FOCO’s impressive collection of Bills bobbleheads has grown once again. Just weeks ago, FOCO released an awesome Snoopy Buffalo Bills bobblehead and the Peanuts NFL collection has grown once again, this time with a Charlie Brown Buffalo Bills bobblehead. And no, Lucy isn’t there to yank the football away.
Continue readingAlarm bells are going off in Edmonton and we start this week’s show talking about everything that seems to be ailing the Oilers. We also tie in our Oilers discussion, and their need to stay competitive with the push the Sabres will start to feel when it comes to making a big trade of their own.
We also talk about Buffalo’s young stars, namely Matthew Savoie and Jiri Kulich. Savoie has arrived after his two week conditioning assignment and will likely slot into the lineup this week. But even though Kulich has been scoring at a torrid pace, he hasn’t earned a call up just yet. We talk about where in the lineup he could fit and how much longer the Sabres can realistically wait before bringing him up.
We took listener questions and ran through topics like the Shane Wright plan, expectations for Devon Levi, how Peyton Krebs and Casey Mittelstadt should be handled and line juggling as the team finds the right fit for their forwards. We open the show with a discussion on the adoption of neck guards, what might be preventing early adoption for NHL players and how a grandfathered requirement could come into play.
The NHL released their latest statistical innovation this week, pulling back the curtain on the player and puck tracking data they collect. The tool is somewhat limited in its current state, but it has laid the groundwork to make more internal league data available to the public.
It’s a wise step for the league to take, especially with the proliferation of advanced stats in both the public and organizational realms. This sort of data will play a huge role in the future of the game and giving fans access to even a fraction of it shows that the league understands the value in opening those doors.
Another feature that I desperately wish the NHL would build out for its fans is a form of the NFL’s All-22 product. This has been a favorite topic of mine for quite some time and it’s something that I think the NHL is completely missing the bus on.
Continue readingIt’s been quite the week in the NHL. Tuesday’s 16-game slate was a hit, with ESPN’s Frozen Frenzy the highlight of the evening. We talk about the effort to put the night together and how we look forward to the next iteration of the NHL’s version of Red Zone. We also spend time talking about the league’s movement to decentralize the draft. We weigh the pros and cons of pulling most, if not all, team staff from the on-site draft and the movement to a model that more closely resembles the NFL Draft. Along the way we touch on the Sabres first seven games, where they’ve struggled, where they’re enjoying positive momentum and why we remain optimistic despite their early struggles on offense.
Doug, Rugrats, Hey Arnold!, Spongebob. GUTS The Nickelodeon catalog is vast and elite and today, you can grab your own awesome piece of the Nick universe with FOCO’s Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs 2023 Nickelodeon Glow in the Dark Bighead Bobbleheads.
Both bobbleheads feature the Bills superstars on top of a Nick branded base with a barrel of glow in the dark slime spilling behind them. In place of a football, both players are carrying the famous Nickelodeon blimp. Allen is sporting his home blue jersey while Diggs is decked out in Buffalo’s away uniform.
Continue readingOn a recent episode of the 32 Thoughts podcast, Elliotte Friedman floated the idea of the NHL putting on “NHL Con” or soe other form of convention as part of the draft celebration. The idea came as an offshoot of the discussion surrounding the league’s push to decentralize the draft.
It’s a terrific idea that the league should pursue with, or without, a shift in operations for the entry draft. The NHL Draft isn’t quite the fan extravaganza that the NFL Draft has become, but it’s certainly a draw for die-hards and there’s local interest as it moves from city to city. Tying in a massive, hockey-focused festival for the week of the draft would be an excellent way to draw more fan attention to the event, and to keep people engaged beyond the first round on Friday night.
The NHL’s version of Comic Con could become an offseason Mecca for various offshoots of the hockey community. Pulling in interests from equipment, collectibles, hockey history and kid-friendly events could provide days of relevant programming that builds up to the weekend’s draft. There could even be ancillary programming like a concert or two that the NHL could help put together as part of their arrival in the city that week. Maybe, if the city’s layout made sense for it, you could create an NHL Campus. Where you have the arena as ground zero as that is where the draft will occur, but other nearby venues (whether it be a convention center, park, college campus or concert hall) are all part of the programming that takes place during the week. That way if you were a fan hoping to see the Stanley Cup and get some autographs, you’d go to the Fan Fest space at the local convention center. But if you were there for a panel discussion, maybe you wind up at a smaller concert venue close to the arena. Regardless of the shape this would take, I’d hope that Elliotte’s initial suggestion was either an educated guess or that it has caught the ear of the special events people at the NHL and they’ve started to develop something. They won’t be short on options to include.
Continue readingThe season may only be four games old, but the Sabres’ 1-3 start has put some of the fans’ biggest offseason concerns in the spotlight.
Buffalo’s decision to leave the roster largely untouched and lean on their unproven trio of goaltenders was chief among the offseason debate in Sabres circles. Leaning on a roster that made the Sabres the third highest scoring team in the NHL wasn’t a terrible choice when you dig into the data. Kevyn Adams has continued to lock up the core of his roster and it was those players – most notably Tage Thompson (47 goals), Dylan Cozens (31 goals) and Rasmus Dahlin (73 points) – who pushed the Sabres to the top of the league’s scoring race. The choices in goal were a greater gamble.
Eric Comrie and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen’s struggles last season underscored the position that likely kept the Sabres out of the playoffs. While Devon Levi has shown promise (and was stout in Tuesday’s win over Tampa), handing the keys to a 21-year old with seven games of NHL experience is unprecedented. If there was one position where fans would have agreed with more tangible reinforcement, it would have been in net. The league’s goalie market from the summer made that proposition much harder to accomplish than maybe some assume.
Connor Hellebuyck was far and away the best goaltender available over the summer. There were widespread reports that the Jets were shopping the former Vezina winner, though a deal never materialized. Hellebuyck’s contract status almost certainly played a role in the lack of a trade. While Hellebuyck was a goaltender I felt could push the Sabres to a playoff berth, I would not have pursued him with a lengthy contract extension attached. Now that he’s signed a seven-year, $59.5 million extension, it would be hard to see the logic in acquiring that sort of player given the faith the organization has in Levi.
Continue readingAfter offering a recap of Buffalo’s first three games, we tackle a topic that’s been circulating with Sabres fans for quite some time. Are the Sabres interested in Pat Kane and would he be a good fit with this roster? We dig into Kane’s underlying stats, consider how he may look post-surgery and offer up some of the potential positives if he was indeed signed as a free agent in the coming weeks or months.
Going back to the spring, many Sabres fans have been waiting on a trade that hasn’t come.
As Buffalo morphed into a playoff contender, there was a growing expectation that Kevyn Adams would make some deals to round out his roster. But his action at the deadline was more measured than some may have guessed, and he completed the offseason without any notable deals being made (save for dealing Ilya Lyubushkin to alleviate a numbers crunch on the blueline). Victor Olofsson is on record saying he was prepared to be moved, but no deal materialized for him, a goaltender or any other position which could have helped the Sabres take the next step to the playoffs.
It’s understandable that Adams hasn’t been in a rush to shake up his group. The forward group is brimming with young talent while a pair of first overall picks anchor the blueline. Buffalo boasts a core many teams can only dream of. The need to materially alter this group is reserved to maybe two or three spots across the entire roster. Unlike previous years during this decade-long rebuild, the team isn’t in a position where they’re lacking depth on the NHL roster or in their pipeline. It’s a luxury which will put them in a position of strength when the time comes to take a big swing.
And that time is approaching.
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Two in the Box 