Taro T

Yep. And get pulling Bichette to get the pinch runner in there, but if you are "all in" to win in the 10th WHY leave the #7 hitter who was 0-4 at the time in the lineup with bases loaded and only 1 out? Why not use a power hitter as a pinch hitter to get a sacrifice and drive that pinch runner in? You still have the guy with 30 hits coming up after him if that doesn't work. They ALMOST got the run leaving him in, but it just seemed there'd be a better chance to force in a run if somebody with power was at the plate there.

Why Santy Claus, WHY?!?!?!?

NHL technically doesn't do that. Players go in for their careers and not as a member of a particular team. Which is unlike how MLB does it and how the NFL seems to do it.

During the broadcast they mentioned the Celtics played last night. That was the excuse used for why pucks kept bouncing wildly off one of the stanchions in the Sabres end. Presumably that's why the ice seemed bad too.

On a certain level Ruff isn't the problem. BUT he accepted ALL the assistant coaches when he was brought in wtihout bringing in any of his own guys (with the minor exception of demoting Ellis and moving Appert from Amerks HC to key AC and PP coordinator; which is just as bad, if not actually worse) and then after having worked with all of them for a full year didn't punt ANY of them (not even a demotion) and brought the entire band back except for the S&C coach. Their coaching is bad. Though will give Wilford credit for having the PK playing very well when it gets good GTing behind it. Did NOT see even that coming. And the fact that Ruff hasn't forced any real moves in that department says he's part of the problem too.

No, Stillman is the guy that Jeannot destroyed. In IIRC Stillman's 1st game in a Sabre uni. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Yes, but at least they picked up 3 points in these 3 losses. Doing that several more times 3 years ago would've easily gotten them in the playoffs and could've had them in contention the last couple. But now they need to stack some W's.

Hoping just a retool, not a rebuild. Fix the coaching and upgrade about 4 roster spots and they can be good.

Stillman. (Probably already answered by somebody else. Apologies if this answer was redundant.)

Ruff will go with UPL. Personally, would go with Ellis. UPL giving Ovie a hattie won't help anyone's psyche. (Well, nobody in B&G at any rate.)

It WAS the right play. He had 2 guys ready for a rebound towards the far side and he went far blocker side so there was no way for Korpisalo to freeze the puck. He simply didn't get the shot on net to force the save (should the shot not have gotten though to the twine). He simply didn't MAKE the play. He tried the right thing, he simply didn't make it work.

The league doesn't get it because they have no incentives to "get it" and their broadcast partners have never gotten it going back at minimum to the days NBC couldn't wait to get Marv Albert back behind a mic.

If they're keeping it a secret, we just don't want to know.

Unless another team besides the Sabres put a claim in on him, if St. Louis wants him back in the 1st 30 days and the Sabres waive him then he's Peoria (or wherever the Blues farm club is nowadays) bound. Should the Sabres keep him around a bit longer, then anybody making a claim would have to keep him in the NHL. But, no point at all in waiving him until they know what they have in him. Maybe they lucked into something.

He played better than UPL the 1st few games of last year, having 2 very good games out of 3 to UPL's 1 good game out of 4; but Ruff still decided to run with UPL after UPL finally had A good game against one of the worst teams in the league. (And UPL's 1 good game didn't happen until after Levi had a disasterous start against the BJs.) He'd also played very well at the end of the previous season in the handful of games he'd gotten as Granato was on his way out the door. Levi was bad when he finally got back in but wasn't horrible, but by then Ruff had already long before made up his mind on who his starter was and when they managed to regrab Reimer, the Amerks net was his; but he'd played well those 1st couple of games when he believed he had an opportunity to win the job after having beaten Reimer out of the top 2 role and having outplayed UPL as well. UPL played well for a few games after being handed the starter's net, as he'd done in the past (you LIKE UPL, you really, really LIKE UPL) after getting handed the starter's net. But after losing a game to Minny that he'd personally played great in (as did the rest of the team), the wheels fell off for both UPL and the Sabres. Also, would agree that Adams has wanted to give the crease to Levi; but Ruff never had any plans to give the net to Levi. At his B&G I's that 1st summer he was in town, he was talking UPL up hugely with little mention of Levi. And UPL was the presumptive starter as camp opened both last year and this year. Had UPL not been broken heading into camp, he would've been the starter and Lyon the backup as was the original plan.

Personally, try to give them the benefit of the doubt and when it's obvious they're going to be in way more of a hurry than this kid, try to wave them through the interesection. (And then get ticked when they DON'T end up driving like maniacs but rather driving right at or below the speed limit.) Why give them the benefit of the doubt? Because a long time ago in a place far away had to drive about an hout to get back home once and about 15 minutes into the trip started to have an allergic reaction. Started driving way too fast on a multilane highway to get to the hospital (had no idea where or even if there was one near where the reaction started but knew where one was 30 or so miles down the road) and had idiots that were upset seeing this car flying down the highway and they'd pull out in front to force weaving down that highway to get to the hospital. Reason for flying was twofold, getting to the hospital quicker, and hoping to get pulled over so a cop could get me there with his lights on and flying even faster. Never saw a cop that trip, but when finally got to the emergency room the person at the attendant's desk was quite blase until she looked up; after that she and the rest of the staff started moving much quicker. So, tend to try to believe they are having some sort of emergency situation they're dealing with, even though it's far more likely they're young and driving the way @Weave says he did when he was young or yours truly did back then too. It's not likely they are dealing with an emergency, but on that 2% of the time they are, maybe getting over and helping them pass ends up saving a life (besides my own).

Ellis is the shiny new car that people haven't noticed the paint chips and road tar on yet. Will he retain the luster as we see more of him and more importantly as other teams develop book on him? No data. Hopefully, because if he does, he either can step up when Lyon starts to falter or even better gives the Sabres one more valuable goaltender to keep or use to bolster another deficiiency. But, though he's ahead of Levi on the depth chart now due to contract statuses, there is no guarantee at all he'll still be ahead of Levi on the depth chart when camp opens again (or possibly even sooner).

Surely some know their names, but not this kid (at least not many of them). And yeah, that's a shame, as they are a significant portion of the game. But the refs and the league preferred for them to be anonymous, thus taking their names off the backs of their jerseys and giving them numbers instead.

By points percentage. Not by points. Needed to not just outplay the Wild the day before but actually beat them to have been able to say they were there by both metrics on Eat Turkey/ Watch Football Day.

All it takes is one of the subs that make up that consortium to be willing to offer a policy and then there's a policy. (Lloyd's is a really interesting entity.) And, don't see any reason why at least someone wouldn't be willing to write up a policy. There is a cap to what the full payment would be. We're talking salary insurance, not health insurance which he already has through the league's group policy. So, the only question in setting a premium is having an actuary determine what the likelihood of him suffering a significant injury is. And, again, it very well might not make sense from the Pegula's perspective to get insurance for his contract because it will be extremely expensive. Though they MIGHT have gotten it after he'd been cleared as fully recovered from the shoulder and abdomin injuries and it's also possible that the contract was already insured by the Otters back when they gave him the LT deal. Recall, LaFontaine's contract had been insured back in the day and the Sabres collected on the policy; even after he'd suffered some pretty severe injuries.

Of course Lloyd's would be willing to insure it. But not necessarily at a price that makes sense from the Sabres perspective.

Were it next season already, not convinced Ellis would be ahead of Levi. But he's 1 year older than Devon and he has to go through waivers to get sent down and at present Levi doesn't. Next year, they both need to clear to go down. At least 1 of the 4, and possibly 2 of the heads of the 4 headed goalie monster, will be joining Georgiev on a bus out of the Sabrehood next year.

Again, thus the reason for the question mark after "only." BUT Samuelsson HAS been jumping up into the rush, sometimes even being the Sabre going to the net, which is not something defensive defensemen do on a regular basis (other than his OT goal, did Lybushkin EVER join a rush while wearing B&G?). Don't consider him to be a true 2-way guy; but he's been playing the sort of game than Ruff expected from him when he signed on to replace Granato. But for RIGHT NOW, he's playing that way. And, yes, he is playing differently than Timmons is at present. Will that continue? No data. But hope it does, because right now, both of those guys are helping the team win games and stay competitive in the ones they don't win.

Well, 1st off, meant to put a "?" in the parenthesis after the "only," so thanks for catching that. But why even say "only?" Well, because would say Samuelsson is pretty much a two-way guy so far this season. When not paired with Dahlin, he's been doing a very effective job the past few games of jumping up into the rush. Wouldn't consider Kesselring to be a defensive D-man either based on what we've seen so far, though he may turn into one.

Why wouldn't they? Samuelsson gives Dahlin some help down low when out with the Thompson line as Kulich doesn't give much help there. Timmons is their best (only?) purely defensive defenseman at this point and Power tends to play better when he's out there with him. Kesselring has only had 1 RS game under Ruff's system and, except for a couple of major brainfarts (a breakaway that Byram and Lyon rendered pretty harmless being the biggest of those) played well on the 3rd pairing and having Byram ready to jump up into the play seemed to help the 4th line really keep pressure in the other team's end. Were Norris available (yeah, right) or McLeod bumped up to Thompson's line might be inclined to go with the pairings that were most expected heading into camp (Byram-Dahlin, Power-Kesselring, and Samuelsson-Timmons); but when looking at the down low units as a 3 man unit rather than just 2; actually like the logic of having a presumably defensively responsible guy on each pair and an offensive guy on each pair.