Taro T

Last day of vacation. Stayed in 2 different hotels just down the street from each other. A Ceasars is across the road from both. Pretty friggin' huge casino. Never bothered to go. Too bad wasn't aware of how desperate you were to place a bet. Might've been able to find a guy. ;)

Yeah, all 3 sports are very complementary, but hockey and lax just scream proficiency at both sports.

There is more to be seen on Ellis. Hope he gets a game this weekend. But, have little to no faith in UPL as a backup. He might be able to get his head around being a starter, but have no faith at all that he can be productive getting a game every 3 or so. Georgiev is NOT good. They are committed to Levi playing in Ra-cha-cha this full year. Which, with Lyon the current starter leaves Ellis as a realistic option at being the backup. Most 2 game in 2 night stints aren't going to have teams with TO's firepower on both ends. They need someone to claim the starter's role. That appears to be Lyon, but the jury is still out. But they also need a backup; and for now, would like to see what Ellis can do there.

Yep. And they need to get this right. They don't NEED to have 2 spare D nor 2 spare F's right now (though that's what NHL teams run); run with the 3 headed monster for a month or 2 until it sorts itself out. Not convinced UPL can mentally take a backups role, so unless he outplays Lyon would be the expected odd-man out. Lyon-Ellis is the expected pairing; but not convinced Lyon can do it more than a month or 2. Adams has been ridiculously patient in the past. No need to rush this call. And getting this right could literally be the difference between him getting an extension or not. (Though personally hope he's not getting an extension in any case.)

Good. They can't get Metsa out of the lineup fast enough. MHO.

Agree. But USA Hockey, at least through the end of the 20-teens (haven't checked their stuff more recently) was pushing for youth and early teens to NOT specialize in just hockey year round. Know a lot of families that ignored that advice and went hockey year round (and some others that did baseball, soccer, and lax that way too), but the guidance was to stay more rounded until well into post-puberty.

When was given the opportunity for a free sweater, chose the only name that will never leave the Sabres family (have they TM'd Sabres Mafia yet?) - Jeanneret. Have since enhanced it with an RJ to the rafters patch. That one now only comes out on special occassions.

That rare trade that BOTH teams lost.

Of course they had Metsa with Geersen today, so we can hope but not too much.

Pretty sure Peter Dinklage is taller than Danforth. 😉

Johnson's better than Clague. Shame he's the one getting taken out of the lineup for Metsa to get his shot.

Lyon was a 50-50 shot. They'd either get the Swamp Cats version or the Wings. For once the coin landed heads. (At least for now.) Seems all you have to do to get this version of him is keep the guy he's backing up out of the lineup for a month or 2. 😉

Wonder just how hard Ron Francis is laughing every time he gets done having a conversation with his buddy Kevyn on the phone or facetime or zoom or whatever?

Union would have a problem with it if they sent him down with an injury or illness that he had aquired while on the big team.

They hosed all 3 western teams (LA, California, and Vancouver). Vancouver played in the Smythe, LA in the Norris, and the Seals in the Adams. Guess they didn't want to hose Minny, KC, nor St. Louis by putting them in an all Pacific division. And they did kind of split the footprint between the 2 conferences. The Adams (Buffalo, TO, Boston, and CA) was with the Norris (Moe-ray-all, Washington, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and LA) in the Wales Conference and the Patrick (NY, NY, Filly, and Atlanta) were with the Smythe (Chicago, St. Louis, Minny, KC, and Vancouver) in the Campbell Conference. So the Wales got the Eastern Great Lakes teams plus Washington, Moe-Ray-All, and Boston and the California teams; the Campbell got the Central TZ teams; teams near Joisey; Atlanta; and Vancouver. Everybody except those 3 were either in the Eastern or Central Time Zones and there were only 4 in even the Central Time Zone. Everybody was East Coast or Great Lakes and NOBODY wanted 3 trips out west. Back then, much like now, the owners really didn't care whether or if their rivals could compete. Heck, if Vegas didn't give $500MM to join and Seattle even more, they'd've been just as successful out of the gate as all the other expansion teams that came before them.

It was a fun game to be at. The people around us were pretty incredulous at the Sabres only having 3 shots through the entire 1st period. Yeah, but after Quinn's "shot" found the back of the net, though they did have chances, Tuch's shot hit the post, the one where Benson was setting a screen went off the side of the net, another really quality chance bounced off the D-man in front, etc., etc.. 2nd period was one of the most fun to watch in a long time. Not sure what the total shots for the period were, but late in the period, the Sabres had taken 18 shots and the Otters 17 in that stanza after only getting 3 and 8 respectively in the 1st. Place was the loudest it'd been in a while too; that there were probably only 10k-11k people in the building made it that much more impressive. The lower bowl was close to full, but there were a fair number of empty seats in the 200's and the 300's had a lot of emply seats at both ends. Thought except for pretty much just standing around trying to play the puck on the Otters PP goal that Power played well. He had a pretty big check in the 1st; and courtesy of the sharp Otter unis that you could barely pick out the #'s of from the nosebleeds much less the names, took a moment to realize it was Cozens he hit. Cozens seemed to take exception to Kulich, he was running him any time the 2 were on the ice together. Timmons has been refreshing to see in the lineup - didn't know we were allowed to have stay at home D-men that don't go running around their own end looking for hits well away from the flow of the game. Thompson and Tuch both seemed much more engaged this game. Maybe they're finally getting their heads out of their bippies. Weird that people were unhappy with Kulich; he started out on the wing on the 4th line and ended up with Benson and Tage. Didn't really see anything noticable either way in his game other than how his linemates changed. Saw Danforth take the puck to the leg on the 1st shiff of the 2nd and him struggle to get around; could've swore he had 1 more shift after that but apparently he didn't come back out for the 3rd. Team was noticably faster than in their previous 2 home games. They need to find a way to still keep that up against the heavier game that the Swamp Cats will play. As pretty much everybody else is, really liking Doan. He seems like he'll be in the mold of a Marcus Foligno; hoping he gets there. McLeod's and Quinn's best games by far of the young season. Hope they can buid on this game. Still not sure why there was no interference call right before the Otter's 3rd goal. Dahlin got knocked to the boards behind the net and his man ended up all by himself in front of Lyon to make it a 2 goal game. That was probably Ruff's best timeout in a long time. Settled them down and before the 3rd was 3 minutes old, they had their 2 goal lead back and the 3 goal lead shortly after the 4 minute mark. Again, fun game to be at. Not sure why nobody wanted to score the 8th goal. Glad the puck finally worked to Kulich. HE wanted it.

The Otters were literally playing like the Sabres, going so far as to add to their repertoire that stupid 80' dropback pass on the PP on about their 3rd PP.

It didn't cost them the game, but that 4th goal last night was entirely on Lyon. Felt the 1st MacKinnon goal the other night was on him too, but hard to fault a goalie too much when he has to move across the net and the shooter is MacKinnon. Other than those 2, not much he could've done on any of the others. He got the 2nd one covered last night and the ref's hands went up as if he'd blown his whistle and then they decided on replay that he didn't have it covered long enough. Not faulting him on that one.

Shades of Chris Drury. Though doubt the problem with this one was Pegula leaving an agreed to contract sitting on his desk for a few weeks before getting around to ok-ing it.

Charlie Finley and the Gund brothers were the owners; both sets were horrible hockey owners. (Their 1st owner was bad too. His name escapes at the moment.) There was a bumper sticker in Minnesota in the 90's. People don't kill hockey, Gunds kill hockey. They failed in Oakland, Cleveland, AND Minneapolis of all places, before going back to the bay area and eventually selling. (Htf do you get run out of Minnesota when running a hockey team? Well, they figured out a way.) And, yeah, this is about the best time to have to play the Swamp Cats. Hopefully they can pull it off.

Net PK, they're tied for 2nd at 100%. 1 PPG against and 1 SHG for. Only the Rags, who have 0 PPG's against and 1 SHG for are better. The PK has looked good. Having a goalie that can make a save tends to help there. 😉

The ironic thing is, after Tuch hit the post and they were carrying play that next shift, the crowd really got loud for the 1st time that game and then the Otters immediately went down the ice, controlled play for all of about 10 seconds and evened it up at 1 apiece. So, the team got us into it, and the building was loud for the 1st time in 3 games, and then it got very quiet for a bit. Building got loud again in the 2nd. It was a fun one to be at.

That "best in the league" PP had Peterka and Quinn blowing through the AHL with nearly unprecedented for teens stats. When those 2 moved up, the PP regressed SIGNIFICANTLY. And that's even with adding Kulich to the mix. And, btw, until that last year in Ra-cha-cha, he had this guy, you might've heard of, named Peca who was helping him. He MIGHT've made a bit of a difference there.

Not with these players they haven't. But, you knew that. Bob Woods never should've been allowed to leave the building.

Many? Ellis and Appert. Neither of which should be coaching an NHL PP.