Taro T

Yes, he'll be able to do that. The rub is, will the coaches actually let him or will they force the current play with different bodies but the same results. They need to figure out how to get Bob Wood back. He's the last coach they've had that knew how to run a power play. With that shot Thompson has and the rest of the talent on that unit, it should be one of the top 3 in the league.

As long as he doesn't automatically defer to Thompson he will defintely help. But Cozens should be a lot better on that unit as his shot has come along very nicely this season. But he unflaggingly defers to Thompson. Totally get why they want to USUALLY get the puck to Tage; can't understand why they ALWAYS move the puck to Tage rather than shooting themselves.

No, it hasn't. Tage has 1 PP goal in his last 5 games and 2 in the last 8. They still stand around too much and try to force the one timers. A MUCH better strategy would be to keep the unit's skaters moving and passing the puck and actually shooting from places that weren't set up for 1 timers. They don't do that with Olofsson on that unit. And the 2nd unit generates better chances because they actually move and move the puck. That top PP unit has been ineffective for a very long time and it will continue to be ineffective as long as they are so dependent upon getting a 1 timer to actually seal the deal. Do you actually watch the PP? Because what you are describing only happens at zone entry and immediately off won faceoffs. Once they get to their spots, they don't move hardly at all.

This kid still sees that the same way as when Granato started going to it. View it as a gimmick like having a huge defenseman play low in front of the goalie to try to create a screen. It works occasionally, but mainly when other teams aren't expecting the formation and don't have a plan on how to neutralize it. If the otehr team expects it, it's really ineffective because 2 of the 5 skaters (40%) are essentially stationary looking to get the pass to convert into a 1 timer. Much better to be keeping your skaters and the puck in motion getting the defenders out of position.

Was planning on going to this one but the wifey wasn't sure she'd get out of work early today until 30 minutes after somebody bought the tix. Oh, well, the Dallas game should be fun too. Sabres usually play well against the Eulers. Let's hope that trend continues.

If Tampa can't pick up the pace over where they've been since hosting the Sabres 2 weeks ago, they'll get 11 points in their last 19 games and finish the year at 90 points. They need to significantly pick up their play to get to an NHL 0.400 which would give them 95. If the Sabres play NHL 0.600 down the stretch they'll end with 93 points. Find a way to get 1 extra win over these final 21 games and things get really interesting. And if they could find a way to get to a full season NHL 0.600 they're locks.

They always are. It's just now the team feels the urgency of that truth.

Which is why when Tuch comes back, Quinn should be added to that line. That could be a treat to watch and actually help open some space for the Thompson line as teams aren't going to want that Cozens line just build up momentum every shift.

Like you say, it comes down to timing. And don't follow Juniors closely, but would be surprised if they don't end up in the Memorial Cup.

Would be very interested to hear his take on this, but expect part of why Dunleavy sounded so blah before but actually seems decent if not actually good for a TV announcer is he might just not have been able to fake it. (He knew the team was dreck and it was hard to elicit enthusiasm for dreck. But this team is fun. It's easy to get into the flow of the game.) My take. Would really be interested in hearing his take on it.

Like @dudacek said, Johnson having been a 1st round pick was in a different situatio than Portillo was in. If a team is unable to sign a 1st rounder before their exclusive window to negotiate with that player expires, the team gets a 2nd round pick in the next draft after the team no longer controls his rights in the same slot as the player was originally drafted in the 1st round. Johnson was selected 31st overall, so if he bolts the Sabres get the 31st pick of the 2nd round of the '24 draft and all other picks in that draft will slide back 1 slot. So, for somebody to get Johnson from the Sabres they'd have to offer something better than that 63rd overall pick next year. But it does seem that he will sign in Buffalo. And the Sabres only picking up 1 D-man at the deadline instead of 2 like they really kind of need could be another indication that Johnson will sign. They'll get his service this year down the stretch while he's on that post-NCAA initial foray into the NHL sugar high and they can get that extra D-man they'll still need in the summer.

In the past, teams ended up losing 2 players but at least 1 had to be an F and a team could only lose either 1 D-man or 1 goalie, not both. So teamsworked side deals with 1 of the teams coming in to select a G or D-man they didn't really want to protect all their other goalies and D-men. Doubt the league would do that again because if an owner is dropping $1B to enter the league that new owner is going to want to have access to any players that aren't protected. Either the league would stagger the entries like the last time or teams will lose 2 guys with no 2ndary protections to keep from losing whatever 2 guys the new teams want that weren't protected. REALLY hope the league doesn't do this. Fully expect they will do it and would expect Hank's plan is probably closer to reality than any of us would like to see. And that MIGHT be a precursor to an eventual inclusion of a European division that primarily plays amongst itself but that every team makes a trip or 2 over the pond to go on an 8 game or so road trip.

Nope. That's not the reason. The reason is $500MM and $750MM. Expect the reason the league expands again and also doesn't completely hose the expansion teams will be $1B and $1B.

That video wasn't in the locker room, it was in the corridor between the dressing room and the bench. And, while YMMV, it didn't seem the girl was running free.

Theoretically, he might at the end of the year after his junior season is over if he doens't look adequate in his initial early season stint wiht the Sabres. But that is fairly unlikely. (It also has the added benefit of not just getting him to play against men, but also ensures he doesn't exceed his 9 game threshold.

Pretty sure that video is the one Timmah Graham was talking about indicating that Harrington has a history of not playing nicely with the kids showing the world that anyone can do his job.

Detroit was trailing late against the Phlyers when, with the goalie pulled, Seider's stick exploded. Filly got the easy empty netter and ended their losing streak while extending Detroit's. Filly won 3-1. Detroit seems to be sunk. 1 fewer team to worry about.

The 1st attempt never really failed. It simply didn't succeed well enough for the team to actually make any money being so far from the rest of the league. Until their final season they never drew less than 12,000 fans and even in the last year when the writing was on the wall they still exceeded 10,000 fans / game. The real killer for them was never winning a playoff series though they usually ended up making the playoffs. Heck even though they never had a losing record after their 2nd year, they still couldn't win a playoff round. And thy made the playoffs that 2nd year playing in the weak western conference. They even missed the playoffs once with a winning record playing in the stacked newly formed Patrick division. To add insult to injury, the Calgary Flames made it to the semi-finals in their 1st year in Calgary losing to Minnesota who went on to be dismantled by the Aisles in their heyday.

The expansion fee is a big part of it, but it also could be a way to increase the value of the national TV contract without negatively affecting the Canadian TV rights deal with Rogers and TSN. The NFL is at a point where they don't really care what they do to the fans attending games in person because the TV deals are so ridiculously huge. The NHL has to see that and say, if we could just expand our footprint, we'd be that too. (They'd be wrong, but that wouldn't be the 1st thing they were wrong about.)

6-0 final. Anderson's 1st shutout of the year. Tampa only got 14 shots the entire game. Don't care how much people say Tampa is a lock for the playoffs, if they don't get their heads out of their bippies, they arent't. They're only 11 up on the Sabres and Otters. Buffalo has 42 points left to try for, Otterland has 40 left. 11-16 more by TB won't be enough to keep ahead of both of them.

Was saying yesterday that the Bolts were 1-3-2 since that game the Sabres played down in TB. It's now 1-4-2 and the only win they got was courtesy of a 50+ save shutout by Vaselivskiy. If they play their final 19 games as poorly as their last 7, they'll only have 88 points. Even if they get back to an NHL 0.400 for their final 20 (including today, they'll only end up with 93. They are very catchable, especially if Hedman is hampered by the back injury or if he actually misses time. IMHO, it's a 3 team race for the right to play the Loafs and an 8 team race for the 2 WC slots (well, 7 when 1 of those 1st 3 escape the WC chase). Yes, but it was 2 weeks ago that it happened. ;)

Houston couldn't fill the Astrodome for the state's national sport. Randall's Food Markets was responsible for almost all of the sellouts for games against teams not from Pittsburgh, Cleveland, or Dallas. And that was for a team that had made the playoffs 6 or 7 years in a row. They didn't support the Aeros after the Howes left. Don't put a team in Houston. That city only supports frontrunners (and even that is reluctantly).

Please do not expand beyond 32 teams. There is something very right about having 2^5 teams in the league. The regular season knocks out 1/2 of them out and then 4 rounds of playoffs trims down to the winner.

Yeah, the tea leaves keep portending that this is the captain's last season as an active Sabre. If he wants to move on, he's earned that right. He's done well by this team.

While you joke, and personally don't expect he sabotaged his play the last couple of weeks to stay a Sabre, do believe it was weighing heavily on his mind. He played much better yesterday than he had the previous 2-3 games. The puck wasn't hopping over his stick constantly and though he did do a bit of a driveby before the puck moved to the shooter on the 2nd goal against, his backchecking was better than what it had been recently. He also had 2 grade A scoring chances. Something that hadn't been happening recently.