Taro T

Really wish they'd've completed a move for 1 more top 4 D-man. (Among other off-season moves.) Kind of rough that RJ2 is being given the responsibility of being Power's steadying partner. If Johnson is going to be in the top 4, believe they might be better off pairing him with Dahlin and using an actual defensive D-man (namely Samuelsson) as the calming influence on that second pairing. Is Jokiharju working through an injury or is he now 7 on the depth chart? If it's the latter, did not see that coming. Also, mildly surprised, but not disappointed in the least, that Olofsson is on the 3rd line rather than the 2nd line. Thought Granato might bump him up to Mittelstadt's line with him coming off the 2 goal showing.

Don't believe that's accurate. Watched a bit of the Fishies 70 burger beat down on the Donkeys. They were running through them like they were going up against a JV squad. The Donkeys are REALLY bad against the run.

Perhaps he's only played in 6 games because he's out injured just like 7 other Amerks have been out. That's what it says on the Amerks website.

Are YOU trying to say they CAN???? 😛

THAT was well done. Bravo, or whatever passes for praise in your long since past galaxy located oh so far away.

IF the Bills left Buffalo, the NFL would be dead to me. The sport (at least the No Fun League's version) continues to be less and less interesting IMHO. Watch way too much of it, but often it's just background noise if the Bills aren't playing. Watch every (far too often painful) moment of the Bills games though. Can't give up on hockey. But might be way more into college & youth hockey than the top tier. Other than hating whatever the Sabres become, don't know how that would play out.

IF the Sabres move, that team will be dead to me. And they would be even more despised than the Broons or Phlyers. But, honestly, don't see any scenario where that happens in the reasonably near future and even in the distant future a whole lot of things all have to come up snake eyes for it to go that way.

Erik Johnson would like to show you his jewelry while he explains to you the error in that statement. 😉

The 5th goal was due to a 3 body screen (2 B's, 1 Sabre just standing there in the way). That was the only one that was due to traffic. (Clifford setting a partial screen on the 4th goal didn't help but the issue on that goal was the other Sabre D man rather than sending the puck behind the net passed through the slot right to the Bruin standing there alone.) Levi himself commented after the Minnesota win that he is still adapting to how to play screens at this level. He has to "just play goal" rather than worry about maintaining technique. He also needs to learn to expect his D to send clearing passes from the corner to opponents standing alone in the slot. Not sure how much he'll pick up on that in the A. 😉 Are NHLers still on average getting bigger? Thought that we're starting to see teams willing to give smaller highly skilled guys opportunities than in the past. Very few Martin St. Louis' in the league at the turn of the century and not all that many more Kanes 10 years ago. Seems more small guys are getting shots. Could just be perception based on Sabres recent higher draft selections.

IF Granato is let go, Gallant should be at the very top of the list of coaches interviewed. Realizing he'll wear out his welcome (not with the fans or players, but management) within 3 years; but he'll have the team further ahead when he leaves than it was when he arrived. It's what he does.

Not sure about college, expect there have been but there definitely was at least one that went directly from HS to successful starter right out of the gate. He's going into the HHoF sometime about now.

Right NOW Comrie isn't even off IR. He did NOT look good when he came back from his leg injury last year. NONE of these goalies has seized the starter's role. Levi lost his last start. So did UPL. So did Comrie. UPL is 0-2-1 in his last 3 starts. Comrie is 1-1-0 in his 3 starts. Levi is 2-1-0 in his last 3 starts. Would absolutely NOT send Levi down to Ra-cha-cha until one of the other 2 has actually claimed the crease. This team needs wins NOW. Unitl 1 of the goalies actually steps up and gives them a better chance of winning than the other ones do, they need to be looking at how the oppenent plays and put in the goalie that matches up best against that oppenent's style of attack.

Comrie played well last year until injury. And then looked horrible for about 2 months before finally regaining form. Would not rely on Comrie until he's actually demonstrated he's back to where he was prior to the injury. None of the 3 have played like a consistant starting quality goalie. Levi played well against the Loafs and very well against the Wild. He misplayed the initial shot on the 1st goal against last night but (much like the other 2 goalies) got no help from his D who were in position to bail him out. None of the goalies the Sabres currently have would've been expected to stop the 2nd or 3rd goal last night. Have already stated (and was saying it at the game last night) that Granato should've put UPL in to start the 2nd to see if he might be able to shame them into playing well for their Captain's big night.

Levi did not play well yesterday. UPL did not play well in Pittsburgh. Comrie is broken. UPL got a SO against the Avs. Levi was the 1st star against the Wild. Comrie is broken. Yeah, why don't they run with Comrie? 🤪

Yeah, only 7 of 8 on the road, not 8 of 9. Actually knew that the 1st roadie was only 3 games long; amazing the power of what we hear vs what we read (especially when tired). And guess the Black Friday game will have to suffice for getting a holiday leftover meal. As to your earlier question, have seen that once or twice in the NHL, but not for a long time. More frequent an occurance in youth hockey.

Good post. Should things continue the way they have these past 2 games, yes, Adams should be feeling heat. (He should anytime they're short of what expectations are, but sample size is a thing.) Winnipeg is another team like Buffalo with a better road record than home record. The Blackhawks are still bad, but the Sabres had better not overlook anyone right now. Get those 2 W's and a split with the Caps and Pens and they've officially come away with the 6 points they need ALL season per 5 games to get to the dance. Don't like their chances minus both Thompson and Tuch, but it's Mittelstadt's and Cozens' opportunities to step up. They both consider themselves to be leaders (and the folks around here agree w/ Dylan); so they need to treat this as an opportunity. Have been fine with keeping Kulich in Ra-cha-cha, but they need help in the top 6 w/ 1/2 of it out of the lineup and the 1st kid asked to be a replacement also out. The coaching staff MIGHT have faith that streaky Olofsson will go on one given time on whatever is the 2nd line & top PP w/ all that firepower out, but would hope they don't. Will be interesting to see if there's any fire to the Hannifin rumblings we heard this weekend. He would be a huge addition to the back end and would allow them to come up w/ pairings that make sense throughout all 3 pairs.

Heard the comment about pulling Levi in the car. Wasn't sure if the comment about having considered pulling him earlier was about doing so at the period or after an earlier goal or as part of the 'we were letting Uupi get his gear.' Either way, it was disappointing that from top to bottom nobody in the organization has much of a feel for how to run the goalies. And they didn't wait until the Sabres scored to pull Levi to let UPL "get his gear." They did it to try to not call notice to the fans that the goalies were switched. (Not saying you don't know that.) Which is something even most Youth Coaches aren't going to worry about. (And expect that the change would've come at the next TV timeout minus Olofsson having his coming out party in a game that was already hopeless.) We'll see about the Winnipeg game. This team has found ways out of funks in the past and actually started playing well after they do. Why not start it there. On the radio they said 8 of the next 9 are on the road (2 - 4 game road trips sandwiched around the Pens on Black Friday). Road trips are this team's bread and butter. They need to make that happen again. Would be nice if they could finally get off to a fast start. Don't recall the last time that's happened.

Well, that was less than satisfying. They did do a very nice job with the pregame ceremony. The Sabres in rink staff have significantly upped their game on those the past few years. Levi did not have a good game. Not sure what Power had against him tonight, but he did not help matters. Tying up Heinen's stick OR clearing the puck after the bad rebound might've kept the game scoreless a little longer but that was not meant to be. Not much Levi could do on the 2nd nor 3rd. Clean cross ice pass to their best goal scorer alone for the 1 timer and then a 3 on 1 with Clifton not taking anyone letting the cross ice pass get through to Pasternack who tapped it back behind Clifton for the full tic-tac-toe. Would've pulled Levi after the 1st, not that he was playing particularly bad, but to be able to rip into the team for not doing anything on Captain Okposo's big night and for not helping this goalie, maybe they'll consider playing for the other goalie. But Granato left Comrie in for 10 goals against last year; no way he was using a goalie change to try to change the momentum. Not sure how there was an assist on the B's 4th goal; looked like Power passed it directly to the goal scorer. Clifton did set a nice screen though to help his partner. That 5th goal, Levi never saw but it was beyond time to make a change. Not sure when Tuch is coming back, but now that Thompson is out it can't be soon enough. Tough game for Tage; between the leg injury on the non-called trip in the 1st and the messed up wrist from the PK blocked shot it was a very painful night. Never heard why Jokiharju didn't play. Whatever the reason Clifton and Power were not a good pair tonight. Still would be interested in seeing if Samuelsson could help settle Power down some. Don't want to break up Dahlin-Muel, but maybe some combination of playing Ras with Henri &/or Johnson the Younger could be good enough to let Muel - Power become a thing for a bit. Just a really blah game overall. Except for the little scrum after Dahlin checked the Rat Faced Git where Cozens nearly ripped Pasta's head off, not really much to get excited about. The hit Samuelsson threw late in the 2nd was fun too. Wonder if scoring 2 goals tonight help Olofsson get his head out of his bippy? Would be nice to see him get going for a bit so that maybe Adams could get something for him. What a lousy way to start the week for Buffalo sports fans. Anyway, on to Winnipeg. Road trip is coming at a good time for them. Really need to win that one. Hoping they take 'no 3 game losing streaks' as a serious sub-goal this year. And how painful watching Ullmark and Levi in the same game. That should've been the Sabres 1 & 2 this year.

And would hope that this would be another rule they experiment with in the AHL before bringing it full time into the NHL. There certainly will be a lot of kinks to get ironed out. Let the farm teams deal with learning how to work with it and then if the idea is workable, THEN try it in the NHL. And again, would prefer they either simply do away with OT altogether or play 5v5 for 20 more minutes and if the game is still a tie, so be it. But that ship sailed years ago and barring major transportation issues making missing a scheduled flight becoming a real concern we're never going back to the way the league modified play to keep teams getting onto their trains in time to get to the next city back during WWII.

There is ONLY a penalty if the team that just let the puck get back over to its side of the red line continues to play it or shoots it down the ice to force the other team to start deep in it's own end. Do it EXACTLY the way they do in lax. It keeps the play flowing quickly. As mentioned above, not sure that an errant shot should result in that over and back as they don't want to discourace actual attempts to score; but if a shot can be regathered from the team's own side of the redline it will get used as a dump pass. A team could take the puck back over the blue line without repercussion, but they'd need to be onsides to control it back in the zone and would lose the puck if it goes back over the red line. That SHOULD result in more turnovers as will not being able to take the puck all the way back into a team's own D zone. If you look at them making the rule to be similar to the lax rule it's much easier to wrap your head around it.

And personally, because it's the NHL and almost nothing they do works out like they expect, would not be at all surprised to see the net result of this rule change being more games get to a SO, as both teams' skaters will be closer to the same level of exhaustion as the other througout more of the OT. If that's the case, there'll be more scoring chances in OT but likely lesser quality than we currently see.

Expecting they'd turn it into a lax-style over and back. If, once you've brought the puck over the opponent's blue line, the puck goes back over the redline without the other team controlling it then the other team takes over at that point. And playing the puck when you've lost control of it results in a 1 minute penalty. Not sure if that should apply to missed slap shots as well or not. Because expect we'd see a lot of intentional misses when a team wants to regroup if they can't just skate it out of danger.

Considering they AREN'T going to get rid of SOs nor gimmicy OT, am ok with this rule change. Will make OT closer to what they envisioned when they went to it. They wanted to see teams trading chances w/ end to end rushes. They didn't want to watch one team control the puck for 3 minutes swapping out their players until they finally get to a point where the fresh guys create a 1 on 0 chance vs the gassed guys on the other team. It already is significantly different than regulation play (and thankfully from playoff OT), one more difference from them both isn't going to be the straw breaking the camel's back. That camel's been in Stephen Hawking's wheelchair for years.

Well, the records are identical. 0.500 at home. 0.500 on the road.

It's kind of hypocritical for Sabres fans to curse Carolina for limiting where tix can be purchased from and to then applaud when the Sabres do the same thing. If you want more Sabres fans in the building, win more games at home. They'll buy the tix before the marauders can. And agree, some of the most fun games to have been at were ones where a whole bunch of Loaf or Habs fans were leaving early to sounds of "Go away, away, away, away, go away, just go away."