Taro T

Whatevs. Come April their heros will be joining the Sabres on the links about 12 days later. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Yeah, where Heather slots the lines/pairings has been interesting. Expect she just writes them down when she actually notices them and then just tweets them out in that order.

Last year, except for Allen, they hardly ever ran before the loss in Tampa but they did so pretty effectively afterwards. And won a lot of games. Maybe the Vikes & 1st Q of Cleveland was this year's wake up call.

Good to see Girgensons back. Any word on how long Okposo is expected to be out.

Expect they will this offseason. (Of course, thought they'd do more this offseason than just bring in Lyubushkin & wait until the 3rd (?) round to draft one. Really hope they didn't consider bringing Pilut back as having brought in another top 4 guy. That he went down to start the year says they didn't, but not bringing any other legit NHLer says they might've.) And IMHO they are like Ruhwedel. Adequate NHLers if the top 2 pairings are legit; legitimately bad if they aren't. And there are way more of those guys than there are NHL jobs available.

Same thing. Different unis. 😉

With no data on how long Comrie will be out, you want an estimate of how many points they'll end up with. Not f'n happening. Have fun rereading that one.

Was mad at myself for not staring clearly enough in a post making a point about Comrie by using an example of the general thoughts about Ullmark a point that it wasn't made clearly enough because the football game was the focus & not our discussion. But you now seeming to think that yours truly thought that Ullmark was just an average backup or not even that is mildly annoying considering all the discussions we've had in the past. (And usually being on the same page to boot.) Expected Ullmark to become what he is now with an actual team in front of him. Heck, was the one pointing out that the end of THE losing streak was because Ullmark came back not not because of something mystical the coach had done. Was extremely frustrated that they let Linus walk especially after it was reported they'd offered to match the Bruins offer. That offer should've been the one Adams gave to Linus before hitting FA. Then it would've been the B's that had to beat it, not the other way 'round. (And really don't want to make this a relitigation of the Ullmark departure.) The point of the original post that sent us off into the weeds is, again, Comrie is better than his fancy stats this year say he is. (And, though not previously said, he's likely worse than he historical fancy stats say he was.) IMHO both guys are pretty much Marty Birons. Decent starters on a good team but not top 10 guys (probably not even top 20) & absolutely at the top of the list if he can be your backup. Very few teams have a guy that good as the backup and almost never for long. And further, back to the context of the thread, expecting his being out is a huge part of why this is going to be similar to the rest of the lost decade plus. He's good enough to give them a chance against Florida, though not good enough to necessarily get them the win. He's good enough so that with a reasonable defense & not what we've seen this month (ever since Lyubushkin reinjured or worsely injured his leg in their last win) they will have a reasonable chance to win any game & more importantly won't go into (or remain in) a massive tailspin with a healthy roster. UPL radiates no such warm fuzzies. [Edit: and statistically Ullmark was pretty much an average goalie (aka an average backup) though those of us that watched him knew he was better than that. So, stand by the original comment you took such exception to.]

JFC, am done w/ this discussion at least until the Nills game is over because you are discounting everything we've said over the past few years, and focusing on imprecise words said between plays. Was ALWAYS high on Ullmark. But most everybody bitched that he was just a backup. Expect Comrie will turn out to be similar.

Because Samuelsson coming back was integral to your post commenting on the OP didn't see the need to specifically state that the comment was post-Muel returning. Guess it needed to be stated. Ullmark was essentially an "average backup" until he got to his 2nd year w/ a good defensive team. Expect Comrie is better than we've seen. (And btw, know you know this so it isn't soecifically for your edification, wanted more GTing help than just Comrie; sothis isn't excusing away the lack of fully addressing GTing this offseason.)

Am not saying they'll get to 98 points. (Have never gone there, regardless of what the old man from Pennsyltucky misremembers.) But, if Comrie were still available rather than UPL, they can still generally win 3 out of 5 moving forward once they finally get the monkey off their backs.

Don't know that "completely" is a fair nor accurate adjective but agree w/ the general sentiment. Which is why getting Samuelsson back likely will coincide with ending this streak. Losing him resulted in their 1st (& onlly prior to the AZ game) bad game. It shook them. Getting him back will be a boost.

Read what was written and compare it to the preseason post you apparently have bookmarked. You will get your answer. Btw, wtf does the post you are quoting have to do w/ preseason predictions? Was saying this one felt different before the Bruins & Nucks games. Would expect a fan that hangs on every post to realize that. You might lose the presidency of the fan club if you keep making rookie mistakes like that.

A big part of the D issue is Lyubushkin slid a little after blocking that shot & then has looked noticeably even worse since that extended board battle against Pittsburgh (?). He's been slow & getting knocked off the puck since then & has been as bad as, if not worse than, the little 3. Throw in the F's not really knowing where to be in the D-zone far too often & the D isn't going to be good. And STILL hope they shutdown Buusch for about a week when Samuelsson is back. Having 4 good D plus Jokiharju would be so much better than just having 2-3 + Henri.

Definitely wanted 1 more NHL caliber goalie brought in (and 1 more Lyubushkinesque guy brought in on D) because wanted somebody better & more likely to make it through the season than Anderson. But believed there was a very real chance that Comrie would play the entire year. He doesn't seem to make really large difficult movements and he routinely covers the bottom of the net w/out seemingly straining so there weren't any injuries waiting to happen w/in his game. You can't expect your best D-man to do something you'd expect from a Ristolainen or Zadorov to knock him out for weeks. Am looking forward to Levi's brief stint in a Sabres ini this season and hoping for the minor miracle where he demonstrates he belongs in the NHL. And the next few weeks might show Portillo he has a window to the NHL in this organization as well. Comrie is only under contract 1 more year.

Being one of the ones that was saying THIS one seemed different, will answer. 1. When healthy (& realize nobody stays healthy) they actually have NHLers not dressing at F and arguably at D. (Though w/ absolutely no depth in G). That hasn't been the case since Regier uttered the word suffering. 2. They have NHL caliber goaltending. Again, with the caveat when healthy. Realize the analytics crew says Comrie is hot death but really doubt they include account for all the goals Power & others have scored on him. While it is a different style - he's pretty much Ullmark. (But Ullmark's great this year & Comrie sucks. On paper, yes, but Ullmark is in his 2nd year w/ a defensively sound squad in front of him & Comrie is in his 1st year w/ a team that STILL doesn't appear to work on defensive play in practice. Those make huge differences.) Comrie doesn't give up ANYTHING on the ice. That's how we knew he was injured and not just hurt, he never gives up goals along the ice. His glove is merely average, but it isn't bad IMHO. Anderson looked good before playing in 3 straight. Not great, good. And he likely could last the full year if he could stay at 1 out of 4 games. 3. They haven't stopped playing after going down a goal or 2. Unlike when they were coached by Krueger, they weren't giving up. 4. Dahlin was playing up to the hype with Samuelsson. He's still playing well but having a very good partner lets him just play. And Samuelsson is close to coming back which means Norris finalist Dahlin is close to being back. 5. These guys are a team. They aren't a collection of cliques wearing the same thing 82 times/ year. That matters when you're learning to win. Not so much when you've figured it out. 6. The young mid-level guys that are expected to be counted on are better this year than they were. Cozens, Mittelstadt, Asplund, Samuelsson all are better than last year. 7. Prior to Okposo getting injured, they'd only played 2 bad games out of 12. And 1 of those was the last game of a road trip the 1st game without their best defensive D-man. That was way better than in recent years prior to last year's finish. Even when they were winning in October's past, they were getting outplayed. That wasn't the case this year. But in these past 4 or so games, there have been 2 major injury situations which could let this be just the same as usual. 1. The loss of Okposo & Girgensons hurts. The team has looked frailer since Kyle has been out. He's too old to lead by on-ice production but he does seem to have a calming influence when things could start going sideways. Girgensons seems to help there too, but Kyle seems to be the key on the leadership side. And 2. The big one - losing Comrie sucks. UPL isn't a good NHL goalie. They can't ride him like Eric which means Andy will be called on too often. Am very concerned that he'll be injured soon too playing too often. Still expect them to get back to playing around an NHL playoff pace once Comrie & Muel are back, but not expecting it until they both are back.

They SHOULD beat Moe-ray-all, especially if Samuelsson & Anderson are in. Muel will give a huge boost to the morale & Andy will find a way to bring his A+ game because they need it desperately. If somehow Okposo is back too, it should be a given that one's a W.

Excellent point. He'll definitely finish the year w/ the Sabres if he signs and will have an excellent chance to make the squad even with another vet brought in. One more chit in the Sabres column.

When they outscore that night's opponent again.

Per Elite Prospects, yes, they have the youngest team.

Definitely need Samuelsson back. Hopefully it's against the Habs. That would seem to be the most winnable game on the horizon.

2 years older. He'll be 31 very soon. (Didn't realize he was that old. Would've been far less pleased w/ the signing knowing that.) Jags don't usually fare well in their 30s.

Mittelstadt. PotG. Drew the penalty that got the PP they scored the 1st goal on and then potted this one.

On the bright side, no post-game show tonight.

Precisely.