Taro T

Yup. He'll fit in fine in a 2ndary role on the 2nd pairing or could be a really strong 3rd pairing guy.

Personally, expect the lines Fairburn expects is what we'll see on the 11th. But expect the spares to be Jost, Stillman, and Clague with UPL getting waived. And, like others, expect the lines to be significantly shuffled by the 3rd or 4th game. At that point: Skinner - Thompson - Tuch Peterka - Cozens - Benson Greenway - Mittelstadt - Olofsson Girgensons - Krebs - Okposo And about 2 games later the D also gets shuffled: Samuelsson - Dahlin Power - Clifton E Johnson - Jokiharju And if those F lines don't work, (and they very well might not) we see Jost moving to Krebs spot, VO taking Jost's spot in the Press Box and not sure how the other 6 get mixed and matched. Tuch could get mixed and matched off Thompson's line again at that point. Not sure.

Which says IMHO that Bryson is going to be an Amerk and they still could run 8D. Cannot see them keeping Johnson as the 7 simply to sit in the press box most nights. One of Biro, Jost, or Rousek (likely Jost) ends up the 13. And will still say that they're keeping 2 goalies until the 10th gets here and it gets proven wrong. Per Okposo, the team was going to send UPL down last year when Comrie came back but the players lobbied for UPL to stay up. After the finish he had last year and the way he played in the preseason, simply don't see any player lobbying for him again. (And maybe UPL's ahead of Comrie, hope not, but maybe he is. If so, it is what it is, but they should send Comrie down in that case.)

Definitely. And realize many here are expecting the 3 headed monster back, really believe that they're going to run with 2 in Buffalo and if that means they lose #3, well there's a reason they brought Tokarski back and Cooley in rather than running with Subban and Houser for Ra-cha-cha. They have 2 better goalies in Ra-cha-cha than they had before and 1 of them has been servicable in spot duty in the NHL.

They had a plan - play the kids and find out to as great an extent as is possible just what they have in them. Pretty sure they're pretty comfortable in their evaluations on them. But the downside of the plan is a couple of new D that haven't played in this system have almost or actually no experience in it in game situations and some other vets seem to have rust to shake off. Hopefully they go with the NHL roster minus the 4th line and Levi so they can get 1 last look at the kids they're making a final decision on, they look at Comrie 1 last time, and they let the rest of the lines and pairings get a full game of action in. Losing Okposo, Girgensons, and probably Krebs won't affect the PP at all and it won't hurt to have the 5-6 and 7-8 PK F's get a little extra action in on the PK. Won't panic until and if they look this bad on the 11th. But last night was ugly throughout.

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.)