Taro T

Lately, he's turning away from confrontation with the D-man. He has no confidence in his healing wrist at this point. But he's giving the effort and presumably with use his hands will get back to what they were.

He MIGHT've been a steal at 9th overall. It was highway robbery getting him at 13. 😉

Could @pi2000 or a mod please change the title of this thread? At least unless he's sent back down again. Everytime it pops up expect to read that the braintrust down at 1 Seymour H Knox III Plaza did it again.

6 years of having $3MM less cap space than everybody else is a self-imposed penalty would really rather see them avoid.

Even if you include his play post-injury (a 9 game sample) his record is 5-1-2 with a 0.901 SV% and a 2.97 GAA. Which is still darn good for a rook. (The GAA since coming back up is 1.71. They can work with that. 😉 )

They don't. But IF the top 2 lines are working with Cozens on a wing, it doesn't really matter whether Krebs (or even Jost or a callup or a traded for for a 6th rounder) is a middle 6 player or a bottom 6 player. Other teams bottom 6ers and bottom pairing guys will get overcome often just by the 2 wingers that ARE top 6 players. (Once Quinn gets his legs back under him. Expect that might not occur until about a month after he's back.) Get 2 scoring lines working. THEN worry about how to make an effective 3rd scoring line.

Would really suck if getting rid of Skinner is necessary for them to play like this consistently. Because with his NMC he ain't goin' anywhere.

They do, definitely since the 2nd Broons game. But that wasn't the case earlier in the year. But, earlier in the year they were playing that way for UPL and not for the other 2 guys. They played extremely well the last 55 minutes of the 1st Avs game for UPL. Waaaaay better than they played for Levi in his Rags, Aisles, or the 1st Broon game.

Get good goaltending to start the game. Get them believing they'll get the chance to get into a groove. Levi and UPL CAN do that for them. The 83rd game question is will they? You know this kid believes in Levi. Hoping UPL can continue to do his part as well.

Maybe. Levi plays the way he did regardless. But Benson doesn't get to play with Thompson and Tuch and Cozens doesn't get to play with Peterka and Mittelstadt.

A BIG part of it, IMHO is the goaltending. When the goalies are on their game to start, the team seems to feed off it. Earlier in the year UPL was on. Levi's been winning (5-1-2) since coming back from injury and has been ON since coming back up. Really happy with Levi's game tonight. His rebound control for the most part was much better than it's been. That 2nd goal seemed to have a bad bounce off him to the front of the net and in most of his games this year he's let that sort of goal get into his head a bit. It didn't at ALL this time. He also had prior to coming back up let in a late goal in most games. That didn't happen this time either. Absolutely loved the "Toyota big save" play because that had his anticipation, tracking, awareness, and flexibility all on display. Didn't Mittelstadt and Cozens play pretty well together last year in limited opportunities together? (Or is that just misremembering?) Would like to see both the Thompson line and the Mittelstadt line stay together for a bit. If those 2 lines can generate some chemistry, in a couple of weeks they could have a 3rd scoring line with Skinner and Quinn flanking somebody (maybe Krebs?). They still break down too much defensively, but they seemed to be maintaining better gaps through the neutral zone and had quite a few nice breakouts and shutting down scoring chances. Takes all 6 guys working together to do that. Expect they'll give UPL tomorrow's game. If they play the way they did tonight they should be able to get their 1st 2 win streak since early in the year.

Vegas now 6-1-3 their last 10.

Not understanding that one. Wasn't he giving the Avs what they'd expected when they signed him? He's on pace for where he was 2 years ago. (Behind last year's pace, but he's 33. They couldn't have expected last year's guy could they?)

Win tonight and they have a GREAT chance to be on a 3 game winning streak heading into the Loafs coming to town. Baby steps.

Anyone even remotely surprised that with that happening it was 2 teams in KC's division that were the recipients of those beat downs? (A close 2nd guess would've been AFC or NFC South teams taking that.)

Why do you find that odd? Have you been here the past 2 weeks?

Would add they also need the PP to actually become useful. They did try changing up the scheme last game and they're changing up personnel this game, so theres a slight hope. But just have no faith that the coaches actually understand WHY they're making the changes they're making. Or, at a minimum, if THEY understand why don't expect they understand why well enough to explain it to the team. And the last thing they need to do is maintain gaps on the transition back into the zone to theoretically prevent some zone entries into their end and then play structured in their own end in all phases of the game. We're getting told that they're getting taught the new system. Should it actually start clicking with them that would help them play at the level they need to down the stretch to keep this from being a lost season. Not giving up on them, but it is shocking that they have but a single 2 game winning streak through 30 games.

Darn it. The stupid Lightning Bolts fired Staley and the GM the week before they play the Bills. https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/39119933/chargers-fire-head-coach-brandon-staley-gm-tom-telesco

DON'T forget the coleslaw.

It's possible. Expect it's more of a case of young guys not having enough experienced guys that have actually been there for them to lean on when they start gripping the sticks too tight. Expect as @Marvin points out the way they're supposed to be playing isn't ingrained yet and they end up thinking too much when things aren't going right and then reverting to old habits. It was an interesting experiment, trying to get a losing team to get good at the fun part of the game before getting good at the harder part of the game. @PerreaultForever hated the idea from day 1. And maybe if the proper support pieces were brought in this offseason it could've worked. But so far it isn't there. And we're left with hoping that when the F's get healthy they can work the new system the way it's supposed to work because it isn't very likely that the GM will be bringing in outside help beyond a Robinson type that helps at the fringes. The experiment CAN work, but with some major growing pains. The Eulers of the 80's famously took to heart losing to the Aisles in '83 and figuring out that they needed to compete harder and get grittier to get over the top. Playing loose could get them to the Finals because they were so much better than the other teams in their conference; but they bore down when they got to the Finals and beat a beat up Phlyers or Broons after that rematch with the Aisles. But right now the whole thing is frustrating. Hopefully tonight they get the 1st W of the 1st win streak.

Peterka and Benson on the top unit? Them actually TRYING to move things around in Denver and even work the puck from below the goal line? Has Ellis been reading this board? 😉

Is it Tuch's fault that there are 2 ancient F's that are considered the team's leaders but there aren't any ancient D (that have been here more than 30 games)? This team is kind of in the spot the Bills were with the "bickering Bills" back in '89 leadershipwise. The younger guys really are (or SHOULD be) the leaders, but the old guys are still looked to as the leaders. Personally, don't believe it was a coincidence that the team stepped up to another level after Devlin and Smerlas were allowed to leave via Plan B and the team finally became Kelly's, Smith's, and the rest of that bunch. As far as who else can step up? Mittelstadt, Cozens, and Thompson all are candidates to join Tuch and Dahlin. (Though Cozens needs to get out of his own head.) In the not too distant future Quinn, Peterka, Benson, Johnson, and maybe Power should be right up there as well. And expect Levi will be a leader on this squad by then as well. REALLY don't want to see this team get back to where it was early in the Pegula tenure with outsiders getting the C either in short order or immediately like Ott, Rivet, Gionta. Nothing against any of them, but it was telling that no leaders (other than Vanek of all people, who split the C with Ott) were on the team that had come up through their system by the time Ott was given a partial C. Don't expect it will go back to that anytime soon.

But, GA's contention ISN'T that Dahlin AND Tuch are the leaders. That was THIS KID's contention. His is that it's that ONLY Dahlin is the leader. And when asked to provide support for his view, he comes back with 'well, it just is.'

But strangely, it does seem (and this is going off their record and what others who've been watching have been saying) that in Ra-cha-cha they're still teaching last year's offense 1st defense only as a last resort system that the Sabres ran most of last season. Which, considering it meets the philosophy that offense is harder to teach, we'll get them playing good O and then worry about good D and these are for the most part the team's prospects makes sense on a certain level. But if the big club is actually trying to work a pro level of O/D balance and they need the prospects to be ready to step into what the parent club is doing should they get called up; then it would seem they need to be teaching THAT system in the A IF the goal is making the playoffs and doing some damage there. They don't seem to be doing that. (Say seem because have only casually watched a single Amerks game so far so have no personal observations to base that on.) And, if the goal is making the playoffs, at some point don't they HAVE to start teaching the Sabres system in Ra-cha-cha? None of this is saying that the kids coming up have been the problem on the big club. The Amerks haven't helped this year at all, but they have in no way been the biggest parts of the problem. But IF they were learning what they're supposed to be doing, maybe they actually can be PART of the solution rather than the 6-8 minute per game players.

Gee, that's helpful.