nfreeman

It’s at least 50/50 that this is what KA is thinking.

Awesome.

The athletic noted today that Hall has not scored an ES goal since game 2 of this season. The Bruins have played 26 games.

Does anyone have any gnarly photos of Joki or Skinner from today? Each of them caught a puck in the face last night.

I'm still curious as to how the players' share of the economic loss is going to be passed through to them.

Philly. That's my (and Gilbert's and Rico's and Schoeny's) Cup that group of cheap-shotting punks is walking around with.

I gotta believe Janky is the first forward to get benched. I also, regretfully, agree with @dudacek that VO does not appear to be fully recovered from his injury -- I haven't seen him blast the slapper in a while and he seems much less effective than previously. So maybe: Skinner - TT - Tuch VO - Cozens - KO Asplund - Eakin - Vinnie H. Murray - Zemgus - Hayden

Mike Ramsey was great, but he wasn't "Rammer." That was Craig Ramsay.

Well, so far this thread (including my posts!) isn't aging well.

No announcement to my knowledge -- it just seems logical with 3 games in 4 nights, late travel last night, losing an hour with the time zone change, etc. Besides, the Sabres are a juggernaut now! It seems only fair to give the Penguins a bit of an easier night with Malcolm in the middle. Separately, I think Vinnie H. might be their best forward right now.

Alright Malcolm. You’re up. Wanna keep your NHL career going? Here’s your shot.

U-P-L! U-P-L!

Whoa. Is this really happening? UPL was solid as a freaking rock again (I know those 2 goals leaked through, but the 1st one was a wicked 1-timer off a cross-ice pass and the 2nd one was by an elite NHL scorer who was allowed to stroll into the circle and pick his spot). He was calm, controlled, anticipated well, used his size well and made great saves in OT and the SO. I think he is giving the team a major confidence boost. And I think he might be the one.

I've been somewhat interested in Fitzie over the years. He's a RHD, 5'11, 190 lbs and turns 25 in February. He grew up in Massachusetts, played 4 years at BC (the Sabres drafted him in the 3rd round in 2016, after his freshman year at BC) and then the 2 Covid-shortened seasons in the AHL (the Amerks only played 29 games last year; he played in 22 of them and had 2 goals and 11 pts). So far this year he's played in 21 games in Rochester and has 4 goals and 7 pts. He was a member of the 2017 US team that won gold at the World Juniors (beating Team Canada for the gold in a 5-4 shootout win at the Bell Center -- take that, hosers!) and had 3 points in 7 games (other defensemen on that team included Charlie McAvoy and Adam Fox). At BC, he was team captain during his junior and senior years and won the award for best defensive defenseman in his conference despite producing respectable offensive numbers for a college defenseman. I'm glad he's getting a shot.

UPL? Tuch? This hopium is top-shelf stuff, I tell ya.

It's gotta be reassuring for Rasmus, as a guy who's supposed to take the most risk on D in order to create offense, to have a 6'5, 220-lb giant behind him (I saw a bunch of the Sabres, including UPL, in person in street clothes at the Bills' opener in September, and UPL is big and thick with plenty of physical presence) snuffing everything out. This can only be heightened by the other circumstances -- great start to the season, followed by losing 17 out of 20 and a complete revolving door poopshow in net, plus plenty of gaffes by Rasmus and related criticism, until UPL arrives, starts 4 in a row and plays very well, stabilizes the San Andreas fault in net and creates optimism for the future. Holy mackerel I hope he keeps it up. That was a fun game to watch last night.

Well, he played really well last night and the team seems to be responding to both him and to the increased stability in net. Maybe, maybe…

Very fair question, and it's certainly reasonable to conclude that he's done like dinner and pass, especially since they'd be committed for a $3.33MM cap hit for him next year. My point is that (i) an NHL GM could conclude that he's still got some game left, (ii) I am absolutely not OK with just giving up on the rest of this season and (iii) making no more moves at goalie is IMHO tantamount to giving up on the rest of the season.

Khudobin turns 36 in May. 2 years ago: 16-8-4, 2.22, .930 Last year: 12-11-7, 2.54, .905 This year: 3-3-1, 3.73, .873 It's hard to avoid the conclusion that he's out of gas and in steep decline, or the prediction that he'd be unhappy to find himself on a crappy team in Buffalo, would be counting the minutes until the end of the season and would play poorly. And yet -- he's better than what the Sabres currently have, unless we're suddenly confident that UPL has arrived and is ready to be a good NHL starter. I'd be fine if the Sabres signed him, and I'd certainly prefer signing him to doing nothing.

All true, but still... I can't help feeling like (i) the team, next year and in subsequent years, would be substantially better off if they were scrapping this year for a 85ish-point season, and not losing 17 out of 20, again getting everyone used to losing and alienating the fan base even further, (ii) that 85ish-point outcome was eminently achievable if the team had secured reasonable NHL goaltending and (iii) securing reasonable NHL goaltending was eminently achievable at some point in the last 2 offseasons, both of which came and went with KA sitting out the goalie musical chairs game. Am I hopeful that next year's team, with Quinn, Krebs, JJP, Tuch, Samuelsson, Power and UPL will be able to take a huge step? Of course, and I don't think that hope is from outer space. But KA's choices have made it less likely to occur IMHO.

I like Donnie too, but we can't pretend that the Sabres haven't lost 17 out of 20, and then there's this:

No you hoser the Jax game from a month ago.

No smiley face in the one I'm referring to.

When I watched the play live, I thought it was going to be close. I don't think I saw anything at any time, live or on replay, that made me think it was clearly a bad call. For the record, none of my posts on this should be interpreted as an argument that every call was correct -- obviously that is not the case in a human judgment situation. The point is that (i) teams don't win or lose games because of "the refs" -- they do so because of how they play, (ii) there is no conspiracy to screw the Bills and (iii) blaming "the refs" for losses is the ultimate loser's lament. I'll also note that neither of the articles in the Athletic today about the game included a single word about questionable calls.

Well, since as usual you can't be bothered to do 60 seconds of internet searching to bolster your half-baked theories, I went back and looked at the posts in this thread about the Jax game. There were 7 posts, including one BY YOU, complaining about the refs.