...

There you go. Grigorenko continues to advance.

...but Makarov is putting on a show fer shure.

I guess that I should add that I expect Neuvirth to improve substantially from his last game.

The Russian Pistol makes up for the Slacker's slacking.

...or, at least, the right kind of break.

Makarov, the Russian pistol. I like him. The Sabres have him, Lieuwen and Enroth. Meanwhile, poor Kaleta can't get a break.

Holy sh?t on the Bernier love fest here...

Grigorenko. The pass was behind.

Damn, is this the NHL roster?

No.

I actually saw Samson do something he was advertised as being able to do.

McCormick is ready for the season.

He did, indeed. Stewart took it easy, and was a sport all the way. I dig him.

Neuvirth is in on the tank. Some of you should be happy.

In before the lock!

Been tempted to try that, but for some reason the California thing has kept me away. I did buy a 12 of their Hopology, which is excellent.

Let's not get carried away.

The article doesn't say, or imply, that Nolan is outright rejecting stats. The article is based on a handful of comments made by Nolan in what context, or in response to what statement or question, none of which are revealed. The article is written by Paul Hamilton. For all we know Nolan could have qualified the comments with something like "yeah, I look at the information the stats guys give me...", or "such and such likes to go over the stats and he tells me this or that about the players...". The hand-wringing is ridiculous. Nolan has never been known to get into detail when talking to reporters. For all we know, thanks to the statistician(s) the Sabres have on staff, they may not want to tip their hand about what they're doing. Regardless, even if Nolan himself prefers to rely on unscientific data, he has a staff he consults, and more than likely at least one of the staff provides the data in a summarized, efficiently comprehendible manner that Nolan would use to help make coaching decisions, not unlike the subjective observations he makes. To take Paul Hamilton's article and deduce Nolan must not use stats in some manner at all is highly dramatic.

Do we know if Nolan eschews all stats or if he is making a general statement on advanced stats without any specific context? What happens to all of the number crunching the Sabres' statistician turns out, then? Is that paper cut up and used for grocery lists? I think some folks are getting their panties all wadded up over nothing.

Ellis has been a mule for the team and has earned an "A" during a pre-season game. No doubt we'll see our share of him in the blue and gold this season.

Considering the lineup they played against, it wasn't a bad game for three days into training camp. The standout definitely was Lieuwen. I'm not convinced Samson has the awareness, yet, to play his game at the NHL level.

Strachan?

I still like Lieuwen. He already looks more steady.

Same characters getting dumb penalties. 5 and 72 are not destined to start.

Not buying the goaltending argument one bit, and St. Louis didn't, either.