Taro T

Make it easy on themselves, win tomorrow in Beantown and then go 3-1-0 the rest of this 5 game segment and they're right where they need to be. Tonight, Byram played great, Timmons played great overall, Doan was still very good, and the 4th line was completely bought in to doing its job. Quinn was going to the areas he needs to and was generating chances because of that. Lyon didn't steal as many as he had been doing, though he did steal several early and at least twice in the 3rd BJ's had thought they'd scored but hadn't. Benson couldn't connect on a pass to save his life through much of the game but at least he was still working hard and winning battles. Dahlin had perhaps his worst game under the current and past head coach. Couldn't make a pass, lost battles, got out of position. Thompson was bad. Tuch couldn't make a pass. Zucker insisted on passing when he should've shot and shooting when he should've passed. And even with all that going on, and Power having a couple of major gaffes ruining an overall good effort, and with the refs only calling 1 penalty that wasn't associated with a fight/scrum and of all the things they let go deciding THAT was a penalty (and don't know 39's name, but the Sabres get him a LOT and he's awful), they still managed to get a point and really should've had 2 in regulation. They couldn't have had that many key players being off their game and still get points in a long time. Hopefully they ALL show up on Thursday. Speaking of the refs, 39's partner watched Timmons and a BJ beat the crap out of each other in front of the Sabres net for about 10 seconds and then working their way out of the zone including some REALLY viscious cross checks and slashes and called nothing. Very shortly after that, Tuch and the BJ are shouldering for position, the BJ loses an edge and an arm goes up. Initially thought it was a linesman calling it an icing because neither Tuch nor the BJ had clear positioning over the other when close to the dot. Had to do a double take to realize it was 39 blowing another call.

As @PromoTheRobot mentioned, they were on sale in the Sabres Store as well. But by shortly after 4PM, at the absolute latest, all they had remaining for sale were XXL's. Another cool thought poorly executed.

Rewatch, if you have a strong stomach, the 1st 15 minutes of the game. If you honestly believe UPL would've come out of that stretch only down 1-0, would like to have a discussion about a bridge that's available for reasonable payments. UPL wouldn't have stopped the 1st shot high to the glove, nor would he have survived the entire 3 shot flurry a bit later in the period. Plus the 1st goal against, that's 3-0 at a minimum. Down 3-0 to start, the Sabres don't come away with even the loser point. Personally, thought he should've been able to keep the 2nd goal out of the net. Yeah, he's getting screened, but if his stick is on the ice, that doesn't get through the 5-hole. After the turnover leading to the 1st goal, he didn't have much of a chance at all. Nothing he can do about a deflection from 3' out of the paint without a ton of luck. And can't fault him for a backdoor tip in off a puck coming from where it started either. That last one, Power has to get to the guy's stick sooner than he does.

You do realize of course that were Worthy a Bill he'd be used almost exclusively for Jet Sweeps and WR Screens. Curtis Samuel and Elijah Moore are both very quick. Neither is used to stretch the field at all. Maybe they were saving those routes for this week now that the "tough" part of the schedule is coming up; but won't expect it until we actually see them run deep routes.

They need to avoid THREE straight losses. They did it once and have nearly overcome that. They can't repeatedly do it. The game tomorrow in Beantown is huge. Need to win that in regulation. No UPL please.

FTFY. And, yes, both Dallas and Calgary will say they won that trade.

Good for him. He's a very good player. Hoping in the long run the Sabres ended up with 2 very good players in their own, though significantly different, right.

It seems likel it's going to become a thing. And agree that it's a cool idea. Would prefer they'd do it on a winter's Saturday or Sunday. Whenever they choose their "national day of hockey" to be. They could spread the games out over the entire day; you'd still have significant overlap of games but with 10-12 hours of staggered start times rather than just 5 or so could get closer to 45 minutes between starts which would give people an opportunity to watch pretty much a period of every game without having to watch anything on delay if they wanted to do so. (Which ESPN and Rogers would hate as they wouldn't have the broadcast rights to all those games.)

Wonder if the band's name might've hosed them in much the same way the Payola$ had issues getting radio play in the States at the height of the payola scandal in the record industry.

The 2 goals he was responsible for at the time the post was made for 1 thing. What does Ruff and management have against them? They're the ones that sent your boy back to the A.

Runnin' around robbin' banks all whacked off of Scooby snacks. ba-dum ba-dum Runnin' around robbin' banks all whacked off of Scooby snacks. ba-dum ba-dum

That's quite possible. But they were practicing Metsa with Byram. Kesselring was working on the 4th pairing with Bryson.

No idea. But it seems a fairly common practice under Ruff. Guys coming back from injury seem to get a lighter workout than those that have been healthy even when the plan is to play them in the next game. Could be as simple as letting the coaches make sure that they're getting worked into the rotation no more than the pitch count they'd decided for that guy.

How much more actual practice time would he get playing Saturday rather than Tuesday? They presumably have a real practice today. Tomorrow they have a morning game day skate. Wednesday they travel (or do they fly out late Tuesday after the BJ game?). Thursday game day morning skate. Friday - travel (see Wednesday's comment). Saturday game day morning skate. Suppose that could get him more back into the rhythm; but it won't really gain him much practice time. Would much rather they wait a couple of weeks to get him back inbetween the pipes; though that's likely a pipedream.

iF they are bound and determined to give UPL one of the next 3 starts (personally not completely convinced of that), they have to give him C-Bus. That is going to be the easiest of the 3 tests (when crowds are factored in along with talent of opponent). Friendly confines; no Ovechkin. Am hoping for Lyon - Ellis - Lyon with the B's game being a tossup between riding Lyon all week and giving Ellis the other start he's earned.

Wow. Would've guessed all of the others combined were a smidge less than his contract. Because even Lyon is well under $2MM/year.

Helps explain why they were the league laughing stock pre-AFL merger.

If you saw someone on the street wearing just the shirt, you'd wonder which EPL soccer team they were a fan of.

So, he had the stats to go along with the eye test that he was causing them trouble. 🍺

Is the question what we'd do or what we expect Adams to do? Expect Adams will roll with the 3 headed monster for a month or 2; but doubt that Ruff gives either of the 2 backups much work. Hopefully Ellis gets more of it than UPL but don't have a good feel for which one will get the bulk of the ones Lyon doesn't get. Personally, would keep UPL on the big squad as the 3rd goalie until he either gets back to form and then would give him A game to see where he's at or until they have to risk putting a guy they don't want to lose through waivers as guys come back from IR at which point he'd get waived to Ra-cha-cha because honestly don't see anyone trading for him with his current deal and would be shocked if anyone made a claim on him. (Presuming you need to punt him to not risk losing somebody else on the 23 man roster after IRs start to get healthy) Let him split time with Levi or backup Levi in Ra-cha-cha until/ unless Ellis shows he's not ready to be the backup on the big team. Should that occur, reevaluate. Should UPL play too well to stay in Ra-cha-cha, then try shopping him again when he might have some value. And in ANY case, get him a sports psychologist or a life coach or whatever you want to call someone to help him get out of his own head on the ice. You've got too much money invested in him to just let him waste away, or even worse, to torpedo another season showing some potential because you don't want to just waste the money by not playing him.

Hoecht seemed disruptive though not sure he had much in the way of personal stats. Never noticed the other guy. But Eddie O, until he broke again, Bosa, and Epinesa all were getting the personal stats. Expect Hoecht was a big part of that.

Glad to see you're on the 0.600 pace per a set of games segment team. Personally like to look at it in 5 game segments; but poe-tay-toe pah-tah-toe. Take 6 points every 5 games or 12 points every 10 games. Get to 96 points through 80 games and expect you'll need 3 points out of the last 4 which puts you over that magical 0.600 NHL threshold; but you can probably get away with only 2 of those last 4 points. (And there've been a lot of years that you can get by with less and MAYBE you'll be able to do so again; but shoot for 96 through 80 and 99 through 82 and you are almost guaranteed to be in the dance.) Win Tuesday and then figure you have to go 3-1-1 over the next 5 to be able to just go 3-2-0 all the rest of them. One other thing that's good about looking at 5 game segments rather than 10 is even if you've gotten ahead of the pace; look to win 3 of the next 5. Always look to win 3 of your next 5 unless you're behind the pace you need in which case getting 6 of the next 10 points in the minimum acceptable outcome and know you've really got to do a bit better than that. It's a doable mindset. Getting to 6 of the next 10 points keeps an urgency (well, sure we just dropped 4 in a row, but all we need is a 6 game winning streak and we're back to good vs we just dropped 2 in a row; we need the next 3 and let's start with this one) without seeming too daunting. Winning 6 of the next 10 might seem a slough; but just winning 3 out of 5, easy peazy. (Even though in reality they're the exact same thing.) Should they get the win Tuesday (and they SHOULD), they've got 14 5 game segments plus the 2 bonus games at the end to get that 1 point they're behind pace made up. They've only got 7 10 game segments plus the 2 bonus games to make it up. One other way to look at it which is a slightly tougher pace, but builds in some cushion to the 0.600 pace is win 2 of every 4 road games (or 5 of 10, or whatever segment you like) and win 3 of every 4 at home. (You actually only need to go 3-1-1 every 5 (-7-3-0 every 10) at home if you're going 2-2-1 every 5 on the road (5-5-0 every 10); but 3 of 4 is easy to think of and work toward and you get 10 of those segments (plus 1 bonus game) to get there.

And see the source of this kid's confusion. When I said if they believe in UPL they should've given him the starter's net in practice tomorrow and the game on Tuesday, meant in a world where Ellis got the start last night. Not in a world where Georgiev or somebody else got that start. So, when you said they should give the next one to Lyon, somehow read that as they should've given the next one to Lyon from the perspective of Saturday AM. D'oh!!! And while was leaning towards giving Ellis Tuesday's start and then Lyon Thursday and Saturday; would rather go Lyon, Ellis, Lyon (and if he gets little enough work on Tuesday, run Lyon, Lyon, Lyon).

Ah, thanks. And yeah, go Lyon, Ellis, Lyon (C-Bus, B's, Caps).

Eh, could make sense. The team would be leaving for TO around 11PM and have to go through customs. He wouldn't get a full night's sleep riding the bus with the team. And they'd apparently already made the decision to have UPL ride the bench that game. Why not let him go up early and get a good night's sleep when they don't have a reason to not let him get it? And the game was early. So, he wouldn't get his full day of ritual in anyhow if he came with the team.