Randall Flagg

Nothing more humbling to me than focusing on other teams. What are we doing here

I think next year would tie the record!

Two cup contenders playing in a manner conducive to maximizing their seeding and getting prepared for long runs. The Sabres gave everything they had, and played 4.5 of their strongest periods of the year to match. These games were a good barometer of the gap between us and where we want to be

Didn't see much out of Kahun. And I don't mean that in a way that speaks negative of his game. Literally didn't see him very much

Just got done explaining to my dad that this was happening, and why Jack was so off. Then Jack goes and takes two draws. He thinks I just make stuff up

Tough road trip at this time of year.

Skinner has been more involved in the o-zone in two shifts than Olie since he got healthy.

Is Roy a center? Why is he not a Sabre

A bad Risto tendency, the needless flip to the opponent when he had time, and we never touched the puck again, they grabbed it and made a beeline for our net and scored

Does Jack have radiation poisoning? Why were his mucous membranes bleeding

Dahlin is a wizard at keeping pucks in at the point

Eh I'm comfortable just assuming he'll be dominant and healthy Jack for a long time, and taking our sweet time to get to the playoffs And having no centers for a scenario in which he misses a lot of time

Id bring in Reaves especially if we lose a fourth liner. Dude is competent with the puck for a tough guy

If it's Olofsson's play on the puck 5v5, we are lucky if a Sabre is the next guy to have the puck, much less having a chance to score We just need better execution in that spot I'd try Kahun or even just Vesey at this point

That wasn't a serious, big league play by those three forwards

...bust?

This is true. I had to do a lot of that math in my head, so it's spinning, so sorry if this doesn't line up with what you're trying to say, but I think one of Jeff or Sam should be with Eichel at all times because bad things happen to the Sabres if that isn't the case

A reminder from when I did the math on January 15th: (in the last 3 seasons) He has 25 goals and 67 points with Eichel and 20 goals and 21 assists without him. Prorating these rates out for a full season, we would have: With Eichel: 82 games, ~16 even strength goals, ~42 even strength points Without Eichel: 82 games, ~21 even strength goals, ~43 even strength points

Sam Reinhart, without Eichel and ROR, since 2017-18: 1251 minutes, 12 goals, 21 assists, a point every 38 mins Sam Reinhart with Eichel, since 2017-18: 2692, 46, 73, a point every 23 minutes. Removing ROR definitely puts a dent in his production. It makes sense. The two most prominent Reinhart lines sans those two are: Sobotka - Rodrigues - Reinhart Moulson/Pouliot - Reinhart - Griffith Actually, this isn't fair at all - one of these counts power play minutes while the other completely gets rid of them. Let me just do 5v5. Sam Reinhart, with Eichel, since 2017-18: 1908 minutes, 26 goals, 39 assists, a point every 29 minutes Sam Reinhart, without Eichel and ROR, since 2017-18: 870 minutes, 9 goals, 13 assists, a point every 39 minutes. That makes sense, since it was rare that Sam was ever without those two AND on the power play, but makes the difference less stark. So if you stick Sam with the worst players in the NHL, then his production away from Jack AND Ryan is worse than it is with Jack. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for a 2C that can put up 55-60 points in today's NHL, so I'm not worried about Sam's production on a reasonable 2nd line, away from Jack.

I'll get back to you on this

Over the last three years it's actually a worse rate when he's with Jack than when away.

I would go as far as betting money that this is currently up on the white board (or does Jason use chalk?) in his office. (Should he lose Larry and Zemgus, rather, I'm sure he wants to keep them at a reasonable price) The thing that's worrisome is that I could easily see Asplund-Lazar-Okposo being a terrible 4th line

That's actually kind of a neat analogy. Candles and lanterns and whatnot, helping you read when the night comes. Electricity makes it a little bit easier to do so. Neither is an absolute solution for the lack of sunlight at night time, but the upgrade from candle light to our light bulbs is helpful Sometimes we do need to take a bit of a step back - if we, as Sabres fans, only watched Sabres hockey, and didn't have access to the internet, I guarantee you we wouldn't notice that we are the worst scoring chance generating team in the NHL. We just wouldn't know enough to have grounds for that claim. Stats of all kind help us ground our own assessments of our teams and players to some baseline, which we need unless we are capable of watching and remembering a vast majority of the games played by all NHL teams

The thing that's annoying about our center spine is that he DOES understand it, and told us so in his very first interview, and in many after. That's what makes it frustrating about having 2 NHL centers this year, and 1 under contract for next

The real mystery is which one is the boy and which one is the girl