nfreeman

Well, he sure looked like he was ready for the NHL last night — and kinda like a future star for that matter. He’s earned the 9-game look for sure.

Andre Savard, I believe? Decent 2-way center who still was not nearly enough to get back for Peter McNab, who became a perennial 40-goal scorer as soon as the Sabres traded him to Boston for Savard (after only his 2nd full NHL season)?

Well, Ryan Johnson made a few blunders, and he's made quite a few this preseason, but still: I was worried he'd be another Pysyk at best, but he has much, much more game than Pysyk had. He can handle it better, he can skate with it better, he can shoot it better, he's a better passer and he has much more confidence with the puck on his stick. Now, of course, he needs to learn to make the right decision in the d-zone vs NHL pressure consistently. There's no guarantee that happens, of course. He'll need patience and good coaching in Rochester. I could see him becoming a mainstay in the top 6 though and maybe taking Joki's spot if Joki doesn't raise his game.

This brings up a question that occurred to me: does releasing him from his PTO mean that they are done with him, full stop? Or is it a necessary step in the process to get him to Rochester? If they are totally done with him, then I too would be surprised as I thought he looked pretty good and certainly good enough to get another look in Rochester this year.

The Covenant fits the bill IMHO. It’s a pretty new war movie by Guy Ritchie.

I agree that he won’t be high on Tampa’s list, but if UPL is waived, someone will definitely claim him.. I hope you’re right, but I think they would waive Jost and Bryson before waiving UPL.

"Bad Sisters" on Apple TV was pretty good. It's a dark comedy set in Dublin about 4 sisters conspiring to kill their 5th sister's husband, who is awful in every way. The creator and co-star is Sharon Horgan, who similarly was a co-creator and co-star of "Catastrophe", which was a great comedy on Amazon Prime. Anyway, I give "Bad Sisters" a B-plus.

Good stuff here. Unfortunately, after reading it, I'm left with the conclusion that the most likely outcome is that they keep 3 goalies.

If Comrie plays well in his next start and UPL stinks in his, which I think is quire possible, they are going to be hard pressed not to keep Comrie. I generally agree and would just add that I'm glad the Sabres didn't trade Savoie, Benson, Kulich or Rosen (not to mention Quinn or JJP) for one year of Hellebuyck.

I may have mixed up the 2nd and 3rd goals — Power also got completely dusted on one of TO’s goals (separately from the one Johnson screwed up on).

The first TO goal was a gift from UPL and the 2nd was one from Ryan Johnson, who sent a poor pass into the neutral zone on a failed exit and then got blown past flat footed by a Leaf who set up the goal. I watched about half the game and wasn’t impressed by any of them. Yuck.

Anyone got a link to the stream? Why isn't just on sabres.com?

I heard that Taylor Swift only took up with Travis Kelce because Benson wasn't returning her calls.

I think the most likely outcome is that he gets 9 games and then goes back to juniors, but there a non-negligible chance that he makes it crystal GD clear that he is, right now, one of the 12 best forwards in the organization and if so I would not be shocked if they keep him.

It's not clear from sabres.com whether the game will be streaming there. But what is clear is that a bunch of key guys will be playing, including TT, Dahlin and Levi, and of course Joey "two times" Cecconi: Forwards (12) 9 Zach Benson 15 Brandon Biro 49 Filip Cederqvist 85 Mason Jobst 48 Tyson Kozak 20 Jiri Kulich 37 Casey Mittelstadt 81 Brett Murray 63 Isak Rosen 53 Jeff Skinner 72 Tage Thompson 89 Alex Tuch Defensemen (6) 3 Joseph Cecconi 38 Kale Clague 26 Rasmus Dahlin 83 Mats Lindgren 23 Mattias Samuelsson 61 Riley Stillman Goalies (2) 27 Devon Levi 62 Devin Cooley

It was borderline unbearable.

I agree that it will most likely be Rousek. If I have to choose one of Rosen and Kulich, I would say Rosen, although that is based solely on the prospects tournament, where he looked terrific and Kulich looked good but not great IMHO.

Look at that hair!

Delightful. Or one might prefer: Skinner Thompson Tuch Peterka Cozens Greenway Quinn Mittelstadt Kane I'm not super-optimistic about Quinn returning 100% to form this year, but I continue to think there is a pretty decent chance that Kane will fully recover, get his legs back and want to join the high-scoring fireworks show occurring 3 nights a week in front of a packed house in his hometown and freight-training into the playoffs.

Luce-Ramsay-Gare was an awesome checking line -- and while we all know Gare could score in buckets, Luce and Ramsay were pretty decent scorers too.

I don't like taking Tuch away from the top line, but IIRC, DG did so a couple of times last year in trying different line combos. I can certainly see him doing so again this year. I am pretty confident (probably overconfident) that JJP is going to step up this year and be a consistent factor on Cozens' wing. Greenway with either of your Mitts or Cozens lines would make those lines very difficult to play against. And one of the high-scoring kids earning that spot with TT and Skinner is pretty unlikely but holy mackerel I would be psyched to watch it.

From the Athletic this morning: Pretty interesting. So maybe: Skinner-TT-Tuch JJP-Cozens-XXX XXX-Mitts-Greenway Zemgus-Krebs-KO ...with the candidates for the 2 open slots to include VO, Jost, Rousek, Rosen, Benson and Kulich

I vote retro Sabres only for the rest of the countdown.

BTW: I've seen a few posters mention that they aren't able to embed tweets -- but I was able to do so in my post above. Maybe it's just an issue when trying to do so on a phone?

Awesome.