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You did say you watched the condensed game. Skinner was Skinner tonight.

Fleury pulled out one of his best games. He had no choice. Nearly any other goalie tonight and Minnesota would have lost this game in the second. Swap my fanny but I am happy to give Mitts a lot of credit this game. He looked good. Actually, between both teams, we got a lot of players' A-game. Kind of weird, but I guess we have to expect that now since they all know we can score and our goalies can keep us in games. Can't wait to see them live!

My mother would refer to the lady as a chicken.

They're still winning. As so often this season we have a game on our hands. I'll take that over the crap we had the past decade.

Their PK is quite aggressive. Damn, this is what I meant, but saying PP is funny.

Have to give Mitts credit for the pass on their first goal. Crazy to attempt it but it worked.

I went to refill my wine and missed goals 2 & 3.

I'll take six games out of seven for now. Let's see what happens over the next few.

Can they sustain it, though?

This is just an exercise to put all of the moving parts on the table to see if the most logical/rational move here can be determined. Feel free to correct my thinking, fill in knowledge gaps, etc. @GASabresIUFAN provided this list of Waiver-exempt roster players: OFFENSE Peterka Quinn Krebs DEFENSE Power Samuelsson GOAL Luukkonen They must dress 20. IMHO, none of these players have earned being sent down. Assuming they keep UPL up, do you split the last two roster players 1 each D and O? The trade deadline is March 3. So we have two full months before they can have an unlimited active roster, which I think is one key to the decision-making process. Can they survive two months swapping D and O men out as needed? They would have to swap out players that are contributing to their success now. IMHO opinion they might be able to make this work but it would be sloppy and disruptive. I would not want them to take this option if it can be avoided. Moving UPL down seems the least disruptive move on the surface (meaning, we really don't know the mentality of the players and other inner dynamics). UPL is a smart kid, I think he could appreciate the circumstances and mentally deal with moving back and forth - as needed - until March 3. However, DG has said UPL needs to play. I agree with that. Frankly, although I do not like taking the gamble, moving UPL down seems to involve less long-term risk. Outside of waiver-exempt moves we have trades and waivers. For myself, I see Mittelstadt, Olofsson, Asplund and Hinostroza from the offense and Bryson (and maybe Fitzgerald) from the defense as trade bait. None of our goalies should be trade bait for the reasons litigated in this and other threads. Since we don't have depth on D, I will exclude the D from the remainder of this exercise. If KA can find a trade partner for any of these guys, the return would necessarily need to be a pick, prospect and/or a waiver-exempt player (or a player that for the next 2 months can be moved back and forth however that works). If KA can find a trade partner for any single player named above can the team survive? I do not know Hinostroza's story and why he is here, but he is a player I do not at all notice on the ice. Looking at his career, he looks like a journeyman roster-gap-filling type of guy. So, I think his presence would not be missed. Asplund I don't have enough info to determine his value. Can he, say, fill Mittelstadt's role if Mittelstadt were traded? I think Olofsson's loss would be effectively inconsequential. As much as I hate to say it, without a deep dive into the fancy-stats, I think of the offense Mittelstadt's loss would be the most consequential unless any of the remainder can effectively fill in. I don't have the insight to offer an opinion on that other than to say I don't believe Olofsson can fill in for Mittelstadt. Finally we get to waivers. With Hinostroza's >$1M cap hit can he survive the waiver wire? He seems like the best candidate for a waiver move. It seems to me there are 2 options completely within the control of the Sabres: 1. UPL goes down. 2. Waive Hinostroza. A third, ridiculous option would be an "accident" putting someone on LTIR until March 4. But that kind of thing doesn't happen in the virtuous world of the NHL. The Hockey-Gods possibility is a decent trade. The Desperation-DGAF move would be to trade someone for a crappy return.

Seems this thread could be merged with the Comrie reporting thread. UPL must be waiver- exempt. Who else is waiver exempt on the Sabres' roster? Hinostroza? Clague?

Correct, they said that. I disagree it was the right take because they can't "learn how to play defense" in a single game period. They already knew how - the key was believing they could do it which relates to my comment on how it took them the first to realize they can compete with the Bs.

I don't think this is nitpicking at all. AFAIC even calling a Rochester guy "local" is a stretch. I have no idea what it's like to live in Rochester.

Late to the thread and I'm sure to say nothing new but this was a statement game. The 5 on 3 aside, the refs in the third were definitely homers. UPL gets better every game. It's great that scoring can come from anywhere in any given game. The increase in their confidence was notable at the beginning of the second; as if they shed their "respect" for Boston and decided they were an equally competent team. On the Boston feed one of the talking heads said maybe toward the end of the first if the Sabres could learn to play defense they'd be scary good. I think this is the wrong take - I think it's not so much learning to play defense as it is gaining more experience. Great game!

I recall you somehow were in the broadcasting business. I have a hand in it, too. I would expect you to argue that this article is old. When read carefully it admits they were doing it before Covid and plan to continue doing it post Covid. I'm not going to argue the point after this post and sully the thread. Enjoy the game! Augmented Crowd Sound Gears Up for New Sports Seasons (sportsvideo.org)

You don't believe they add crowd noise to sports broadcasts?

If you're listening to the Sabres feed maybe they're adding fake crowd noise like from the Covid games because that crowd sounds weak.

The Detroit feed makes me appreciate the Sabres crew - which is saying something because I don't like half of the Sabres' broadcast crew.

Another goal and the crowd will start getting into it.

Watching the Detroit feed and they have the arena sound turned up yet the crowd sounds dead.

Interesting take on Granato and a very valid point. What do you think of the timeout last night?

...and the other team is pretty good.

I don't disagree, but let's take a moment to reflect on how nice it is to again have a team where this has become necessary on the regular. So, now we finally have a team that is competitive. It's a fragile state but there none-the-less. It took too long to get here.