...

There he is.

Yes, in a perfect world each team plays a physical, fast, skill game with goalies stealing games and coaches out-coaching each other.

Somebody wake up Scandella.

There go his minutes for the rest of the period.

They are missing the jump of the first two games. If CBJ wins, the early book will be to play the Sabres heavy, which was the same book last season.

Skinner is not 100% dialed in, yet.

This game isn't the Sabres vs. Columbus, it's Krueger vs. Torts.

I think we would have to measure this year's performance against the metrics from last year when Olofsson was playing with the big club. Historical data is used to make assessments of the season at-hand, I can't see throwing that data out because we like what we see.

Playoffs are, what, six months away? This makes no difference to the playoffs.

So, are you implying these first two games were played at unsustainable levels?

It means Pittsburgh needs a center, too.

Maybe. Maybe not...

That applies only to Saturdays in the first week of October. I'm sure a clarification was issued at some point.

Yes?

Nice GDT opener, @jsb! The drama for this game is easy: can they make it three straight? Is their play sustainable/repeatable? Trying to answer the question(s): what is this team now? Is this for real? Good times!

He might not rank them (which I doubt), but he still has to identify them. Is there any question the Eichel line is the team's top ranking line? The only difference I would place is on the third and fourth, where the roles, and therefore the skill-set, are very different. Would I want Mitts and Sheary on the PK? Absolutely not. Does that make Z and Larry lesser players than Mitts and Sheary? No, not when the measure is effectiveness.

So, during the 10 game streak last year, several of you were right in there with the "this is not sustainable". Now, in reflection, the eye test really did tell us that. There was a lot of "puck luck" and "they're learning to win" replies to that. What do we have now? Is this sustainable? Are they amped up because it's the beginning of the season and had something to prove and this type of play will disappear, or has RK figured out a way to sustain this - and if so, is this even the best they can play? I see no sense in pondering how far they could drop, we have seen that.

When Olofsson was up with the team late last season, recall that Jack was constantly talking to him on ice and on the bench. Jack loves Victor and saw something in him Phil did not. I love catching glimpses of that - like tonight with Jack communicating with Olofsson with the head movement. Soon they'll just need to glance at each other. I bet you dollars to donuts Jack and Samson already have that going on. Says a lot about how Jack thinks the game, which is not Xs and Os.

RK said during the post-game presser there were things he didn't like that they will have to fix. Thankfully. I would think the core players, by now, have learned that winning doesn't come easy. I expect that any swagger they display will be tempered by some humility.

I still don't like these jerseys by themselves but the entire team decked out in them looks very good.

Is.this our Sabres? WTF is this?

I could be convinced to get my first jersey in a while: Olofsson

Everyone just needs to keep pinning medals on RK's chest ahead of the war. He'll be like a Korean General.

We have no idea how RK will handle ice time right now. For all we know, this game was the outlier. All I'm willing to consider, right now, is that I expect not to see the simplistic approach to minutes we would get from so many other coaches. The outside-the-box approach is one of the reasons RK was hired.

Vlad. Vlad showed us what he has been showing RK. I have to admit, I was completely okay with his game tonight. I was also impressed by how calm the entire team was. I mean, their calm was palpable. It was kind of weird. As I said in the beginning, if they can do this 60 minutes a game for the rest of the season...they might be more than a bubble team. I'm not ready to leap ahead, yet. We have to see them against a decent variety of opposition, first.