Taro T

Should be either next week or the one after.

When Samuelsson comes back would shut him down for a week. They need the guy he was prior to the western road trip. They'd still have 4 of the top 5 in the lineup.

Less offensive potential from the 4th line than w/ Quinn on it, but it should be very defensively sound. Bouncing Fitzgerald to the odd man out should make the D stronger. (Well, duh.) Considering guys like Power and Peterka now have 15 more games under their belt, this is possibly the best lineup they've put together. (Relax those of you protesting that Samuelsson is still out. The operative word is "possibly.")

On the night Jokiharju rejoins the lineup & Samuelsson starts full practices,we really believe that Sheahan replacing Quinn and Bjork getting to report back in painful detail about Hamilton's gastronomic excesses makes the Sabres worse than they were situated on Saturday night?

Not necessarily, no. And, yes, was expecting at some point all of Dahlin, Power, & Samuelsson are getting 25 minutes a night in the tough games.

Don't expect him getting 25 minutes when he comes back. But he will be back to that relatively soon unless the 2nd & 3rd pairings play significantly better than they did prior to his injury.

To the bolded, true. But we aren't even 20% of the way through the season yet. So, luck can still have a huge part of it. As can Power (& others) learning how Comrie reacts & vice versa also cause that bad puck luck to improve. And, to answer the question of how much have the friendly fire rebounds & deflections affected his numbers with 'well his advanced stats stink' is NOT an answer. Whether it should or should not be in a perfect world.

But does it actually account for the shots that go in off Power as a single example? When Comrie kicks the puck out right into Power's ankle & it's then in the net, the counting stats say Comrie faced 1 shot and gave up 1 goal even though he effectively faced 2 shots to give up that single goal. Even on the ones he keeps out of the net, he made 2 saves but gets credit for 1. And that 2nd "shot" is typically high danger though the 1st might not have been. So, are those plays getting put properly into those models? Don't know. But asked a specific question regarding those goals and the deflections off Bryson, Cozens, etc. Simply coming back w/ "well, the advanced stats say he sucks, so there's your answer" ISN'T an answer to the question on anything but a superficial level. How do those get accounted for in these advanced stat models? ARE they accounted for in the advanced stat models? The guess here is that they DON'T get fully accounted for in the "advanced" statistical models because they're too rare and also because not all deflections or rebounds resulting in friendly fire are created equally. We are told the models incorporate "puck luck" into them, but without seeing the model's parameters don't know that it is adequately addressed. The original question was simple. Going off into advanced stat tangents adds a lot of complexity & additional questions to it. And, it very well could be like faceoff wins. Yes, the majority don't matter, that initial puck battle is more important. But when there is a CLEAN faceoff win, it is supremely important and can be game altering. But the advanced stats aren't really all that advanced there because they can't / don't account for clean faceoff wins. There's the issue of defining them & also the issue of how seldomly they happen; you don't get reliable data from a single game nor even a chunk of a single regular season. Mittelstadt lucks into a clean faceoff win to Olofsson by bouncing the puck off his own ankle & all of a sudden the puck is in the net. Advanced stats don't attempt to measure that. Not convinced the goaltending stats actually measure those Power goals either.

All reasonable points. But there are 4 counters to that: 1. He has been working w/ the Sabres development staff for 3 years and has a familiarity and comfort level w/ Buffalo. And based on this, he claims to like the Sabres organization (though obviously not enough to sign this past summer). 2. Maybe being in daddy's shadow isn't where he wants to be. He presumably could've gone to Denver or other places closer to SoCal to play college hockey but chose Minny instead. Fitzgerald didn't bolt for the Devils & daddy nor the B's & home. It's not a given that the Ducks are his dream scenario. 3. Maybe he has faith in his own abilities and expects he'd be a key piece in Buffalo & likes the idea of growing with the rest of the Sabres core. 4. Saved the biggest 1 for last. Only the Sabres (or a team they trade his rights to) can let him burn a year of his ELC this year. Depending upon when Minny's season ends, he MIGHT be able to earn a year of service towards FA as well. Those are pretty big items in the plus column for going B&G instead of orange & whatever they're running w/ that particular night.

The Browns get to. 😉

They ARE from outside. Which is what you WROTE. Not the reader's fault when you don't state what you mean. 😜

Expect that was the point. Sheahan gets to play and Bjork gets to watch Paul Hamilton stuff his face. No sense exposing an impressionable youngin to that sort of horror.

No one from outside riding in? What, are Jokiharju and Sheahan chopped liver? Don't answer that, it was rhetorical. (But getting the Joker back should be a boost.)

Keys to victory: 1. No dumb penalties. The Nucks suck, but their PP doesn't. 2. No rebounds bouncing off power. 3. Cozens stop deflecting opponent shots. Block 'em or get out of the way. Sabres should win big. But there's a reason they play 'em. Good guys 5-2 w/ 1 EN.

Hoping Sheahan is the guy rolling in & Bjork is just there as the spare. Expecting that to be the case, but who knows. Disappointing they didn't consider any of the kids for the call up. Of course, if they did bring up a kid & he were to make a rookie mistake costing them another game, this place might be unreadable.

How is making 36 saves on 40 shots 0.944 and not 0.900? And 33 saves on 36 shots should be 0.917, not 0.941.

Don't know the answer to your 1st set of Q's. And pointed out in the post you referred to that the luck up front won't last forever. They're due to have some guys get dinged up. And, yes, a bunch of injuries at one position do tend to happen to everybody at points later in the season. But not usually all right out of the gate. They typically accumulate over time, but this is '06 playoff-esque.

Thanks for that. But it doesn't answer the question that was asked.

True. But if the goals bouncing in off Sabres is even just 1/2'd, is it still a sub-0.900 S%? (Not incredible, but close enough to average that some puckluck breaking his way could have the S% where they need it to be.) He had had a crazy amount of bad luck in that regard. Know there have been at least 6 like that, wouldn't dispute it if somebody were to say there were 12 like that. And it seems Comrie is usually the victim of those goals.

The entire post is screwed up for the Sabres. 6-3 in October. 1-5 in November. 7-8 overall (not 6-10, they haven't even played 16 games yet) w/ 4 very winnable games coming up.

It doesn't help when the playcalling is geared towards hero ball. 2nd & 2 from the 7. Maybe Allen audibled out of runs 3 straight times, but doubt that. More likely Dorsey didn't call a single run there. (It looked like pass all 3 times.) Even one run on 2nd or 3rd at least gets the D having to respect that possibility on 4th down. They scored 2 rushing TDs in the 1st.)

So, the Thanksgiving / end of November expectation for Samuelsson's return still looks realistic. Will be really nice having him back in the lineup even if he gets eased back into it. When he's back to being able to play 25 minutes/ game they only have to send the other 3 out 39-45 minutes total a night. That'll make the depth back there look a ton better.

Not only that - he isn't paired w/ Dahlin nor Power!

He is. And he now needs to be waived to be sent back down. Get used to him on the 23 man roster unless the F's have a spate of ST injuries.

Agree completely w/ point 1 and to large extent w/ point 2. And it may make people feel better getting the rants off their chests, but at this point it's very unlikely any moves get made as nobody is selling cheap at this point of the season. Those additional moves so many of us hoped to see needed to happen this summer. Hoping Adams finds a Botterill to give the Sabres a Scandella for a 4th, but doubt that trade is there. The F depth has been fine to date. The D depth, while lacking the extra top 4 D man so many of us hoped to see (they needed to bring in 2 guys, really curious if they misjudged Pilut's ability & thought they'd found that 2nd guy by bringing him back; doubt it, but still am curious), SHOULDN'T be losing 3 guys all Jokiharju's age or younger - those guys just stay healthy in general & bounce back quick. Unfortunately 2 of them got head injuries which you can't really do a whole lot more to prevent & the other had his knee twist awkwardly on a routine play. Lyubushkin could've been expected to have his injury issues - combo of the way he plays & his age, but really don't see how it could/should be expected to have 4 of the top 5 all miss time 15% of the way into the season. The good news is, once the D gets healthy, we shouldn't expect to see 3 key guys all out at the same time. The bad news is, the F's are due for some nick ups keeping guys out here or there and there is absolutely no tangible depth beyond the 2 goalies that are on the big squad.