Taro T

Bjork w/ a snipe in the last minute of the 2nd. 3-2 bad guys through 2.

3-1 in the 2nd. Walsh w/ a PP goal for the bad guys.

2 - Zip Utica. Make that 2-1 Jobst with the answer.

Utica up 1 zip off a turnover. 24 scored. (Can't make out his name P-i-P. Amerks getting outshot 9-2 1/2 way through the 1st. (Asuming the graphic is correct. Not always a good assumption.)

Amerks have 1st game of a home & home vs Uterus tonight. Sheahan's 1st game as an Amerk this year & the kid that was playing in Iowa in the ECHL also getting his 1st Amerks game on a PTO. Daws in net for the Comets. Tage's kid brother also playing for them. Just started watching it on tape delay. No score 4 minutes in.

The audio feed being about 0.25 sec ahead of the video is distracting. It was annoying when the Sabres were doing it in covid seasons & it still is. Though knowing the puck was in took the drama out of whether it would trickle in. Wonder if VO's 2nd goal will be an empty netter again.

To the bolded, yes. And one of these years he'll get his wish and Girgensons will be gone. But until it actually happens, won't expect it.

Rotation went: Hinostroza Krebs Quinn Asplund Hinostroza each for 2 games.

Found out the reason why it took 2 hours to get from Batavia to Pembroke last week was also the reason most all on ramps have Check Your Vehicle's Height signs recently. Apparently the truck w/ the top sheared off was a Ryder rental that turned out to be a bit too tall to get under all the bridges. Grrrrr.

To the 1st thought, with the exception of Lyubushkin (& Tischke) the Sabres definitely had a type they were bringing in. Clague, unlike most of them actually had some NHL experience. He has looked decent after his 1st game. So, their 9 can actually be counted on for a game or 2 if they lose 3 D again. Wouldn't want to count on him for much more than that. Remember, Butcher actually was adequate for about 4 games before he turned back into Will Butcher last year. To the 2nd thought, absolutely.

Pretty sure only Granato fully gets it. But through the 1st 10 games, any F that sat, sat for 2 games then was back in the lineup. If Engel is correct & Vinny is again the odd man out tomorrow, the rotation is getting scrapped or at a minimum adjusted. Maybe it just means Granato doesn't think any of the young players are at a point where watching is better than doing right now. But, from a growth perspective, Hinostroza is the guy to have sitting. The Q the fans are interested in is that also the same guy to have sitting from a win games perspective. Through 8 games it didn't look that way. Through 10 games, it kind of does.

Really had absolutely no interest in him, BUT two of the biggest character/process guys on the Bills do want him (Von Miller & Tre White). If they think he'd make the team better, then there may be something to the thought that he'd be a good piece to add.

Don't know that people will ever believe the Sabres aren't the Habs in terms of size. And, even in the Briere - Drury days the Sabres had pretty good team size overall. It's just their game when they were on was always speed & skill and except for 2 glaring exceptions never about size and hitting. (The original Nolan squads were singularly about hitting and Murray attempted to build LA East. Other than that, it's always been about speed.) Considering how the game is evolving into a quicker less blatently obviously violent game, don't know that the Sabres will ever be viewed as large. (Reputations remain long past their expiration date.) And with guys like Savoie and Östlund in the wings, this is likely the biggest they'll be for the foreseeable future.

Well, yes and no. When everybody is playing to their potential, he is the 13th F. But, at least according to his coach, 60% of the time this year to date he has been made the 12th (or even up to the 9th) F. And it wasn't even a week ago that his coach was explaining his philosophy on playing & sitting young players; in order to sit someone, Hinostroza rolls into the top 12. He could easily have dressed in 9 of the 10 games without anybody batting an eye provided the player sitting wasn't their best young defensive F.

Comrie.

It was brought up in IIRC Adams end of the season press conference that they were going to look hard at why they've been suffering so many injuries the past few years and what they could do differently to reduce them & their severity. So far this year, through 10 games only 3 players have missed time with injuries and 2 of those injuries couldn't have been avoided without equipment modifications (puck into the lower leg & into the face). Even the 3rd seemed a bit flukish as it occurred when the player threw what is typically a routine check but ended up twisting awkwardly. So, is the reduction in injuries due to better training/ recovery protocols, due to having so many guys under the age of 25 when soft tissue injuries simply don't happen nearly as often as when guys are older, having better players that don't have to push their bodies beyond their limits to have success on the ice, simple luck, a combination, or something entirely different? Absolutely did not expect them to get this far into the year as healthy as they are. Thoughts?

For 10 games we saw a different player sit a pair of games and then rotate back into the lineup. By the rotation, it's Hinostroza's turn to get back onto a line, but according g to Heather Engel he was still the odd man out. Does this mean Vinny is officially the 13th man? If so, presuming they continue to stay healthy up front, does that remain the case and he needs to wait for an injury to dress again or does it just mean his stay in the pressbox will extend to say 4 games rather than 2 and a kid will still sit but only for 1 game rather than 2 u til somebody eventually does miss a game with an injury?

Their legs won't be dragging for a while. Now, they may still have the occasional game where they're simply overmatched. But don't know that it'll get them a trip to the pressbox again. It's funny. 2 games ago, was sure Krebs would be odd man out on the 2 game road trip, but now that's highly unlikely. The kids seem closer than all but the most optimistic of optimists were expecting back in training camp & earlier. Sweet.

True on the coach. (That one seems to be happening on both ends of Cassidy's move, unfortunately.) They aren't staying at an 0.900 pace. And wouldn't be shocked to see them drop below an NHL 0.600 pace for a month or 2 about a week or so after all the stars are back. Not enough to drop out of contention, but enough to make them beatable.

We're also a year or 2 away from seeing guys that could be in the NHL cooking down in the AHL an extra year or 3 because they can't beat out the guys that are ahead of them. We might actually be on the verge of having the Ra-cha-cha Marlies in our back yard. Which will be fun as well.

They were. But wondering how much of the great start was the lesser guys knowing that the studs would be back soon, so they just need to find a little extra while the studs are out, which while it isn't sustainable over 82 games can be over 15-20. IF that's the case, we should see them drop back a bit when their top guys do get back as everybody else will relax back to their normal games (or even lesser for a bit as they've got to be getting close to spent). Seen it happen often. A team hits a run of bad injuries but stays strong as their remaining guys find that playoff intensity for a bit & their opponents have ever so slight a let down not having to get 'up' to play against somebody they know they have to play hard against or get embarrassed by. Hoping that's the case. ;)

The Comrie Anderson stats are kind of an updated version of Edwards Sauve. Sauve's stats were better on the surface, but he got the Detroits & Rockies/ Devils while Edwards got Moe-ray-all & the B's. Sauve wasn't better than Donnie. Anderson hasn't been better than Comrie. Anderson wouldn't have given them as many w's in the other games had the usage been adjusted. MHO. YMMV.

Good news, but not surprising. Granato said before the past couple of games that Lyubushkin has a tremendous pain threshold and did not willingly come out of the lineup. Will be interesting to see if he's back in the top 6 at tomorrow's morning skate. And if so, is it Pilut or Clague that sits. Pilut got more ice time late, so would guess Clague is the odd man out. But who knows. The bigger story IMHO is Hinostroza is still the 13th man. Which would imply the "they're all equal, nobody sits because they need to sit, but everybody needs to play" era may be coming to an end.

To answer the question, probably. The start is comparable to last year, but w/ 2 big differences. 1. The goaltending seems sustainable. We knew (or strongly suspected) Anderson & Tokarski wouldn't be able to keep it up all year. 2. It's been infrequent for them to be flat out dominated for 50 or so minutes. Yes, they gave up a ton of shots to a few teams, but the majority of those shots weren't really high danger and they gave up very few rebound chances. They need to clean up the odd man rushes & should to a degree when the 3 return. But, though breakaways should be significantly reduced getting Samuelsson & Lyubushkin back, doubt they'll do much more than cut the 2-on-1's & 3-on-1's down 30-40% (significant but nowhere close to eliminated) as when they are always attacking, an oops (which is inevitable) necessarily can't be fully covered. As others have said, this is the point in the year the the wheels have fallen off for lesser Sabres teams. (They sometimes get through November, but they always fail in December post-"suffering.") If they're still on a playoff pace when the calendar flips, will believe. They were ahead of it through October (as is typical), they seem different this year, and they just might be able to keep it going. Not to be too greedy, but really hope to see 7 points through this next 5 game stretch. It would go a long way towards maintaining the momentum of October & would contine building to stay ahead of a playoff pace.

Samuelsson is only injured. He's still on the team.