Taro T

Agree that Johnson is the actual 7 (maybe Granato has a soft spot for Stillman and he's the 7 w/ Johnson the 8); but he will be Ra-cha-cha's #1 when the bullets start flying unless somebody in the back 6 gets IR'd. Still expect them to keep 8 D up with the 8th probably being Clague but maybe Bryson. Doubt we see the 8 play at all unless there are 3 injured D. The fill in's are Stillman and Johnson and not necessarily in that order.

They play terrible D in front of all 3 goalies (all 4 if you want to include Anderson from last year). That isn't something that UPL gets to feel special about. UPL's issue is he isn't going to make that big save when they need it. He's going to let the back breaking weak goal go in that starts a brief talispin that neither the team nor he are going to work out of before it's a massive struggle to get back into the game. He may someday become a decent #1. He's very young in goalie years. But wouldn't have money on it. And don't expect him to ever get the mentality that a good backup needs. UPL has said himself he needs to know the team believes in him and feel that it's his team to be at his best. Well, as long as #27 is a Sabre, this won't be his team. If the choice is between the 2; keep Comrie as the backup. His ceiling is lower, but his floor is a lot higher, and he doesn't need it to be "his" team to play his best.

He's probably more Sabres Charlie Huddy at this stage than Sabres Nuni (pronounced New Knee as it what Donald Audette and several other players needed after one of Muni's patented knee on knee hits). Hoping we don't have a Craig Simpson. He never could overcome the back injuries by the time he was a Sabre. But he was a beast in his prime.

Never? Ever? Cool story, bro. So, they won every Stanley Cup of the 80's right because he never ever let in that next goal. Btw, Steve Smith says 'hi.' 😉

Grant Fuhr of the Sabres was an adequate goalie. Hasek was way better than him regardless of what point in his career you are looking at. And, for the Sabres portion of his career, Miller was better than Fuhr. And the post that you're taking exception to was referring to one that said literally "(t)hat's why Levi is our Grant Fuhr (hopefully) ...". Well "our Grant Fuhr" wasn't anything special and the post you took exception to was playing off of that phrasing. But back to your subject, the assets that it cost to bring Fuhr in cost the Sabres the Stanley Cup in '93. And it's because Muckler refused to see what was in front of him. Heck, even with that horrible trade, if he's smart enough to play Hasek against Moe-ray-all instead of der Fuhr they very well might've won the SC. But again, Muckler was too adamant in refusing to believe the results (which Hasek had had at every single level he ever played; he was at the top (not necessarily #1 in the IHL, but up there) of the GT ranks at every stop he had.

Not only did he play for the Sabres, Muckler gave up Puppa, Andreychuk, and a 1st that turned into Kenny Johnson WHILE having DOMINIK HASEK on the team to get him! Friggin' moron.

We don't want the Sabres Grant Fuhr we want another Sabres Hasek or Miller. Fuhr lost 4 straight to the Habs.

Pretty sure PP needs a new coach. But that ship has salied for this season. (And yes, these units weren't anything at all like what they'll be next week. But these fill ins can't execute a zone entry to save their lives on the PP which is the exact same issue the real units had last year.)

Pretty sure 3 goalies, 15 F's (not including injured Quinn and Savoie), and 9 D (the starting 6 plus Stillman, Clague, and Johnson). Don't believe anybody else is still up with the 3 Amerk F's getting sent down this afternoon.

Expecting at least a fair amount of Clifton and Tuch looking not good, to be polite, is them not having played at all in the preseason yet. (Wasn't Tuch a day of scratch in the 1 game he was scheduled to play?)

Is the answer Benson? Because it feels like Benson. (Either him or Jokiharju burying a 2nd opportunity.)

Steve Ott wants a word. 😉

Sabres realistically could have the runner up and the 3rd place finisher in the Calder voting this year. (No way Bedard doesn't get it; especially with Benson and Levi stealing votes from each other.)

The PP is getting better. They had a 4 minute PP and didn't give up a single shot against. Baby steps.

UPL is bad. He is NOT Merzlerkins level bad. Apparently playing behind a tire fire eventually burns the backstop out too.

Right before he got the goal, he set Rousek up with a glorious opportunity that he couldn't get on net. Every game he plays, this kid just looks like a keeper.

Peterka with a nice play to get the puck to Power to get it back to 3-2.

We agree that he coasted when he got back to the zone. But he didn't coast from when the play was turning up ice. And he needed to be more aware that the 3 guys deeper than him were not in position.

The Sabres high danger chance probably wasn't even the goal, but rather Benson's shot off the crossbar. Really hoping they aren't figuring they only have to play the 3rd period against these guys. UPL isn't going to stone the BJs when the Sabres start pinching and getting caught in odd man rushes.

Hoping his issue is just the rust of not having played since the Florida series. Benson is just about the only Sabre that looks good so far. (Am about 2 minutes behind on the feed.)

When he got to the Sabres blue line, yes. But, there were 3 Sabres deeper than him and 3 BJ's on the rush. Tuch was the 1st man back. That all 3 Sabres that were 1st into the zone were all on the left 1/2 of the ice made Mittelstadt hanging up where the W should be setting up look very bad.

He was. But Tuch was the one that was the 1st forward back into the zone. He was coasting too. Mitts had been forechecking at the BJs BL and couldn't break up the play. And once again UPL doesn't come close to bailing his teammates out. Really don't see how he can win the competition unless Comrie pukes all over himself in matchup 2 vs the Pens.

Several of them. Greenway bumped down to Krebs line.

Really not happy about the possibility of additional expansion. Something truly perfect about there being 2^5 teams in the league and each round (RS, 1st Round, QF, SF, F) cutting that quantity in half. Plus, as it is now, at an absolute minimum there are 2 teams in the league that will be waiting more than 3 decades to win their next (and possibly 1st) championship. Add 2 more teams and there will still definitely be at least 4 in that boat. That's a crazy long time to go and realistically you could be looking at 15 or so teams with no parade at the end of the year over that span.

His belief, and his teammates beliefs, that this team will be in the playoffs this year and thinking about how much it would mean to be on this team when they both get their 1st taste of the playoffs in the past decade or so is what brought him back. Really expect he could be a very unsung hero in the playoffs, as he's one of the ones that style comes naturally to.