Randall Flagg

Tavares broke his finger, will be out at least a couple weeks.

Evan was basically benched, Kyle took his shifts. But a large part of the wonky ice times are also because of the amount of 4v4 and PP/PK time in this game.

This is a strange comparison to make, considering we're talking a 4 game set for Evan. The first two were bad, and the last two were fine, though neither player played very much in the most recent one. In their three ES shifts together last night in the first two periods, they created three pretty dangerous scoring chances - well, Evan was a part of all 3, and Casey 1. And against Dallas, they owned the puck. Casey has been quiet since the first game, but better in the last three than in the three between these two, in which he was downright bad. In that sense, Casey doesn't look very different than last year. Slightly better. Evan simply looks like a rusty hockey player that's quickly getting better in the incredibly limited ice time he's been given. And he was absolutely a better player than Casey last year, so unless there's some regression for some reason, which I haven't seen evidence of, I'd be happy to let this line keep rolling...with some actual ice time so that our top two lines don't get gassed like yesterday. Rodrigues and Mitts are both transition players and both flashed it in their ~5 shifts together last night. Sheary can score on the rush. I think the stylistic setup of this line is pretty cut and dry, and at this point it's about getting the most out of them. If this line has problems 15 games from now, maybe we talk trades, call-ups, etc. But combing 7, or 4, games carefully is exactly what Ralph seems to not be interested in doing, and I like what I've seen from them in the last few. Although Vesey simply doesn't make any sense to me

McDavid was on the ice for 5 goals for his team and 0 goals against. The shots on goal while McDavid was on the ice were 25-9 in favor of Philly. Hockey is fun!

Skinner scored a hat trick in LA last season. It was also our 8th game of the season. I believe that was his first game on Jack's line. I'm juuuuuuuuuuuust sayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyin ?

The Eichel line is still getting outscored. Last year, they played 7 games with Skinner on a different line before putting him with Jack. Eichel and Skinner were +10 on the season last year. I'm just sayin

Imagine adding a "top six" player to any of those top three lines. This team is so close to having me convinced they're playoff-caliber

If you summed up all the good with all the bad for each player today, he might have been the best Sabre. All of the fancy plays were made by guys who were really bad at other times

I just re-watched the first period. Not sure why the Mitts line was essentially benched for all of the 2nd, at least at even strength, even with all the penalty stuff going on. They created a few chances off the rush and the only egregious chance against them (until the goal, which honestly didn't look all that bad for anyone but the d-man that got caught out of position forcing a right handed forward to cover for him) had far more to do with the defensive pair out there. I know the coverage was soft on the goal against they saw, but I'm not sure what you'd expect when asking ERod to play left-defense, and they were no worse than any other line's play on the other 3 goals, so it was a weird thing to do to effectively run 2 lines for the bulk of the game. I don't think it helped us. Since ERod sat for most of the rest of the game, I'd expect to see Lazar in his place. I don't really care about sitting players here and there, and for whatever reason pointing out good things about that guy gets a lot more flack than pointing out good things about other Sabres, so it's whatever, but I'm surprised it was him over Vesey, because I just grabbed a couple brief clips of plays Evan made in two shifts that Jimmy hasn't made all season. And for whatever reason, Jimmy is the winger that gets bumped up to play with Jack and Sam over guys like Skinner. Kinda bizarre. What a bizarre player. I would have never traded for him, but can't muster the energy to be angry that we did, just to be mildly curious. I know we all want the Mitts line to get going but tonight was a night where I think we didn't even give it a chance to. Their game has steadily gotten better over the last 3, and was good in the first period, and then they basically sat for the rest of the game

Glad there's another one tomorrow. Beat the Kings!

I've never had a Sabre player inspire less emotion in me, positive or negative, than Jimmy Vesey

Dahlin did absolutely nothing wrong there. Not a thing. But it's funny how many ENGs have something to do with him haha

Can't wait for royal blue

Yeah, it was obviously just hyperbole to counter a mediocre hockey player for the best goalie on the planet

They haven't, but he's likely right.

What are we adding there, Dahlin?

Sure, but the Sabres have had their first Amerks callup on defense be a lot worse of a player than Pilut for many years in the past. It helps nobody that he's hurt and will only benefit people when he's healthy

There have been a lot of rough games tonight, but I can't see how Risto has warranted leading the team in ice time to this point. He's been bad everywhere

Woof Risto

Johansson has been as bad this game as he's been good in the others

Skinner had no reason to catch that with his skate, it gave Anaheim a rush. Rough pass by Jack.

Yep. But also, we hadn't won in LA before last year since like 2002 or something, and the Sharks beat us each of the last two trips to SJ, and we always seem to lay eggs in Vancouver.

We swept Western Canada in 17-18, but I don't think this has been true in general.

Risto awful with the puck on his stick this period

The hell was that Sam