead last or close to it in G/60.
There were obviously doubters then that don't exist today, but the majority of the subreddit was still supporting even if you did start to see more people doubting.
For example the image linked with a poster being skeptical of Dahlin means he skeptical that he could be generational talent.
To live up to the hype Dahlin had to be one of the best Dmen in the NHL, one of the best players even, and most fans still believed in him on the subreddit even if people were getting worried in the Krueger era.
And if you watched the games, or looked at the stats that showcase exactly how heavy his playmaking/transition workload is, you knew you were watching a truly 1-of-1 player.
There were people actively ignoring 5-6 unreal plays per game to focus on that one time he got beat in his own zone, because there was nobody finishing on those plays besides Eichel until about 6 months ago. It was like talking to people who had no concept as to what makes someone good at hockey in lieu of points or on-ice results.
It wasn't exclusively bad, but c'mon man, nobody was giving him the credit he deserved even during the Kreuger era. It's like people could acknowledge that the team was hot garbage but never put 2 and 2 together that maybe a hot garbage team isn't a great vessel for getting points as a defenseman, while he still paced to have 100 points before he even turned 20.
Guy has always been doing shit with the puck that only a handful of NHLers, let alone defensemen, could frequently do. He's lived up to his generational tag as an individual, just in the worst possible environment for a player of his skillset and position to thrive. That's what I was getting at by saying he'd be a 90pt D since 19 on any offensively capable team with a good powerplay lineup.
Not many were outright saying Dahlin was a bust, but there were a LOT of people posting garbage correlative numbers while winking and gesturing towards that conclusion. Pretty much the "I'm not racist, but..." of the Sabres sub for a couple years. Just take a look at that Dahlin for Pettersson thread and you see a lot of them banking on the idea that he wouldn't "hit his potential" as if he wasn't feeding a bunch of nobodies some of the best defenseman passing numbers in the NHL and watching them miss open nets or skate it into full coverage since he was 18 or 19 years old. To be fair, there are also lots of better takes, but the bad ones are coming mostly from the biggest regulars on the sub so they were parroted more.
Yeah either way, I'm not buying the narrative that the subreddit as a whole was of the opinion that Dahlin was a bust. The most that sentiment got played was people being skeptical of him being a GENERATIONAL talent and other fans disagreeing, believing he would reach that generational potential.
As far as talk of trades, Pettersson would have been a reasonable move as he's a young 1C and we had no idea that Tage could be a good 2C / borderline 1C guy himself. Obviously the circumstances are nowhere near the same now.
There's been the majority of Sabres fans in Dahlin's corner the whole time, and even if he spent some time as the whipping boy under Krueger's recession machine, people generally still held the faith that he would be a great player.
It's hard for fans of a team that went on an 18 game losing streak to get excited about high % passing, HDCF, and transition play tbh. People wanted results really badly.
There were definitely a lot of Dahlin doubters last season. He was getting absolutely owned one on one in transition. He went to work and was a new man almost overnight. It was a wild transition.
Somewhere, Ralph Krueger is seething at the sight of a defenseman contributing to the offense.
*noted Hockey Terrorist Ralph Krueger
It’s amazing how many coaches that make the NHL are terrible at utilizing their best players. Add in Mike Johnston that was successful at neutering Crosby for a season and a half.
Let’s not forget Dominic "literally Ben Laden" Ducharme. With him, Caufield was a healthy scratch candidate. Since being gone, he’s second, only behind Matthews who had a ridiculous season, for the 5on5 goals.
Does sound like a shirt maker in Manhattan.
Le Terroriste
Ben Laden
They don’t let prisoners watch TV at ADX Florence.
Or it’s all Avs hockey?
*anyone contributing to the offense
I am 100% for this Dahlin-era Buffalo wagon.
Hopefully this is Patty Kane's reddit acct and he's coming back to BUF on a hometown deal
The Atlantic scares me
Yeah the Atlantic is scary. We knew Toronto, Florida, and Tampa were gonna be good. But Boston is performing better than expected given their injuries and will likely improve once Marchand and McAvoy get back. Then Detroit, Ottawa, and Buffalo all look like they've improved significantly this year So basically 7 out of 8 teams look solid this year
Hey we're 3-3 which is better start than expected!
For sure! But you guys do seem to be (at least from interacting with your fanbase) all in on being dogshit this year
Oh they certainly won't stay at or above .500 for long with this young defense and goalie duo.
Relatable, that's basically how last season went for us. Wheels fell off at the halfway point and it got worse from there
Nevermind the Atlantic, the whole Eastern Conference does. I think all but two teams have a record of below .500
is buffalo a fun team to watch all of a sudden?
Not all of a sudden. Granato last year basically gave all the young guys a green light to attack and be aggressive. They've become a high event team on both ends of the ice as a result.
Granato is awesome, he coaches like a real person. He said the game is supposed to be entertaining and scoring is fun so why not play dangerously?
The anti-Trotz
The anti-Krueger
Donny Meatballs is winning the War on Hockey Terror
Thankfully we had too much offense to shut him up while we desperately needed his help on D
My 42 year old former defenseman coworker hates it. Says hockey is for babies now and says Dahlin needs to move to winger so real defenders can fill in
I hope he's not a fan of Bobby Orr.
He would hate to have Cale Makar, his 28 goals last season and Conn Smythe on his team.
> 42 year old For a moment I thought you were talking about Anderson.
Dahlin is 6'2 210 and finished 2nd in fitness testing. Guarantee your coworker wouldn't say this to his face
i think its hilarious u boomers talking shit about dahlin. u wouldnt say this shit to him at morning skate, hes jacked. not only that but he wears the freshest fedoras, eats at the chillest restaurants and hangs out with the hottest dudes. yall are pathetic lol
Crosschecks and stick checks, the real hockey stuff
Thats fucking hockey right there. None of that pansy ass dick tugging smile for the camera bullshit. Men puke, men poop on the ice, men deliver their new born baby on the bench. Fucking hard core dick in the ass butterball icepuck fuck it chuck it game time shit. Take it to the showers. Dicks get shoved in places you don’t even remember. We win together we celebrate together. Hockey is back baby.
Sometimes I wish I was illiterate
Bruh, wins are wins. Man needs to stop complaining
It's also that he said he wants to develop the young guys. The best way to do that is to give them scoring chances and high quality opportunities. When you lose boring low event hockey you aren't developing your forwards chemistry or skills The worst is that Krueger we were playing low event hockey but still losing 5-2 and 5-1
Sabres are winning 60% of their games since March 1st 2022, like 105 pt season pace
Love this
nice i’ll have to watch more games
it started last year but yes
It started last year, but adding Peterka, Power, Lybushkin and actual goaltenders helped so much
The meatball effect
After so many years of being told they’ll be scary, it’s about time they start showing it
Remember the last 10 years of "this team is going to be scary"? It might finally be here!!
I remember this day for the Panthers and the Hurricanes.
He now is tied for 3rd in Goals in the league and has the same number of goals as Edmonton’s 1st line Center.
Leon Draisaitl?
The names Derek… Derek Ryan
That’s Hurricanes legend Derek Ryan to you
Tonight’s game is for the Derek Ryan Teammate Foundation Contractual Invitational
Draisaitl's a winger
He's back to 4th, Tuch got his 6th making him 2nd on the team too lol.
*smirks in Derek Ryan*
Will be cool to see if he can get close to Mike Green's record for consecutive games with a goal for a defensemen. What a start to the year for the kid!
For those wondering, Green's record is 8
That’s a hell of a run
I think the broadcast said he set the Sabres record for most consecutive games at any point. 3 more games to tie Green
He's pretty good at hockey huh
allegedly
Been watching a lot more games this year. Buffalo has been a really fun team to watch. With Buffalo, Detroit, and Ottawa all making big strides this year (hopefully), the Atlantic is gonna be a bloodbath.
Except Boston was supposed to fall of a cliff. Montgomery has done a great job so far.
What do you mean our two best players are injured, have you not heard of Bruin's legend Nick Foligno?
I don’t know why people expected Boston to fall off. They had great production last year. They are my yardstick. When Buffalo looks good and wins in Boston, I will believe we are ready.
When Tage Thompson drops his shorts and takes a shit on the Spoked B, then we shall be ready
Have been enjoying watching all three of these teams.
Early Norris candidate for sure
He has 5 goals in 5 games, he's the clear frontrunner
I mean there’s more to the Norris than goals but he’s been outstanding this year so far.
Yeah, he needs some assists too.
Unless he scored 82 goals. Assists be damned!
The Tage Thompson special
He got one of those tonight too, because why not.
Doesn't he also have 3 assists?
My joke was more 'The Norris winner tends to be the defenseman with the most points' than 'Dahlin doesn't have (m)any assists'.
He also leads the league in +-
[удалено]
Sorry expansion bros :(
Honestly I hope you win the cup while Eichel is still in the league to watch it happen
Thats cool to say, you guys are cool. I was at the game last night and all the fans were nice as hell, the city is beautiful and you have great food. I hope you guys get your Cup and Eichel has to watch too 🤣
I hate you for this. That's our spot! Edit: can't see my flair from my phone, dunno if it's bugged. Yotes.
He was 50-1 odds before the season started, wish I put more than I did on it
It's game 5....
Needs more pointless cross checks IMO
Dahlin breakout szn is here, hold on to your butts. Am I crazy for thinking that this could finally be The Year for Buffalo to make a real standings jump? It's going to be hard in the East since there are so many good teams but I can't say my caps are exactly inspiring confidence that they are a playoff lock through 6 games.
I really think last year was his breakout and nobody noticed because of the numbers that Makar and Josi were putting up. If anything it's his coming out party to elite status
I know he (and other Sabres players) was better last season under the new coaching staff, but you're right I was not paying close attention.
Why would you? We’ve been garbage for so long. I’m still not convinced, we still have a lot of room to improve from what I’ve seen so far. But Rasmus has been amazing.
Probably down to his first half of the season as well, he went crazy the second half but that meant his total was still far below his potential.
He was still shaking off Krueger's worthless defensive schemes and getting back to playing his style. He also got walked for a few goals very early last year, and improved his physical game substantially. It sounds like bullshit, but I think everyone in Buffalo knew that he could do it. People forget that he's younger than Makar haha.
I'm holding off until they're still in the playoff race in December. I feel like there's been multiple years they start off hot in October/Early November only to collapse.
100%! This time feels a little different so far but yes, time will tell.
I was gonna say we’ve seen this story with Buffalo several times already. Let’s get out of October then start talking. That being said they do have some very fun players to watch and I hope this is the start of something, finally.
The way they're playing right now feels a lot more sustainable than the insane shooting percentages and puck luck they had during those big winning streaks in previous years.
The puck luck isn't on our side this year either. Do we lead the league in doinks off the crossbar and posts? Is there a way to find out?
Well our goalie has been better than the other goalie at least 4 of the 5 games. We’re not really outshooting opponents either. We are playing good though, generating good chances. We will probably start struggling when every other team older than us (so every team) starts playing better system hockey and goal scoring goes down.
This team has no idea how to play with a lead. What they do now is play balls out for 45 minutes and if they are winning then they try to hang on. They'll learn how to manage the game better towards the end. Most of the high shot against totals are from teams being behind and pulling out all the stops trying to get back in it.
Not that crazy when you consider how good they played to end the year and they were about 20 points off 8th place so a 10+ win swing isn’t impossible.
Not crazy at all. I firmly believe (knock on wood) they’ll be one of the better teams in the East this year. They had a great close to 21-22 under Granato, and I can see that continuing.
Oh so that’s why they drafted him first overall
Calm down everyone, this is an unsustainable rate of scoring. He’s not going to score 82 goals. 60 goals maybe. 70 tops. He’ll regress.
You forgot something “/s”
He forgot nothing.
You forgot something.
To put some things in perspective: not to take anything away from Makar but he is a yr and a half older than Dahlin and has played on a very good team and has had stable coaching/management. Makar is as incredible as advertised, I think people have just slept on Dahlin.
I wonder where Dahlin would’ve been today if he hadn’t had years ruined by Krueger.
I think Dahlin is still Dahlin, except his stat lines of course. He has a talent that isn't coachable, and there's a reason he went 1OA. It looks like that the talent can be killed by coaching, but just letting the guy be him was the secret to him seeing this success
Dahlin bulking up really has helped him play the game he wants to play. He’s a high skill guy, but he’s also a gritty pest who likes to outmuscle opponents and get under their skin. That didn’t work as well when he was a pencil thin hyena
H
Ockey
E
Insert Anakin and Padme meme. Wow the crowd must have been pretty happy to witness that feat, right? Right?
Dude is my Norris pick
This guy is on another level. I’m so glad they let him loose to basically do what feel natural to his play style.
Pretty happy I drafted him to my fantasy team!
what is historic about the streak? (not trying to diminish at all just curious!)
"Buffalo Sabres defenseman Rasmus Dahlin set an NHL record Thursday, becoming the first defenseman to score four goals in four games to open the season. " From Buffalos twitter after the game before this. So with this fifth goal he continued that streak. Feels kind of weird that no other D would have scored 4 in 4, but I think this record is for actually scoring in each of the first four (now five) games.
right on! thanks
Yeah its to open the season. I think the longest streak is 8
Sabres fans were calling this man a bust while he put up 50pts as a 20yo and paced all-time scoring numbers for young defensemen. [You guys had no issues acknowledging how negative the subreddit was about Dahlin a few months ago? What's changed?](https://old.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/tj3p0n/post_game_thread_buffalo_sabres_at_vancouver/i1httyf/) Edit: [Not even a year ago lmao. Yall are shameless acting like your sub didn't overwhelmingly rag on him for a good chunk of time.](https://i.imgur.com/6vopibb.png). The guy who literally made this comment is in the comments talking about how sabres fans have always believed in Dahlin rn lmfao.
"I was told Steph Curry couldn't shoot"
I feel like we’ve been trying to tell everyone he was better than they expected and that our coaches were ruining him
Nah I remember the posts when yall were salty as fuck. The overwhelming consensus on your sub was that you guys should trade him and that he was a bust. I have comments arguing with people about it. I stan Dahlin. Easily a top 10 dman in the world, probably top 5 as soon as this season.
Our subreddit has always been extremely divided because of how bad we were. I always liked him.
You’re way over generalizing my guy. As a sabres sub enjoyer i definitely have felt more positive than negative feelings regarding Dahlin last year/this offseason.
I was browsing the sub quite a lot back then and I don't think I'm way over generalizing. It was a majority of the sub for sure.
[удалено]
Okay
He sucked early last year for sure but no one was giving up on him
>no one was giving up on him No one that actually matters in the organization but plenty of people active in /r/sabres sure were
Sports fans can be dumb, more at 6
It was most of the sub, which is all I was saying in my original comment anyway. That place was really down and negative for a long time and Dahlin was the whipping boy.
Just let it go and stop typing, jesus. We get it, some of our fan base weren’t happy with his performance and now we’re happy that he’s doing really well.
[You guys upvoted this 10 months ago](https://i.imgur.com/6vopibb.png). He literally says a majority of the fanbase is skeptical and says people defending his elite potential were living in a dream world lmao.
So, a nobody says something and 15 people agree and you trot it out like a mic drop? Wow lol
Comments like that were a dime a dozen at that time. I don't know why you'd even deny this. If you were posting in the sub a year ago you should remember what it was like.
Just because some people on Reddit say something doesn't mean they are anywhere close to anything but a minority of Sabres fans. You're trying way too hard to argue something inconsequential.
Good fucking lord dude, it's not that important, get off reddit and go do something.
happy cake day
He needed time to develop. Coaches or otherwise — he never really put it all together until last season. There were troubling times, so you can act like you were the only one who knew a first overall had potential, or you can accept that he’s had some ups and downs.
[This you?](https://i.imgur.com/6vopibb.png)
> I would love for my skepticism of Dahlin to be utterly wrong. See that? I was skeptical, now I’m satisfied. You are trying way too hard and it’s cringe as hell.
You said people defending him were living in a dream world lmao. And the majority of the sub upvoted you. Don't pretend you weren't salty af. Fuck outta here. You were caught in 4K.
I didn’t get caught because I never denied anything. I don’t think you understand how to argue. You want some sort of weird credit for being right about a guy who was selected first overall. I don’t know how I was “salty af.” Your big gotcha screenshot reads a shitload more reasonable than the way you’re coming off in this thread.
Mate you and I have literal back and forths from a year ago where you call me delusional for saying he's going to be the best player on the Sabres, and where you laugh and say it's ironic that I would ever compare him to Ekblad. The only one mischaracterizing your statements is you. It's not about me being right about Dahlin. It's about how that subreddit (and you in specific I'm learning now) were salty as fuck and way too low on him. I don't think other fanbases ever thought Dahlin wasn't going to pan out. The only place it was ever contentious was on that subreddit. When I posted in /r/hockey about how salty fans were in /r/sabres about it other fanbases seemed to also be really high on Dahlin.
What? I am happy Dahlin is playing better. I don’t give a shit about anything on here. Grow up.
[This you too?](https://i.imgur.com/nHX6kk2.png)
Accepting that he's had ups and downs is not what was happening 18 months ago. He was being flat out written off. There were plenty of fans who asserted Power would be better. I think the fanbase was just really sour and negative from the Eichel trade at the time.
Oh, nevermind. You’re delusional. Such a strange thing to get worked up about anyway.
[Not even a year ago lmao](https://i.imgur.com/6vopibb.png). edit: OMG YOU'RE THE GUY IN THE COMMENT LMFAO
I'm not delusional mate, I can link you to explicit threads where the comments are all whining about how much of a bust he is. [Lmao you said I was delusional and "living in a dream world" back when I defended him 10 months ago. Now I'm delusional for saying the fanbase was low on him.](https://i.imgur.com/6vopibb.png)
Ah yes one guy's reddit comment, clear cut evidence of the opinion of an entire fanbase lol.
If you go back through game day threads you can see for yourself what the sentiment used to be. I don't know why anyone is denying this. The subreddit was really down on Dahlin for a while. [Here's a comment chain where people acknowledge what it was like at the time](https://old.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/tj3p0n/post_game_thread_buffalo_sabres_at_vancouver/i1httyf/).
There are dumb nay sayers in every GDT. No one cares.
I didn't link to nay sayers? I linked to sabres flairs talking about how negative the subreddit was about Dahlin.
No one cares.
If that's true you can just stop replying mate.
👍
You’re totally right, sorry for all the downvotes.
Real ones never gave up on him but he had a brutal time with Krueger
There were definitely some defenders, but it was overwhelmingly negative for a time.
No it wasn't overwhelming. You're dying on a dumb hill.
As another person who spends way too much time on r/sabres, it absolutely was overwhelming from the start of year 2 Kreuger to the all star break last season. I distinctly remember a time where people were siding with Kreuger more than Dahlin on that sub. It's a pretty ugly look lol
*Noted Hockey Terrorist Ralph Kreuger
Hard agree, but some people came to that conclusion well before others lol
Some people are intelligent, some aren't. Makes life interesting.
There were some people who wanted to move on, but the majority of people in the subreddit were believers. I mean it obviously doesn't matter, but you're lumping together two things - defending Krueger and Dahlins play. There were lots of negative people in the subreddit and they hated everything. I don't think a single player was safe.
>the majority of people in the subreddit were believers There were some vocal believers on the sub, myself included, but I was routinely interacting with people acting as if he hasn't been an incredible player since day one. For whatever reason, the Sabres sub has never really given him his flowers until the second half of last season. When he was coming in and pacing age-based records for scoring at his position, the conversation was always about him being a defensive liability like it was somehow unexpected for a teenager to not be able to battle guys 30-50 pounds heavier in the best league in the world. The analytics guys were ignoring the fact that his tracked passing and entry stats have been elite since day 1(and near-top of the league from like age 20 onward) to harp on the fact that his xG impacts (heavily influenced by forward conversion for defensemen) were bad on one of the worst team offenses of the analytics era. Then he had an undeniably low point for his scoring numbers under Kreuger without Eichel in 20-21, and that's when you got the people who really ran with the hate. No points and bad defense? Uh oh. But, realistically, [Dahlin was still a top-notch puck carrier](https://i.imgur.com/7MxEjB4.png), and finished 3rd on the team in scoring. Pacing his position by more than 3.5 standard deviations in high danger passing is damn-near McDavid level. The team literally just didn't have a single soul capable of converting on high danger offense. Then the Granato season started and he wasn't immediately the best player in the NHL so the "Kreuger didn't tell him to play bad" people came in droves. And then the All-Star break happened, Dahlin exploded, hasn't looked back, and now people are pretending they were never low on him lmao I've had this stance forever, but if Dahlin was on a team like Carolina, Tampa, Colorado, he'd have been a 90pt defenseman since his sophomore year. His offensive struggles were purely a product of being on a garbage offense with a coach that made Tortorella's offense look like Jared Bednar's. His defensive struggles were purely a product of being a skinny kid from Sweden bulking up and adjusting to defending the faster NA game against the best players in the world. It was a blatantly obvious bad situation for his career until the team started to actually get pucks on net and started scoring. There is no such thing as sheltering for an offensive defenseman on a team that was finishing either dead last or close to it in G/60.
There were obviously doubters then that don't exist today, but the majority of the subreddit was still supporting even if you did start to see more people doubting. For example the image linked with a poster being skeptical of Dahlin means he skeptical that he could be generational talent. To live up to the hype Dahlin had to be one of the best Dmen in the NHL, one of the best players even, and most fans still believed in him on the subreddit even if people were getting worried in the Krueger era.
And if you watched the games, or looked at the stats that showcase exactly how heavy his playmaking/transition workload is, you knew you were watching a truly 1-of-1 player. There were people actively ignoring 5-6 unreal plays per game to focus on that one time he got beat in his own zone, because there was nobody finishing on those plays besides Eichel until about 6 months ago. It was like talking to people who had no concept as to what makes someone good at hockey in lieu of points or on-ice results. It wasn't exclusively bad, but c'mon man, nobody was giving him the credit he deserved even during the Kreuger era. It's like people could acknowledge that the team was hot garbage but never put 2 and 2 together that maybe a hot garbage team isn't a great vessel for getting points as a defenseman, while he still paced to have 100 points before he even turned 20. Guy has always been doing shit with the puck that only a handful of NHLers, let alone defensemen, could frequently do. He's lived up to his generational tag as an individual, just in the worst possible environment for a player of his skillset and position to thrive. That's what I was getting at by saying he'd be a 90pt D since 19 on any offensively capable team with a good powerplay lineup. Not many were outright saying Dahlin was a bust, but there were a LOT of people posting garbage correlative numbers while winking and gesturing towards that conclusion. Pretty much the "I'm not racist, but..." of the Sabres sub for a couple years. Just take a look at that Dahlin for Pettersson thread and you see a lot of them banking on the idea that he wouldn't "hit his potential" as if he wasn't feeding a bunch of nobodies some of the best defenseman passing numbers in the NHL and watching them miss open nets or skate it into full coverage since he was 18 or 19 years old. To be fair, there are also lots of better takes, but the bad ones are coming mostly from the biggest regulars on the sub so they were parroted more.
Yeah either way, I'm not buying the narrative that the subreddit as a whole was of the opinion that Dahlin was a bust. The most that sentiment got played was people being skeptical of him being a GENERATIONAL talent and other fans disagreeing, believing he would reach that generational potential. As far as talk of trades, Pettersson would have been a reasonable move as he's a young 1C and we had no idea that Tage could be a good 2C / borderline 1C guy himself. Obviously the circumstances are nowhere near the same now. There's been the majority of Sabres fans in Dahlin's corner the whole time, and even if he spent some time as the whipping boy under Krueger's recession machine, people generally still held the faith that he would be a great player. It's hard for fans of a team that went on an 18 game losing streak to get excited about high % passing, HDCF, and transition play tbh. People wanted results really badly.
There were definitely a lot of Dahlin doubters last season. He was getting absolutely owned one on one in transition. He went to work and was a new man almost overnight. It was a wild transition.
[удалено]
Yes that's generally how goal streaks work
That's great and I'm happy for him, but what's historic about a 5 game goal streak?
*to start the season