Taro T

He played on the wing last season when recovering from an injury down the stretch. There's 1 scenario where it happens.

Except they didn't have one of the best PPs for most of the year. They had a several week stretch where the PP was absolutely lights out starting just before Cozens got moved to the top unit but it didn't start the year great and it fell off the face of the earth the last couple of months of the season. The entry on the PP was bad the entire season. Considering the talent on the PP, personally was extremely frustrated with the overall play of that unit (the aforementioned stretch where it was beyond good not withstanding). That unit has to be run better this season because they aren't going to be facing a steady diet of backup goalies this year. Agree with most of the rest of your post, but the PP for most of the season was relatively terrible.

Nope. The mascot hockey game. That was AWESOME. Sabretooth scored a goal!

ftfy.

So you were SERIOUSLY ASKING IF THE SABRES WOULD KEEP 9 OR 10 D on the SABRES ACTIVE 23 MAN roster? Holy funk Batman. And, would the Amerks be better off with career AHLers Prow and Davies or Clague and Bryson? Hmm, that's almost as difficult a Q to answer as whether they'll keep 9 or 10 guys on the parent team's 23 man roster. Enjoy Jacksonville Jeremy and Ethan. Do you think if they keep Comrie and UPL that they'll carry Tokarski too on the 23 man roster? Enquiring minds want to know. 😜

You then proceeded to edit the original daftness to go even further into strawman land? Im-####ing-press-ive.

If you actually read the entire post you would see that it was SPECIFICALLY SPELLED OUT THAT ONLY 8 of the 10 (or 11) would be on the Sabres and the other 2 (or 3) were Ra-cha-cha bound. The others are there for depth.

Maybe. A year ago would've said no. Without getting moved to C and without getting Eichel's spot on PP1 he wouldn't have had a big jump. But after watching him the past 2 seasons believe he was going to take off that year Eichel left even if he stayed on the wing. It just wouldn't have been as high. But he would definitely have improved under Granato's tutelage. When he tore up his shoulder doing the 2nd thing mites are taught to NOT do when getting hit into the boards (right behind putting your head down; you NEVER do that) was nearly completely ready to write him off as just not being able to get "it." Couldn't have been more wrong. Argued long and hard against ever moving him back to wing. Expecting if he goes back to W that while he won't be breaking 100 points, he's still going to be a force to reckon with and that take that he can't play W will be shown to be nearly as wrong.

Why wouldn't they carry the 10 (11 counting R. Johnson) they have into the season? Remember, Kevyn Adams was the beneficiary of insufficent Sabres Blue Line depth back in '06 and he was bitten hard on the arse this past season when Samuelsson, Lyubushkin, Jokiharju, etc all went down at the same time and the Sabres were left with Dahlin, Power, and 4 dwarfs (skillwise, not necessarily sizewise, though Bryson might've qualified that way as well 😉 ) and proceeded to lose 8 in a row. Win one of those in regulation and we probably don't see Okposo back this year nor are we as fans as desperate to see UPL and Comrie upgraded. Dahlin, Samuelsson, and Power aren't getting traded. Can't see E. Johnson nor Clifton getting traded either. Just how much value is there in trading away Jokiharju or Busch? If they make a trade for a Pesce, could see Joker going out as part of the package; but at the end of the day, they still have 10/11 deep at D. Maybe the Hellebucyk trade is still getting discussed. Could see Joker part of that package as well. But other than those 2 potential trades (or something in the same vein) what trade is getting made to lessen the D depth? Fully expect to see them keep 8 in Buffalo with Clague, Bryson, and R. Johnson in Ra-cha-cha.

Would actually put them both very close to each other as each has a different strength. But could you imagine seeing a team that had BOTH of them. That'd be the bomb. (Well, were it not horrendously dysfunctional.) (Plus, could you imagine a team having Murray's apparent 2nd target to dump his 3 2nd rounders - Alex Tuch on that team WITH Thompson and Eichel.)

Overall agree with most of the analysis. But you are predicting the Bruins to lose more than 20 more games outright than they did all of the last regular season (135 ->94 points which is 0-20-1 worse than they were last year). Am expecting a huge falloff, but can't see them being on the wrong side of 100 points this year. Expecting them or the Sabres to be the 3 seed in the division with the other likely the 2nd wildcard. Yes, the Metro's top 3 are better than the Atlantic's top 3 top to bottom (in a 1 to 1 ranking) but after their top 3 (Carolina, Joisey, Rags) am not overly impressed with any of them. Would take Buffalo or Boston over the Aisles, Pens, and Caps. The BJ's will be better, but expect they're in the Otter/Red Wing category and Filly is still in Hab territory until they aren't.

That's actually pretty good. Could work.

That is an ugly bottom 6. But technically all 4 lines have a center.

Interesting. Would have Eichel higher than 18th, but not sure exactly where between 8 and 17. In Buffalo, only because of injuries. That year he got 82 points in 77 games he was well on pace to end up over 100 points through 50 some games but then played through a leg injury that significantly hurt his productivity. (Had 5 points in the 12 games surrounding him being out a few in mid-March.) Want to say he was battling through injuries again that season that got cut short by Covid, but not recalling ottomh what the injuries were that he was dealing with.

Umm, the guy that used to have Thompson's job before Tuch and Krebs became Sabres?

At least until '89 when the Iron Curtain fell, Russian was the 2nd/3rd language for the people over there. Guess it would depend upon which part of Czechoslovakia the person was from whether Slovak or Russian was the 2nd language. The Russians made sure the citizens of all of their satellites could speak it. Though the people there hate Russia (understandably), it might still be their 2nd language today. (Much like most French people can speak English even though they dislike them even more than they dislike Germans. (Still pissed over them not sticking around to get slaughtered at Dunkirk when the Brits decided to live to fight another day.))

Except for your 3rd pairing, that IMHO looks like what they'll start the year with barring additional moves. Personally expect the 3rd pairing to either by Johnson - Jokiharju (more likely, Granato loves him some Jokiharju) or Johnson - Lyubushkin. Though Stillman is the only lefty of the bottom 4, he's also IMHO by far the least talented of the 4 (presuming Johnson hasn't fallen off a cliff this summer). Could also see them flipping Okposo and Rousek if that's just too much youth to saddle Krebs with. Expect he'll be able to handle that assignment, but if not, that's the likely other switch up. Would also rather see Comrie as the backup than UPL (higher floor, lower ceiling; but UPL's lower floor becomes scary bad when he scrapes it) if those are the ONLY 2 options; but expect they will run with UPL like you expect. Comrie does a great job at covering the bottom of the net (ridiculously long legs are a benefit here) and hopefully he won't get into enough games for teams to figure out that bar down is his kryptonite. Ironically, expect that Quinn being out of the lineup ends up keeping Olofsson out of the lineup more often as either Krebs or Mittelstadt (more probable) fills in for Quinn and Jost draws into the lineup as the 4C; whereas if Krebs is 4C and Mitts 3C they could be rotating Rousek and Olofsson depending upon the opponent and Jost is either the full time 13F or in Ra-cha-cha if they run with 8D. And will be interesting to see if any of Kulich, Savoie, Benson, or some wild card has a better camp than Rousek and knocks him out of the lineup. Have Rousek pencilled in right now, but could see somebody else step up and steal his spot.

True. There's a very good chance somebody else will be out then. Don't know that it's fair to expect it to be a LT injury, but somebody will likely be out. But shouldn't Kulich be ready for his look see on the big club by then? Expecting the Sabres will have better options to fill that void than the only #1 OA pick born just a couple of miles from the MMArena.

Without any other moves, he's absolutely getting the 1st chance to grab the 4 spot. Even if a move gets made for Pesce or someone else of that reputation would expect that guy to get 1st look at replacing Samuelsson on the top pairing to see if the more talented guy could develop the same sort of chemistry with Dahlin as Muel has displayed. And Muel Lyubushkin or Muel E. Johnson should be one of the best if not the best 3rd pairing shutdown D tandem in the league; and Muel Jokiharju would still be a respectable 2 way 3rd pairing (and one of the top 2 way 3rd pairings in the league).

And therein lies the rub. He doesn't really bring anything the healthy forward grouping doesn't already have and he's expected back too late to be bringing anything they might be missing with Quinn out of the lineup. And the veteran forward who likely stuck around 1 year too long slot has already been claimed by Okposo. Not sure what he brings that the team as currently constructed is lacking.

Paetsch is a very logical choice. They've seen him in action on the development side of things, so expecting he'll be a good fit in this new role. Prospal is a very intersting choice. Always liked him as a player. Hoping he's as good of a coach as he was an NHLer. On paper, both look like very good additions.

HockeyDB says he was born in Fort Erie, but am seeing other sites like yours saying he was born in Buffalo. Never once heard anyone from Buffalo claim him as their own, so presumed he actually was Fort Erie. It seems (and will not bother to confirm it one way or another) that he was born in a Buffalo hospital to parents that lived on the other side of the Niagara River in Fort Erie. So, you were right. Sorry for doubting you. 🍻 (Though still don't think of him as a Buffalonian. 😉) (PS, would definitely include Stempniak as being from Buffalo. West Seneca is the town directly adjacently east of South Buffalo. It's actually the town inbetween Orchard Park (where the Buffalo Bills play) and Buffalo.)

Just spitballin' here, but he probably likes to collect hockey sweaters and by wearing them while he's making his videos he can write of their cost as an expense of doing business. 2 birds, 1 stone. 😉

From February 1 through to Levi signing with the Sabres he certainly wasn't helping the cause. 2-6-2 in those 10 games. If you want to look at penultimate stats rather than the "ultimate stat" he had 2 games with a sub-0.750 S% and gave up at least 4 goals on 7 occassions. You SURE he wasn't holding them back?

Fix the goaltending and you will have fixed the PK. Bringing in better PKers was a good thing. But right now, Levi is their best PKer. And because he is back there the Sabres can implement the Canes PK (at least when he's in the net). Will they implement it? Expecting they will, or a variant, and if not, somebody needs to be canned yesterday. Will they implement it should Comrie or UPL (or Tokarski) be between the pipes? They haven't in the past. Remains to be seen if they will if any of them end up between the pipes.