Taro T

The Don Lever guy's avatar is catching. So, checked out a few of his posts. Funny guy w/ his "Bad Miller" Godzilla parody.

They effectively announced it yesterday when they put Pilut on the plane & didn't say anybody else was flying the other way. ;)

Well, at your age, can you blame them for thinking that? ;)

Could be. But, should the F's all be healthy when that point is reached, expect there is a better chance Sheahan is the player they risk sending down or they go off the board and send 1 of the 3 kids down. There are logistical reasons for why most teams carry 8 D-men rather than 7 in most situations. And agree w/ @Thorny that Granato and Adams likely see what we see, that Pilut is better than the official 6 & 7; but that he didn't outplay them convincingly enough to keep from being sent down when keeping him up could've meant they headed out west w/ only 12 healthy F's or would've meant a real possibility of losing their 8th best D-man to waivers when the top 8 are all head & shoulders better than #9. Believe they don't want to give Fitzgerald away for free and expect waiving him would make that the very likely result. With Bryson's contract being slightly expensive for a 6 and him being on a 1 way deal would not be shocked to see him to get waived before Fitzgerald; though really don't see either getting waived should they find themselves at 24 healthy players as both have a real risk of getting claimed.

Ahh, just think what might have been had TM grabbed Draisaitl and Marner or Barzal with the 2nd overall draft picks. ;) At the time Comrie was put on waivers and reclaimed by the Jets who actually knew who he was having been in their system 2 previous times, the Sabres had both Ullmark (who was clearly claiming the starting role) and Hutton (who was good 50% of the time and dog meat the other 50%) healthy. Were you really going to waive Hutton to the taxi squad to activate the Devils 4th goalie? The Jets left him on the taxi squad for most of the rest of that season & only a handful of games for the Moose. Comrie had not been good at the NHL level to that point, a single game giving up 3 goals to a (mildly at the time, soon to be majorly) dysfunctional Sabres team not withstanding. There were other goalies that had been on waivers that appeared better on paper that they'd also passed on; at least 1 of which (the guy Carolina grabbed) that would've been clearly better than Hutton. But Comrie wasn't a given then and the Jets were going to grab him as soon as the Sabres would've tried to put him on the taxi squad or in Ra-cha-cha. Yeah, in hindsight would've been cool to grab him. But, in that extremely dysfunctional season, passing on him wouldn't even make the top 10 list of things they should've done differently.

And not just by Savoie still being available at 8. And not just because the Loafs seem to have foolishly believed Murray could be a savior. Really, the only way it MIGHT not be is if the Sabres were planning on going after Comrie even w/ landing Murray and were pencilling in Murray as the 3/4 as it's possible he's better than Subban. Having to go to their fallback plan, IF in fact Comrie was the fallback plan, just makes Murray's hubris a huge homerun for Adams. (Even should Comrie falter back onto Hutton's track, the rest still makes it a solo dinger.)

Wow, all sorts of ghosts resurfacing. Welcome back, gents. :beer:

What pro hockey team that doesn't sell out every/ nearly every game plays the starter on the road and his backup at home on b-t-b nights?

When's the last time it was THAT good? Most all of the past decade those 3 are in the lineup when all are healthy rather than on the outside looking in. Baby steps.

Have you started wearing a chicken head for a hat?

Yes, Granato stated publicly that he believes Fitzgerald is a glorified AHLer who will never outright win a competition to be top 6 on a quality NHL team. <_< How would you ever get a guy like Adams or Granato who isn't going to throw anybody that wants to be here under the bus to confirm that the players he kept up might not have outplayed somebody that was sent down? A good leader will never publicly admit something like that. You aren't even going to get a horse's arse like Tortorella to publicly admit that.

Of THAT there is no doubt.

Fitzgerald suited up because there was no room to pull up Pilut without waiving someone and didn't get sent down because he (& Bryson too) needed to clear waivers to be sent down but Pilut doesn't this year. Haven't heard Jokiharju is on IR, but expect he is & he's out until the Chicago game. (Has to be on IR 7 days from the date of the injury.) Either that, or Quinn or Sheahan is on a plane back east right now. We will not see eye to eye on the handedness discussion. IF Lyubushkin can go tomorrow, we'll get a glimpse at Granato's thoughts on it. If not, let the discussion rage on.

It was. But really believe it was a product of the timing of when the deal needed to get worked out & the uncertainty of the world's (& more specifically the Pegulas' & NHL's) finances. Adams seems astute on enough other items to believe events were as much a consideration in that negotiation as Dahlin's hockey acumen was.

He might not. But he's better IMHO than Fitzgerald & Power, Bryson, or Larry could slide to the right side.

This. ^

That was Murray's philosophy. Unfortunately w/ not taking the intangibles into consideration, his results were lackluster though the philosophy itself is sound. Expecting we'll see Adams abide by the same philosophy but be more effective at it. His having been a grinder having to work for everything he got seems to have helped him understand those intangibles better than the horse trader that got involved because his family was all front office types. And coaches, too.

What's different? Not the record. 3-1-0 vs 3-1-0. They've played better teams though through the 1st 4 this time. Because they don't have any true JAGs in the lineup (Fitzgerald likely is, but he's an injury replacement), most everybody except Lyubushkin, Quinn, & Peterka have played at least 1/2 of a season in Granato's system, and 90% of them are 1 year closer to their primes, they've increased their scoring by 50% playing against tougher competition. Yes, they've given up 25% more goals, but replacing Moe-ray-all & the Yotes w/ NHL caliber squads will have that effect on things. ;) Yes, Comrie & Anderson are expected to be better than Anderson & Tokarski and will need to be significantly better to keep this up & make the playoffs or at least a run for them, but goaltending last year was very good at this point and stayed very good a couple more games until after Anderson was injured. That HASN'T been different, yet. The eye test says once they start playing middle of the pack teams rather than concensus contenders that this could be sustainable. Really looking forward to tomorrow night's game to see if they can show it might actually be.

But there will likely still be people pining for his return.

Initially, yeah, would've expected that to have happened a handful of times. But thinking about it more, the Sabres gave up 30+ shots in his heyday regularly, but it was fairly infrequent that they gave up 40. More often, they'd give up 36 but only have about 24 shots of their own so it seemed like 40.

Would be great if they can. Would likely guarantee getting into the 90's and would just about guarantee they hit that magic 0.600. But just doubt they can take all 4 against the Otters. Hoping that's selling them short.

Not a natural Hattie as it would be 4 goals, and actually there's a 5th goal you forgot (the empty netter) and believe it or not a player has actually "hit for the cycle" once. And nobody has ever gotten the "full cycle" of all SIX classifications of goals in a single game. (The sixth is the technical or awarded goal. The puck doesn't actually enter the net but a goal is awarded anyhow typically due to a penalty taken with an empty net including the goalie leaving the net but leaving his stick in the crease.)

Yep. As an example, early in the year Skinner was out late when they were protecting a lead a couple of times and they got burned badly. But Skinner actually got (a little) better in his own end and he started playing more of a team game (who'd ever seen him consistently make good passes ever before?) and really played his best hockey as a Sabre & probably as an NHLer. Granato's leadership is so empowering it's amazing.

Have heard old timers push for that, but have always gone with just getting 3 consecutively before anybody else. Rare enough getting 3 in a row with none of the other 39 guys that dressed getting one (hey, goalies get 'em every now & then too); to have to get them all in the same stanza makes it too selective IMHO.

Shame they didn't start that lip from the neutral zone. The play to get it & get it up to Thompson was almost as nice.