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Preview of tonight’s game: https://www.amerks.com/news/detail/game-preview-amerks-fight-crunch-for-top-spot-in-north-division Something that caught my eye from the preview, “After three straight seasons finishing in the bottom six of the league for penalty minutes, the Amerks enter this week leading the Eastern Conference with 165 through 10 games. A pair of defensemen are accountable for nearly a third of those PIM, with Nikita Novikov (26) and Vsevolod Komarov (25) dealing out punishment.”

I just spot checked a bunch of goalies - good ones, mediocre ones, bad ones - UPL's .820 was the worst i saw.

If we tie every game that is over 80 points for the season, could get us to the playoffs

I think they'd be better off sending Geertson to the minors permanently, and bringing up literally anyone else.

I posted that a couple of days ago so I forgot what site I went to to get the data... But the number I came up with was for all of the goaltenders combined. Obviously the majority of that being UPL but including everyone.

They're playing St. Louis. Expect Colten Ellis in goal; he was a Blues draft pick.

Utah was by far better. Everyone saw that. The Sabres hung on in semi-valiant fashion and got a point. That’s good. Where we differ is I’m not anointing Utah as a top team just yet, and getting 1 point is not a great achievement. Utah is an unproven team, just like Buffalo. Buffalo missed another golden opportunity to pick up 2 points in OT at home. I’m not happy or relieved to get just 1 point at home against a team like Utah. I’m dissatisfied and disappointed. I will be upset if they don’t beat the Blues in regulation on a Thursday. I set expectations higher, and hopefully the Sabres have too.

Tynan Lawrence is a name to know as well. He's got an August birthday but he's the top center in the draft. He's got excellent playmaking and skating, he's very engaged all over the ice and he's not at full strength yet. The Sabres need to look at motor, iq, and then the rest of the package. Tynan has all that's needed. We'd have to draft top 5 probably which is why I didn't mention him. Idk if I'd take him over 6'5" Belchetz, but that's something to decide by June. Klepov however is right behind these two for me. I think the entire industry is napping on him. This draft could see 6 defenders go on the top 10.

The coulda-woulda-shoulda in me keeps thinking about the two posts by Tage. And the rushes where they passed one too many times. The Sabres could have easily had 3 goals going into the third period. The optimist in me says that kind of bad luck is not sustainable. At some point the Sabres have to turn the corner.

I couldn’t be any more specific with what I said. You are 100% wrong with this response.

And the Sabres have a better points percentage than the 3rd place Boston Broons. They used to be really good at 3-on-3. wtf happened?

I think .830 might be really really bad. Also, if I'm reading this correctly... UPL was at .820 last season. https://www.hockey-reference.com/players/l/luukkuk01.html

I don’t pay attention to rest of league. I didn’t interpret Utah as anything dangerous. The youth players are making passes with confidence they simply haven’t been doing for a decade and that alone sustains offense enough to be dangerous. It also leads to some breaks against; but it’s manageable with the defense not being horrendous. I felt like this game could’ve easily been scored 5 to 5 and that is okay. As long as the great deflator in UPL isn’t in net Power is weak as hell. Maybe this bout of confidence across the team will help him break out of the mold, he has the toolkit if he ever wanted to. The d pairings is still perplexing me Tuch and Thompson are still acting like passengers tho. They really really need the Norris and Benson type players and are hurting the most without them. Zucker is a lesser degree of that mojo, and him being out is a real kicker. But the bottom of the roster has grinders going at it. And Lindy resonates with those players. think the roster construct is fine, this is some incredible bad luck on injuries maybe this is my annual dose of hopium. But I’m not seeing desperation in these games except when UPL is in net

5 wins in 13 games. Can't finish scoring opportunities. 1 point mentality needs to increase to a 2 point mentality.

Umm. Yes, inky, we know. Maybe think of something new and original to post?

Your eyes are different from mine. In this game, I decisively felt that Utah was the better team. We hung in there but on balance the team that played better won. If you came away with a different conclusion, that's fine. The highlighted commented you made is exactly what I saw in last night's game.

Sounds like fun.

He looked very good against the Monsters in Cleveland last week; better than anything I’ve seen from Georgiev. If they’re not gonna bring up Ratzlaff they should waive Georgiev and let Leinonen remain as backup to Levi. Then again, he isn’t gonna get enough starts with the Amerks to best serve his development, either.

I've said it in other posts that Utah had the edge in play. But for a depleted team with two contributors out of the lineup (Benson and Zucker), I felt that they hung in there all game long. And it should also be noted that just as Lyon was exceptional, so was the opposition's goalie in making some big time stops.

I agree that we had good chances that were not capitalized. Some of it due to missing the shot and others due to the opposition's goalie making exceptional stops. But let's not forget that there are two sides to this equation: the opposition also had glorious chances to score that were stymied. We are all Sabre fans. But in my eyes Utah was the better team that on balance outplayed us. I'm not scoffing at the point that we gained from this game. We were fortunate to have earned it.

Just a reminder, this game is coming up. I still have one ticket left if anyone is interested.

They should have left Leinonen in Finland for 1 more year.

For me it's the same thing as what has been happening a lot so far this year. They are just not finishing good chances. Quinn had 2 or 3 where it was him vs goalie. Thompson has 2 post hits. The Tuch/ McLoud play. Tuch in overtime. Kesselring had a free look. The defense and goaltending are keeping them in games, They have got to find a way out of the scoring slump.

And if Ratzlaff comes up, how does Leinonen get his necessary starts to keep developing -- swapping to Jacksonville? Or Ellis for that matter (who has now played in 1 game since 10/4 when he got 20 minutes of the final preseason game for STL and who never went to IR for his back tightness, so presumably he's fully healthy)? Tonight: an early battle for first place in the North as the Amerks host Syracuse.

I don't think they kept up. I think Alex Lyon goalied them.