Taro T

My bad. Didn't realize your statement "Levi should be in Rochester playing a lot" was just a shouting at the sky lament. Because, you agree the team needs to make the playoffs AND that Levi is better than Reimer. That would seem to indicate that you agree that Levi is where he should be based upon the reality of what we have and not what we'd like/wish to have. Seriously, the lament is cool; just the way you'd written it out, it seemed like you were saying they should've kept Reimer up and sent Levi down. Which, with where this team is in its own history wasn't an actual option IMHO.

No. This team NEEDS to make the playoffs. Even if Reimer were in Buffalo, Levi gave/gives the Sabres a better chance to win games than Reimer would've. Reimer doesn't get the win against FLA. He doesn't get the win in the 2nd Joisey game. Personally, don't believe he'd've gotten the win against the BJ's either; but Devon didn't come close to his A game that day, so maybe. But, personally expect that had Reimer been the backup goalie the Sabres would be sitting with 7 points right now rather than 9. And as we know from past experience those 2 points could make a world of difference come April. The wildcard in the equation is would UPL be playing at his current level which is essentially the March-April version from last season if Reimer were up or would he get the "warm fuzzies" to have his Sally Field moment "the coaches like me, they REALLY like me" and play like the January-February UPL. Don't honestly have an answer to that. IF Reimer being here would've brought out THAT UPL (because there is no question who would be the starter today and a month from now in that situation), then yes, Levi should've been backstopping the Amerks to a really good run. But if we'd still have the March-April version, then no, the Sabres need the extra points from the backup.

Very tragic. The Falls unfortunately is a huge lure to those wishing to pass beyond this life in a dramatic way. May those 2 children RIP and may their mother finally have the solace she apparently couldn't find in this life. Back in the mid-80's during a noon news broadcast Channel 2 was covering some sort of flower festival by the Falls. About a minute into the broadcast you see a short older man run into the river. His head bopped up a couple of times and then he went under the water. A few seconds later there were a pair of feet popping out of the water as he went over. Don't remember the reporter, but will never forget seeing the guy's legs pop back up out of the water. Mental illness sucks.

You're confusing Karmanos with Forton. Karmanos getting the GM reins likely would be a good thing. (Can never say for certain with a 1st timer. But his pedigree is good.) Forton, while he seems like a nice guy, yeah, not so much.

Considering Ruff DID call out the f'ups, not real upset with him also pointing out SOME positives in public. And, with the next game 4 days after the previous one, have no issue with a bag skate nor Ruff ripping into them after the game nor at the next meeting. Right now, the only real similarities between Granato and Ruff are that they both for some unbeknownst reason seem to think Seth Appert can run a PP. There's been no empirical evidence to date that he can at this level.

His new coach is also specifically calling out mistakes that they can't allow to happen and that he intends to fix. Spewing the losing culture?

Perfect timing for 1: Aisles, Wings, Otters up next on the slate. Need to beat the teams that are in your demographic to advance into the high rent district.

The 219 is right there about 2 miles from the stadium and the I-90 is, what, 4 miles away? Abbott, Milestrip, and Southwestern are all multilane in that area. Way more open than downtown near the MMArena is.

We're in agreement on that. Fully expect Pegula to get more stuff built around the area of the new stadium.

And that one shot he got off from in front, he was pretty well tied up and the shot didn't end up with much on it.

Depends on opponent, should they get in. Get FLA or a Metro Div Winner and they're almost definitely toast. Get the Loafs who love to exit in the 1st round or the Bolts and maybe they could sneak out a series win.

Interesting thought, but that doesn't seem to be it. A LOT of Cozens shots are coming from high danger areas and until the Detroit game hadn't seen Quinn in those areas at all for the most part. Kulich and Benson have gotten to those HD areas better than Quinn, but don't believe that Cozens has been avoiding passing to them. Other than the fact that right now Cozens literally couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, so personally don't want to see him take ANY shots, can't really ottomh think of a time he shot when the pass was clearly the superior play (again, except for the fact that right now his having the puck in the crease with no goalie is a lower percentage play than passing it away from there to a D-man at the blue line).

To the bolded, correct. Only Levi and Kulich can get sent to Ra-cha-cha without clearing waivers. (Benson would not have to clear to be sent down either, but he's not eligible to play in Ra-cha-cha.)

Yeah, the BJs are an interesting bunch. Their record is quite a bit better than expected especially with them playing minus their only star player. But not really giving them credit for blowing out the Eulers in a game that McDavid broke on his 1st or 2nd shift. Will be interesting to see how long they can ride the win for Johnny Hockey run. Expecting they'll be this year's Housley or Krueger era Sabres and the bubble will burst sometime by early December at the latest. Completely agree about Kaprizov. Were he playing in a more "relevant" market he'd be feted as the star he really has shown to be.

Good post. But not sure what your point about Cheatriots Place is. Shaffer stadium was around for about 40 years with NOTHING built up near it. That there hasn't been any development around Rich likely won't reflect on what happens around the new stadium. Pegula built a lot of stuff near the MMArena when there hadn't been anything but parking lots and Cobblestone along with the long since abandoned Aud there prior to his involvement.

You kidding? He's already looking at the fact that he needs to wash the glass before he uses it again and that's going to take even MORE water so it's at BEST 1/4 full and likely only 1/10th.

Speaking as one who's been advocating putting Peterak on his line, still say it makes sense to do so because by making that change not only will Cozens still be getting chances in HD areas, he'll get them with the goalie not square to him by the time he gets that chance. THAT's what jump started his scoring 2 years ago and expect it still will. As for moving him to wing. Unless they make a trade for another C that can play in the top 2 scoring lines, don't see that happening. And don't see that sort of trade made when they have Helenius and Östlund down on the farm and Kulich in a year or 2 also might be ready to get moved to C. (They aren't making a trade for a guy that isn't on Dahlin's overall timeline.) Could easily see them moving him to W 2 - 3 years down the road. But as soon as Mittelstadt went out the door, so did any possibility of Dylan moving to wing in the immediate future. McLeod is a great fit in his current role. Krebs and Lafferty can handle 4C duty but can't see either being useful in a 2C role. They don't have anyone else in house they can really consider for a 2C role right now.

Nice summary. Only 2 MINOR quibbles are, personally see Tuch as a true 2nd liner that has some chemistry with both Thompson and Peterka so he belongs on that top line. Remember, the Legion of Dorks had Rennberg working the corners for them. He was nowhere near the offensive player nor finisher of Lindros nor LeClair but he was a key cog in that line. That is Tuch's role on this roster. And, still say the PP is dreadful because of the coaching; not so much the personnel. The entries are still ridiculously bad and Cozens, the guy that LITERALLY can't put a puck into an unguarded net given multiple opportunities, is the bumper on that 1st unit. Won't even go into the minutia of what they do on the rare occassion they actually surprisingly gain control of the puck in the offensive zone. But entries and who mans the PP units are 100% on coaching.

Quinn is absolutely struggling right now. Said a few days ago that expect it's in large part due to not fully understanding what he needs to be doing now that for the 1st time in his professional career he has a coach that expects him to play within a structure and he's thinking out on the ice which you absolutely can't do with the speed of the game at this level. Sitting in the press box 2-3 games with one of the coaches right next to him explaining what's going on and what he should be doing were he the one on the ice will do wonders for his play. It also wouldn't hurt to get him away from Cozens for a few games, but with the other 3 lines all working, that's pretty much an impossibility rihgt now. Have advocated for putting Peterka onto that line when Benson is healthy as the expectation is that he'll get more production out of those 2 than the top line production will diminish. Had Quinn not gotten the ENG against Detroit, expect he would've gone to the press box rather than Kulich. But, when a guy that isn't getting it finally does something good, it's really not the right time to make a move that could be interpreted as a punishment. (Sending him to the PB isn't a punishment, it's part of him learning what he needs to be doing; but the timing would've been awful to send him where he should be.) And if you're Aube-Kubel what's going through your mind when you're told you're finally healthy enough to be in the lineup but instead of being with your normal line that you have chemistry with, you're going to be out there with the guy that needs an empty net to score on and the guy that can't even do that right now. Thanks, Coach. 😉

You say that like there was only a single 3 game win streak last year. They were WAY better than that. It actually happened TWICE. But sadly, those were the longest strings of W's the entire season.

Not happy with his play on the Cats 1st PP goal, but overall thought he was moving better than he had been in any of the earlier games this year. Maybe that injury that's been limiting him IS actually healing up. Their next 3 games are against teams, like Buffalo, that are looking to sneak into the playoffs. They're all winnable and with him having 3 days with no games expecting he'll be skating like he did last night at a minimum and hopefully even a bit better than that. That'll be a huge boost towards their winning all 3.

Really don't believe that is Cozens issue as he was playing poorly prior to the concussion. Personally chalked that up to trying to do too much to "earn" his contract and actually making himself play worse because he was 100% motor and as @mjd1001 states repeatedly he'd often motor himself right out of being where he should have been (and briefly was). Actually, thinking about it a bit, a case could be made that the concussion was a result of his playing poorly and not vice versa. At the point of the game that Cozens started the fight that got him the concussion there was no compelling logic to starting the fight there. Other than him being really frustrated at how his team was playing in general that game and he himself particularly was playing. He wanted to take out his frustration on somebody and chose poorly in picking an opponent. And now see his major issue as simply having no faith in his shot whatsoever so he's doing the proverbial "gripping the stick too tight" and the more he does that the longer his shooting %age will remain right where it's currently at. Maybe having Kubel causing traffic in front will help Dylan blind nut finding a squirrel (he's way past the blind squirrel finding a nut stage) his way into a goal which should help him tremendously moving forward. (Especially if he can luck into another one by the end of the weekend.)

Yep. The Bills might be really bad at decision making in the final minute of a game, but they probably have the best 3Q record of any team in the Allen era. And that, more often than not leads to them having leads at the end that are too big for bad last minute decision making to factor in. Would be really nice to see them with the less banged up D in the playoffs for once so that propensity to let teams off the hook late in playoff games gets stomped out. If Milano comes back in December, we might actually see that happen.

Which is a pretty good description of his mentor Andy Reid in his Iggles stint. Reid got a LOT better at the in-game stuff through the years. No reason McDermott can't improve in them as well. (And, he really should, if he doesn't already, have a "clock/situational" expert on his coaching staff to help him avoid stuff like the final Jest drive of the 1st half of that game in the Meadowlands (or whatever the heck they call their new mausoleum).)

March. 😎