Taro T

And Tennessee played in Buffalo this year. That worm has turned. In '24 the KC one does as well.

Teams break out whites @ home for 'special occassions.' Not sure if it's happening more often or not. Really only watch ~100 non-playoff games / yr lately, so the Sabres 50ths, butter knives, & heritage classic + "white hot Friday nights" could definitely be skewing the perception. Depends on how long the road trip is & whether they can get their other opponents on the trip to wear white as to whether the visitor will be on board w/ wearing darks on the road. Still hate that teams primarily wear darks at home.

Really want to see them come away w/ 6 points here. Calgary is probably out of their league right now. And, though the Eulers should be as well, the Sabres seem to play them well. Will be very disappointed w/out W's playing on the Pacific.

37 says 'hi.' 😉

Have still only seen it on the jumbotron. Looked like there was some white at the glove webbing between the black inside his glove & the crossbar, but haven't seen it in higher definition than that.

And it is really frustrating that Adams hasn't come up w/ a way to spend some of it on assets that don't evaporate the day after the regular season ends.

Well, sure. After the Sabres softened them up. It's like a glass jar's lid. The 1st one to try to open it just gets it loose; & the next 1 to come along actually gets it open. 😉 Durn B's got lucky to get 'em after the Sabres. 😉

That's correct. They haven't had them for nearly a decade. But they still can't have 24 healthy rostered players which they'll have tomorrow if Sheahan is activated & Bjork isn't in Ra-cha-cha, which is what the question was. (And roster limits going away after the trade deadline has no bearing on this discussion. For now, the limit is 23.)

Sure it'll have domino effects & it'll cause somebody else to go through the same thing when next year now THEY have a 3rd year of visiting a particular opponent, but at least they did SOMETHING. Does it stink that the Bills will play in KC in the regular season for the 3rd straight year? Not really. They'll get to win there for the third straight year & the year after that their home game against them MIGHT be the 1st of 3 years in a row the other way. As unhappy as you are about going to KC 3 years in a row, maybe KC is unhappy about not being able to have a perfect home record. Losing IN Buffalo in the RS (should it happen in 2 years) doesn't hurt as much as losing at home because the team's looking to only lose 3 or so games over the full season expect to be perfect at home & playing Buffalo in KC makes it very likely they won't.

Had the league overturned the refs when it looked like the puck was over the line in Knight's glove would we be having this discussion?

Doubtful. Because they'll have 24 healthy players when Sheahan is taken off IR. And if Sheahan doesn't have a setback, he should be taken off IR. If Sheahan isn't activated, then it could be a paper transaction to have him clear waivers prior to traveling out west as a courtesy for him so that if say Arizona were to claim him, he wouldn't need to fly to Ottawa before hopping on a plane to Phoenix.

But wouldn't they want to be wearing it at home where the unis are typically blue? They'd have to have the opponent make special arrangements to wear their "home" sweaters in the MMArena if they go w/ white goatheads (like with the white RR butterknives).

Wouldn't he have practiced because they needed to see Sheahan on the ice before taking him off IR and they wouldn't make Bjork watch practice rather than participate? Taking him out west would make the logistics much more difficult should somebody get food poisoning from their pre-game meal & Okposo be too stiff to play that night. Anders'd need to fly back to Ra-cha-cha when Riley would be activated off IR to take that 23rd active spot. Way simpler to just send him down tomorrow so he can be ready for Wednesday's Bellville game.

So, now we don't trust Yerdon (who listed the line as 74-37-71) but do trust Engel (who had 37&74 flipped even though they've never been on the same line deployed that way)? Expecting most of the Mittelstadt dislikers (don't believe anyone hates him) will be sadly disappointed if they expect Mitts has been bumped to a wing. Again, he played C over Cozens when they were out there w/ Tuch. PS - people talk about themselves too much. 😉

The Sabres take the western swing every year early in the season. As it happens every year, quite certain it's something they request. Like they used to request a home game for NYE. October tickets are tough sells. And the Sabres ALMOST never play on Sunday at home during football season (they've got 1 this year in December; none in October, November, nor January; and only 1 road Sunday game in that stretch too). The Bills having a bye on one particular weekend, which likely isn't known when the league schedule makers start arranging for playing 1312 games over ~187 days, isn't going to significantly change the calculus. There were ~7k bodies in the building on Saturday. Had the game been played in February, there probably would've been 12k+ in the building. Had it been played this Saturday, the Bills being off the next day would not have put 5k extra patrons into the rink. Would it even have caused 500 more people to show up? Yes, the Sabres don't want to compete with the Bills, but as stated above, they very rarely do compete with them. It doesn't change the fact that competing w/ football season in general is something they'd like to avoid.

Sure, let's hear this "common sense" solution. If you have one, we're all ears.

IF the Bills & Chefs both finish in the same divisional slot next year & in '24, yes, the Bills will be the host team in '24, '25, & '26. The league used to have the different seeds go opposites (e.g., if the East played the full West then say East #'s 1&3 would host the Central's 1&3 respectively and travel to the South's 1&3 respectively while the 2's & 4's would host a team from the South & travel to their Central opponent.). This would tend to have teams playing each other repetitively on the same field if the 2 1st place teams both bounced to 2nd or 4th the next year. This way, you know which slot you will host & which you'll travel to regardless of where you finish. There is no "ideal" solution when trying to keep everything balanced. This is at least good. & if teams don't finish in the same slot they don't play each other every year. If they do, then they do. Oh, well.

No. Because 2 years ago the Bills hosted the Chefs. KC earned home field that year by having a better overall record, so that is why they played the AFC Championship game in KC. After next year's game any RS games between the 2 in the following 3 years will be in Buffalo.

Because the 2 off-division in conference games stay with the division that hosted the 1st year hosting the next year. AFC East played all 4 AFC West teams 2 years ago. The rotation last year was the AFC West got to host the 1v1, 2v2, etc games; so they got to host the East again this year. Next year those 2 divisions play all 4 & since KC was the visitor in the Covid (fanless) season, they get to host AGAIN NEXT year. IF they play in the regular season in '24 or '25 the game will be in Orchard Park. And the Bills WILL host in '26. The league considers Sunday Night a bigger marquee than Monday night ever since the nights switched which was on OTA and which was on cable. So, no, it should've been played when the Pokes-Iggles is happening. But CBS knew it was a megamarquee game. They had the doubleheader and showed it in every market. Nobody got stuck w/ the Jags-Texans or other ridiculous matchup.

What an absolutely awesome game. These 2 teams are IMHO CLEARLY the best 2 teams in the league. (Offense intended to the Iggles. When they've played anybody and then win will start to consider them as possibly legit.) If McKenzie didn't have the dropsies, Bills might've been able to pull away. He did. They didn't. But they did win. Which at the end of the day is all that matters. Considering all the injuries the Bills have played through, mad props to Brandon Beane. Also, will be REALLY tough for the Chefs to win 2 more RS games from here on out over the Bills. The Jests might find a way to steal 1 game from Buffalo, but the Bungles are the only other team that wouldn't have won a monster upset over the Bills. (Don't care how many the Vikes win. Cousins isn't going to outoffense Allen.) Packers are a shell of themselves, but don't expect the Bills to take them lightly coming out of the bye. All playoff roads lead through Buffalo.

No. Even when Cozens was on that line in place of Quinn, Mittelstadt was the C. Krebs has been on the W except for~4 shifts in the Florida game late in the 1st & early in the 2nd when he centered Peterka & Quinn. Cozens has been at C except for those few shifts w/ Mitts. Asplund & Thompson have been exclusively at C.

And the one other thing meant to add in the game write up. Very impressed w/ Tuch standing up for IIRC Jokiharju when Tkachuk submarined him. Like to see them standing up for each other. And not at all surprising it was Tuch leading that.

If the movie is to be believed, the roster was trimmed to 26 after a single on-ice session. 😉

Prior to the 1st lockout, they'd get ~11k fans for Atlanta on a Wednesday in October, or going back slightly further 12k for the Whale on a Tuesday in November. They'd have anywhere from 14k to a full house on the weekends. Could always tell if there were fewer than 15k tix distributed walking towards our seats because the beer kiosk at our entrance wasn't staffed if there were fewer than that. By Christmas/ New Years the weekends were nearly all sold out & sometime in February that'd be the case weeknights too. Really expect something similar to that this year. The crowds won't be much smaller (w/ the exception of outliers like a weeknight Yotes game) & typically will be more like at the opener than last "night" on the weekends. And would expect a few games against some of the big draws to likely sell out though your point about pricing might depress turnout at those. (Our prices seem about 50% more than when the crowds were bigger, but in the past 2 years, what ISN'T up 50%?) If the Sabres are close to a playoff spot, expect actual "good" crowds when we get to the February doldrums.

Probably the wrong thread for this discussion, but believe Mittelstadt should be added to the list of Krebs & Jokiharju. (Realize you didn't add him because you aren't sold on Mitts but Granato is, and he is in an extremely similar place as the other 2.) W/ all 3, Granato sees the potential of what they can be and is doing what he can to give them opportunities to unlock it. And whether the fans agree or not, Granato is going to stick to his guns. Jokiharju is very good on the PK. Probably their 2nd best D-man there behind only Samuelsson. But he hasn't translated that into in-zone 5v5 play. (Don't care that he hasn't been out for a 5v5 against, if not for Anderson & Comrie he easily could've (& probably should've) been out there for 5 against.) He's gotten MUCH better at picking his spots to pinch in the offensive zone in the last year, but still joins the rush too early at the onset of transition which IMHO is a big part of the issues we we seeing w/ Power these 1st 2 games. He is NOT there as the safety valve for Power should he get pressure & not see a lane to a F. But he can have good vision as the assist to Tuch demonstrated and he can grow into a true 4. Granato sees that & keeps giving him opportunity because of that. Krebs is almost reckless in his fearlessness and backchecks hard. He can make really sweet passes as his assist to Dahlin against the Otters demonstrated. But he still doesn't realize how good NHLers are at picking off passes & he won't trust his shot presumably because he knows he can't overpower NHL goalies. He needs to get better at picking his spots in both regards and when he figures out that a disguised shot doesn't have to be a Thompson rocket to find the twinehe will finally start to score at a reasonable rate. Granato trusts that he'll figure that out by getting more experience. Mitts battles harder than people realize and is actually pretty decent at being in the right place defensively. He's no longer that golden lab pup looking for a ball when he doesn't have the puck that he was his 1st full year in Buffalo. But he still gets too many passes intercepted and still tends to lose the puck trying to get through the 3rd defender when a pass might be the better choice. But the puck finds him a LOT & expect Granato sees him click on those passes in practice & has flat out said he expects them to start connecting in games. When Cozens rolled to the Mitts line because Quinn was looking like the rookie Reinhart on O'Reilly line - just overmatched against the top 2 lines & pairings that 2nd offensive line is facing, Mitts was the center. Even before Comrie FINALLY got pulled for the extra man (about 2 minutes later than he should've been IMHO as Thompson's line had possession deep w/ just over 3 minutes to go) the extra F was Mitts. (There are other issues all 3 need to work on, but the point of this wasn't to beat on any of them.) Will any/all of the 3 become what Granato sees in them? (3/4 D, play driving middle 6 C/W, & 2C) No clue. But until they get there or Granato gets convinced they can't/won't be, there will be a lot of posts complaining about whichever 1 happens to be that particular poster's personal whipping boy.