{"id":529497,"date":"2026-03-17T21:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T21:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/529497\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T21:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T21:28:10","slug":"6-nhl-ice-cold-takes-wed-love-to-have-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/529497\/","title":{"rendered":"6 NHL Ice-Cold Takes We’d Love to Have Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

Folks, I have some breaking news that you may want to sit down for. When you’re in the business of providing hockey analysis and takes, sometimes — just sometimes — you’re going to whiff. That’s the beauty of this sport, isn’t it? We start each season with some idea of how we think it’s going to go, and without fail, there are always at least a few surprises. <\/p>\n

We try as we might to use data, eye tests, team patterns, and context to predict a team’s trajectory, but we know there’s no way to say for sure until that puck drops and the season begins. There are unpredictabilities throughout the sport: offseason moves, trade deadlines, injuries, and recovery timelines. The humanity of it all keeps things entertaining.<\/p>\n

The Buffalo Sabres have shown us this season just how far the power of intangibles — and drinking some beers with your brothers — can go to change the complexion of a team. This year, they’ve had the best vibes of any team in the league; their depth scoring and young, skilled players are panning out, Rasmus Dahlin has emerged as one of the best leaders in the NHL, and everything is finally clicking for the team with the NHL’s longest playoff drought.<\/p>\n

I have absolutely no problem admitting I didn’t think this was how it would go for them when I wrote this article at the end of last season<\/a>, but I am so glad this is the way it has gone. Watching the Sabres build the confidence and trust that has been their biggest missing link for years has been the biggest joy of this NHL season. They made a great decision in promoting GM Jarmo Kek\u00e4l\u00e4inen, which paid off in morale long before he even had the opportunity to make a move. The moves the Sabres made — and didn’t make — to get to this point, and their camaraderie, can teach us all a lesson about perseverance and the power of collective belief. <\/p>\n

I was surprised to see my article from the end of last season, before last offseason’s free agency even started, circulating on social media over the weekend as a “freezing cold take.” <\/p>\n

Surely, I was not the only one at this time last year who was concerned about the Buffalo Sabres. Plus, I wrote in the article that the team had potential and needed to fundamentally address specific issues to turn it around. I doubted they would change those things, but to my pleasant surprise, they did! <\/p>\n

Maybe the catchy headline was fun for freezing take fodder, but the actual words in the article honestly aged decently enough. <\/p>\n

Anyway, the resurgence of this post inspired me to take a look at all of the other stuff I was wrong about at the beginning of this season. There’s no shame in whiffing as long as you can admit it. You might even learn a thing or two in the process. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Folks, I have some breaking news that you may want to sit down for. When you’re in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-529497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}