Taro T

Alive.

Pretty sure the Browns are locked into the 5 slot, so the Fishies would be either the 2 or the 6. A Bills loss or tie locks the Fishies into the 2. A Bills win drops the Fishies to 6. A Bills win locks them into the 2. A Bills tie locks them into the 6. A Bills loss will put them in 8 or 7 depending upon whether the Jags won earlier this afternoon or not. But, make it easy on themselves and just win this game like the "should." Then they'd host the Stillers if the Jags didn't win and they'd host the Eulers if the Jags did win.

3 A's. And, as mentioned earlier, all 3 wearing an A scored a goal for them last night.

Girgensons got called for a slash along the boards on the puck carrier. Clifton got called for interference for a check he threw in the slot with the puck nowhere near. Girgensons got called for a slash along the boards on the puck carrier. Clifton got called for interference for a check he threw in the slot with the puck nowhere near.

Good catch. Yep. Dahlin will have to wait until Tuesday to get his next ENG.

That might be the best hockey game they've been in since sometime middle of the year last year. Both teams were skating. Both got chances (the Pens for the most part better than the Sabres, but they both got chances). Both got big saves. Both were getting ridiculous penalties called on them (the refs were very fair, but they did call an awful lot of ticky tack penalties both ways). It was a really fun game to watch. For the 1st time ever, the Sabres have both Levi and UPL on their games. Let's hope both can sustain it. Levi played his best game of this year, and likely his best NHL game on Thursday in Moe-ray-all and UPL followed that up with his best game of the year, and likely his best NHL game ever. The Sabres gave up a lot of chances, but UPL was up to the task and they did a reasonable job of clearing the relatively few rebounds out of high danger areas. Once again, a really fun game to watch. Would like to have been there. And personally prefer that had one Pittsburgh team had to win and one lose tonight, wanted it to be this permutation of that finish. The Sabres took care of business today; let the Bills take care of business tomorrow (or let Tenessee bail them out; Tennessee sent them onto the 17 year drought, IF they need help, it would be appropriate for those SOBs to finalize removing the Home Run Throw Forward curse 😉 ).

All 3 goals by the guys wearing A's tonight.

Pretty sure they said the Moe-ray-all one was his 3rd. So, that should be #4.

They keep showing the IC Light sign as the puck moves out of the Sabres "shoot twice" end. Anybody else who grew up with the Old Vienna beer jingle hear "just say I.C., add an L, add an E, and you've got Lice" when you see that sign?

Who knew?

Sabres had the same odds as the Pens had that year. They were 2 of the teams with 3 balls in the lottery; the Rags and BJs being the others. Everybody else had 1 or 2 depending upon their results the past 3 seasons.

Yeah, with the Bills and Fish having the last game of this weekend, you have to figure the winner will definitely get a Sunday game next weekend and the other one SHOULD get one also. (Presuming both are in the playoffs this year.)

Just win.

Right now, it's very much on inexperience and poor coaching. Tack on key players playing through injuries and it's a very rough combination. Personally expect that Granato does have the leadership to keep the team on the rails because if the team had the mindset of the fans they'd be the Sharks. There hasn't been any stretch where some momentum has built; they've never gotten on a roll and that is painfully frustrating. It's frustrating for those of us just watching it, it has to be maddening to be living it. But, except for when Levi was down in the minors, they've never been on a long losing streak. One 3 game streak (which followed a stretch of 7 points in 5 games) and less than a handful of 2 game losing streaks. Keeping the truly horrible losing streaks at bay, IMHO, is a sign that Granato hasn't lost the room. But the PP being horrible for pretty much the entire season and their continued inability to win games at home both shout out that the coaching simply isn't good enough. Yeah, it was nice seeing them change up the PP; personally not convinced that wasn't more an accident than a plan and also not convinced that an actually reasonable PK unit would have all 4 defenders continue to focus on Thompson regardless of where he went which is what opened up the low cross ice passes. Would absolutely take 2 or 3 more games with 2 PP goals before teams realize the Sabres have adjusted, but not expecting 6 weeks of it again like we saw last year. Don't know what to do about the home game woes. Expect that could come down to simply getting them out of the mindset of trying to put on a show at home. The transition game kills them at home; both too many turnovers leading to odd-man rushes and getting caught too deep with nobody covering leading to odd-man rushes. Both of which, if you aren't looking for the highlight reel play, maybe you don't go for the overly fancy play that blows up in your face. (And that's a significant oversimplification of what they're doing; but without writing a novella ...) Still like Granato. (Not convinced he's the right man for the job at this moment in time; but also expect he's here at least into next year so there is that.) But want to see him make at minimum 2 changes to his assistants like yesterday. But, expect this roster is what we have through next season. Kulich will be on Mittelstadt's line bumping Greenway to the 4th line with Krebs and likely some vet brought in as a FA. And maybe one D besides E Johnson isn't here as the mythical push/search for a Chychrun to round out the top 4 continues; but expect most if not all the other 6 back next year. And expect them to return Levi and UPL between the pipes. If they don't make at least a push towards the playoffs, maybe they make bigger changes. But not expecting them. And that does increase the anxiety levels because it makes missing the playoffs this year a real possibility and people will have an entire off-season of expecting a team that wasn't good enough to return en masse with the expectation that simply being a year closer to their prime won't be good enough for the jump necessary. Can't blame you for not wanting to be here right now. This place is dark. But, it is a new year, maybe Ellis got a PP Coaching for Dummies book for Christmas and has been studying it religiously and maybe the Levi we saw on Thursday is the one we get the rest of the season, and maybe they'll stay healthy for a spell, and ... (####, hope springs eternal. Somebody on the outside today will be on the inside come April; why not these schmucks.)

Doubt it. But we shall see. He seemed to enjoy himself in Lauderdale last year. (TO in the dead of winter could be another story altogether, but expect he likes the recognition.)

So then cast your votes for Savoie. It'll make his parents happy. 😛

The NHL Rulebook doesn't specifically state how 2 and 2 from 1 team vs 2+2 from the other are to be served when all occur coincidentally. But it does state that 2 and 5 from team 1 vs 2+5 fom the other result in 5v5 play. So, one can infer that's the correct way for that call to be enforced. Except 3rd man in refers to a fight. The original 2 penalties were only 2 minute roughings, not 5 minute fighting majors. Since there was no "fight" there was no 3rd man into the fight. (Personally felt that Cozens should've only gotten 2 minutes, but wasn't asked by the refs for help with the call. 😉 )

Nice to see them get solid goaltending and a kind of effective PP. Goes a long way towards making what could be toss up games become W's leaving the other team in the rear view. So they come back with Levi again next game, right?

So, you're saying letting D play at the level they should be playing allows them to look better than when they're in over their heads? Who knew?

This does. The Bills only won 2 league championships. The Elders must've hated the thought of a 3rd. The old AHL Bisons won a few championships too. Pretty sure the baseball Bisons have as well. Guess they didn't care about minor league sports. The Stampede won a championship in their 1st of a 2 year existence. Guess they didn't care about sports that the rest of America someday wouldn't care about either. And the Bandits have 5 championships. Guess the Elders must've loved the sport more than they hated Buffalo. Which leaves us with them seeing the Pegulas coming a mere 75 years early. Well, they were mystical. It checks out.

Will be a heck of a lot easier to get a Dahlin ASG sweater this year than it was last.

Have already seen an odd highlight or 2 here or there. Wouldn't consider watching 5 or 10 minutes of highlights as ever having seen him actually play. Pretty sure a couple fo Sweden's games recorded this past week. If am bored or the show we're watching has caught up to real time, might check one of them out. Still wouldn't say have seen enough of him to make a firm call on whether he should be kept or not (definitely not beyond what others that have watched him a lot suggest).

To the question about the rebuilding of the scouting & development staffs and the building of an analytics staff and the integration of all 3, asked Adams a year and a half ago where the rebuild and realignment of the hockey department stood and he said they were pretty much set then but wanted 1 more development coach IIRC. (Can try to track my notes later.) And believe that position was filled that summer. So, don't really see a lack in the hockey department due to the Covid era budget cuts as being an excuse for any shortcomings.

While this is without having seen Östlund play, personally would be leaning towards keeping Kulich and Östlund with Rosen and Savoie in the tradeable commodity pile. Would keep Kulich over Rosen because Rosen seems to be more of a playmaker than a goal scorer and the team has that throughout the lineup but not many true goal scorers (Thompson, Peterka, and Skinner) which is Kulich's bread and butter. Would keep Östlund over Savoie mainly because of the reports on him and having seen Savoie in person. Savoie is at least another year out beyond this one before beng ready to be a legit contributor and he also seems to be a bit redundant on skill sets. You have to give to get and these guys should be worth something legit in return whether in a package or straight up. The point of over drafting high end skill guys is that it keeps the Sabres cupboard full of what should be hard to obtain while having some excess that should be able to be traded for other skillsets that they aren't as good at drafting.

He might be. But like @mjd1001 said, it seems that he's obviously frustrated with the way the team is going but doesn't seem to be the guy to turn that frustration outward to push his teammates to strive for his excellence. Honestly thought Tuch would be that guy, and he does several captainly (is that a word?) things and the team does seem more sluggish when he isn't there but he doesn't seem to be able to help push them up another level either. Personally wanted one of Girgensons/Okposo back, but not both, and am now coming to the belief that having them both in the room is keeping the other guys that should be the leaders from stepping up and taking charge for whatever reason. (Seems likely that nobody wants to step on their toes, but it could be several reasons.) To a man, everybody talks about how everybody gets along and there are no clicks on this team and it's all pretty much kumbaya. When you're 3rd from the bottom, it can't be all kumbaya. They all like each other, presumably they trust each other. They need to trust each other enough to say the hard things that need to be said. It either isn't coming from the coaches or it isn't getting through from them; either way they need to start holding each other accountable. There's talent on this team and at least half of the players have been leaders on past teams. They need to start taking things seriously.