Taro T

It sure SEEMS that the Sabres have done pretty well in those 2 drafts. We got REALLY lucky that Botterill wouldn't gut the front office because really doubt he & his crew would've negotiated those 2 limited information drafts as well as Adams & his crew seem to have done. When good information is scarce, having people that understand the art of a process can be even more important than those that understand the science of it. (And being able to understand what is the true signal through a ton of noise is an art; through you need the science to identify & diffetentiate each signal & most bits of noise.)

Yup. KC came to Buffalo once in the McDermott era.

Would expect it as well. Want to see them have the best lineup they can against the Krackers to finally get that W against them. 1st game might've been overconfidence (which is surprising, concerning where they were at), & the next 2 were at points where the Sabres were struggling. Play this one straight up & get rid of the ridiculous concerns about the Krackers having the Sabres #.

Why do you expect them to keep Hinostroza up & run w/ only 6 D?

But that is part of not sacrificing tomorrow for a (possible) modest improvement today. Expect that the players would notice Comrie getting stuck in Ra-cha-cha for an extra week just to allow management to avoid pulling the trigger on a decision they've already made; and they'd know that isn't he RIGHT thing to do. Management can't ask the players to dothe right thing & then not do it themselves. Expect they'll buy more trust & buy-in from the players by risking losing Hinostroza this week than by waiting to see if somebody gets injured 1st. Would put any amount of money down that neither member of the kid line sees Ra-cha-cha again. (Unless it is strictly to get them additional playoff experience & still don't see that happening either.)

Serious d'oh! Forgot the 2nd doober. 😉 And, yes, it should've ended D'oh, not doo. (FAR better name.)

Expect Savoie has a pretty good chance at a 9 game look see next year. Would be pleasantly surprised if he extends that for the full year but for the reason's you lay out not expecting it. Gut feel is that Okposo isn't back next year. If he isn't, there is AN opening at F out of the gate. (Hinostroza is almost definitely gone as well, so there's room for either an Amerk running out of his waiver exemption or a FA vet to take his place as the designated pressboxer.) Unless somebody still waiver exempt really wows out of camp, could see Savoie getting his 9 game look then getting replaced by somebody like Kulich. Or if they bring in a middle 6 type vet could see Savoie's tryout bumping him or Asplund to the pressbox and that Hinostroza placeholder to the Amerks briefly, or maybe not so briefly. And really only expect Savoie to get the 9 game look because he can't be Ra-cha-cha bound but they need to see if (hopefully) outclassing kids is better for his LT development or if following the Krebs watch, learn, & train w/ the pros would be better. Totally get why the CHL insists on that no-AHL rule in their agree,ent w/ the NHL (those are the kids people pay to watch) but wonder if in the future they might be able to work out a deal where the NHL adequately compensates the junior clubs/leagues to put those D+2 guys that are too good for Junior but not for the NHL into the AHL.

Yep. Coach, Weegar, & Huberduberduberdeau were key pieces. (& yeah, that's not how he spells nor pronounces his name, but Hoo-ber-doo-ber-doo-ber-doo is just a fun & realistically better surname for him. 😉 )

At the end of the day, the NHL 0.600 is the key. If they get & stay there and subsequently miss the playoffs, they will be the ONLY team to have done so in over 50 years and only the 2nd ever in the modern era. Winning their next 3 puts them on pace. After that, take 6 points or better every 5 games (3-2-0 or 2-1-2 is all they need then) and they nearly definitely will make the playoffs. Play better than that & start building a cushion for the nearly inevitable losing streak they suffer at some point down the stretch. Yeah, it's fun to scoreboard watch when the point total is rising. And, yeah, it's kind of silly at this point, but it's fun. And as long as they continue to beat their own demons & get 6+ every 5, it should bear fruit as well regardless of what their rivals do.

Well, right now he's playing like the 1 in Buffalo. REALLY don't see him getting sent down, but we'll know who's right in 2 or so days. And, IMHO, if he survives Comrie getting activated, he'll survive Jokiharju"s activation as well, but whether that's the case remains to be seen as well.

That was fun to watch in the stadium. Could see how open he got as soon as Allen sent him deep. The 2 KO returns were telegraphed live too. Was joking after the 2nd one that if the Cheat Miser were smart he'd start kicking them out of bounds & giving the Bills the ball at the 40. The SOB really does have spies everywhere! 😉 1st in stadium game for this kid since Ryan was coach.

Cool. Didn't expect them to take the full 2 weeks before ending the conditioning assignment. Guess we'll know in the next couple of days if it is Hinostroza or somebody else that is the newest Ra-cha-cha Amerk.

We disagree. Fair enough. As stated above, expect we'll see which view is correct by the AS Break.

Don't see a particular matchup issue when the Sabres are healthy, so don't see a reason hy the Sabres can't/won't beat them. They were severely injured for the 1st game this year. They're much healthier now. Last year's game in Buffalo, the Sabres were pathetic & had one of their worst games of the Granato era. If he's as good a coach as we believe he is, the boys will be ready.

Honestly don't believe it's slowing down that causes the overthinking. Expect it's the other way round. Remember, he's been both fully healthy & slotted properly under Granato's coaching for less than 1/4 of a season. The rest of this month should give us a good feel for which view is correct.

To the bolded, absolutely. Hinostroza isn't a part of the future & is the easy choice. Which D to send down is tougher. They seem to like Bryson, so doubt it is him getting sent down. Expect it'd be Fitzgerald going down, but it easily could be Clague. Really doubt either gets claimed & if 1 does, it likely isn't that huge a deal. Would keep all 3 goalies, not just for them all earning a spot on the roster, but also because except for the AS break they've got 4 games / week for the foreseeable future. Sliding Anderson the odd game here or there could be the key to keeping all 3 healthy & not overworked.

Have said before, would be surprised if a roster player gets traded this year. It would need to be a move that really screams the D is going to be upgraded. (Don't even see a potential trade like that for a goalie with the way UPL is playing & the ceiling both Comrie & Levi have.) Next off-season possibly, & next trade deadline after that of the following season is when guys that don't fit LT are identified & shopped.

Thanks to @tom webster for setting all this up. Good to finally meet him. It was fun & we saw a great game.

My guess is that Jost is seen more as the checking C longish term rather than key cog in the offense. There's a reason Krebs is no longer the C sitting when the bench is shortened to 3 lines.

One thing to remember w/ Mittelstadt is heading into the season both he & Granato were talking about him very likely moving to wing. That did not happen. Not sure if it was because Krebs wasn't ready for 3C, Sheahan not being able to take the 4C role, or Asplund not stepping up there either. But he didn't expect to be a C, much less the 2C when the season began. Preparing for 1 role & then being given a different one MIGHT have been a small part of his issues.

Hasn't he been there since he got back in the lineup, or were there 1-2 games played before Jost became the 3rd line C? Some of these milestone points are blending together. (It's late. Working on little sleep & have to get up early again tomorrow.) Don't know if Krebs will become the 3C or if Savoie/Kulich/ other will be there & the Sabres will have 4 lines that can all score. We really seem to be on the verge of having a F lineup from top to bottom that we haven't seen since the mid-70's.

The Kid Line was promoted against Joisey. Mittelstadt & Olofsson did not initially play better at that switch. They actually dropped off slightly IMHO. And it took a handful of games to adjust to Jost. But, again IMHO, Mittelstadt's play had a dramatic shift in style ~7 games ago though not results. The past 4 he's actually had an increase in effectiveness to go w/ that shift in style. And Granato is recognizing & rewarding that w/ stuff like getting to play in OT the last 2 games. That line is not ready to bump back up to 2nd line duty. Maybe they never will be. But, if he can stay on this present trajectory the way other underachievers (an unfair term, but basically young guys that haven't had the light bulb go on yet, though the talent is there) that Granato believed in have done; about the time the team comes back from the AS break they'll get another crack at it. Which would also work wonders for reignighting the Kid Line again. Could honestly see that line being effective at 2nd line duty in a month or 2, though not necessarily good. If it does get there, other teams won't be able to exploit either it or the other middle 6 line in the MMArena; and trust that Granato will adjust their deployments on the road to minimize it there too. And the Kid Line was on fire those 1st few games after the switch. But you can only run on adrenaline so far.

Where are you getting to the point of 2 F's get injured? If Girgensons gets hurt, then Asplund plays & Hinostroza returns to his current role. If a player that has a more offensive role gets hurt & they don't see Asplund as filling his role nor as filling in for an active player that bumps up higher, then they're calling up Rousek or somebody else to step in. But should somebody else get hurt after the hypothetical Girgensons injury, they aren't going to send Vinny down to make other moves. He's the 14 when all are healthy, & if he bumps to 13 he isn't bumping back to 14 except due to players getting healthy. (And he does bump to 14 when players are healthy.) And don't see any scenario where we see Bjork back on the Sabres roster, pressbox or not, during the RS. The ONLY way he's back is if the Sabres are in the layoffs & Ra-cha-cha is done.

Granato's been deploying his line as the 3rd scoring line. Considering all the other 3 lines do have chemistry, there isn't much more he can do without benching Olofsson, and we've seen he isn't benching VO. He seems to play well w/ Jost. The 1st few games they didn't seem in sync, but it has been better the last 6 or so games. Even to the point where in the last game they were able to set up Olofsson for a couple of chances & the goal they scored. They weren't getting chances earlier. Will it continue? Granato seems to think so. Personally hope so. We get another chance to watch the experiment unfold at 7PM tonight. Looking forward to it.

To the bolded, exactly. And the 13th F is injury insurance at home too. If e.g. Girgensons goes down, Asplund is going in. The player coming up is coming up to sit in the pressbox. There isn't any AHLer filling that role better than Rasmus. Why would Bjork suddenly be a better option to sit in the pressbox than Hinostroza? If somebody gets hurt in warm-ups, does ANYBODY (other than Bjork's mom) want to see him stepping in over Vinny?