Randall Flagg

Jack was like 8th in PPG about two games ago. It's way too early to put serious stock in those numbers. He fluctuated about 40 spots in about 72 hours.

Back in my own home after the longest stretch I've ever spent away. Freshly-sealed driveway is beckoning. I haven't played roller hockey in 17 months now. The snow is holding off for another 4 hours or so. Helllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll yeah

Jack has the same amount of goals he had through 17 games last season. He's played 18 this season. He'll hit his December/January goal spurt like usual and finish around 30. Or he'll stay low and everyone will make fun of Jack Eichel the 18 goal scorer all summer long, and he'll be back to a 30 goal pace next year. Whichever happens, he's playing well and the team's playing well, and so it's not a problem.

Tied for 8th in points percentage.

Okposo agrees with Sabrespace that they haven't been playing their best hockey - he said in the last three games (all wins) they played about "one and a half" good periods. Keep 'em honest in the room there, Kyle. Putting your heads down and working!

10 in 18 versus 10 in 38!! How did we make it through last year lmao

Win #10 last season: Our last game of 2017, on December 29th. Happy New Year!!

I don't think the top line was horrible, but I want to get Sam back on a different line to spread the offense out a bit. 8 shots in the last two periods combined is rough. We don't play until three nights from now, so let Pommers rest and give him his spot back.

I still can't get over 10-6-2. We can do that? It doesn't feel real

When the Sabres are the better team than Tampa Bay for more than 75% of a game, both teams rested, the Sabres will be current cup contenders. They've beaten Tampa in games like this recently, to be honest. I think I even remember an identical 2-1 game in Buffalo last season. These ones balance out losing stinkers like in Ottawa.

Jesus, the Atlantic division is on fire. Also, I got random congrats on the Sabres' return to relevance today from two strangers in two separate incidents. In Oklahoma. it's always fun to wear my Buffalo sports gear

Also pretty much any points they get in these four games are gravy to me. I'm hoping for lots more gravy

Is that the lady Jack celly'd with after the goals to beat the Rangers last season in his second game back?

As someone who only saw the last two periods, so take this post with a grain of salt (my eyes for the first period told me that they played well), I can't say that this is true. But the Sabres beat the better (than every other team in the league IMO) team tonight.

This is now more than once that we've gotten a "national game" which screws me over, and yet they supply us with the OTHER TEAM'S announcing crew. What gives? I don't want to hear this guy call Bolts-Sabres, as reasonably good as he is. Just like I don't want to hear that Flyers announcer call Sabres-Flyers on NBCSN.

Also I can't say enough good things about...Johan Larsson lately. The guy is bringing it.

Got to see the last two periods. Important points here!!! Tampa makes much better teams than us Alamo for 2 periods (Minnesota, who is also on fire, was destroyed by them in a game I saw). Tampa plays some of the best team 5v5 hockey I've seen in my 13 years watching hockey. Hopefully we can get there someday. 10-6-2 is freeeeeeeeeeeeeeaking sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet

Is there a coach that doesn't have his trusty vet that the fans question? It's sorta fun to have normal NHL problems again, in a way.

But yeah, I'd much rather have Berglund's event snuffing against Tampa instead of Thompson's propensity to get absolutely demolished out there

And I like Doc when he's calling important games and has to focus on the play the whole time. He's skilled. But get him with his buddies on a meaningless midseason game and it's annoying. Also, I think they should find a massive sheet of ice somewhere and do a variety of skating technique races so we can definitively figure out who is fast and who isn't relative to league average. I mean, some of us would apparently bet money that Pominville would beat Reinhart in a straight line race, and I guarantee that some of us would bet money otherwise. it's so hard to tell.

Domingue playing gives us a decent chance. If we play good hockey, complaints about the lineup aside, we can beat that goalie.

The thing that bugs me is that I don't even think you need analytics to see it. I think this board largely has the peg on what Vlad is and isn't, and I think metrics support the takes of the fairly general consensus, and then Vlad goes and gets the 4th most ES ice time of all Sabres forwards fairly regularly. (I haven' tchecked that as closely in the last few games) Like I'm not mad at Vlad, I'm just wondering what Phil does on occasion. FTR, I think that about pretty much every coach always, so it's not the biggest deal in the world to me, but it's still puzzling.

Sobotka is fine and any complaint I have about him will center on the way he gets used and not what he does. In the perfect world, health and AHL promotion lets him become our favorite 13th forward since who knows when, by the end of this season.

Good luck w/ that one. Of 633 NHL skaters with at least 50 minutes of ice time, Tage Thompson is 618th in expected goals percentage, and this includes defensemen, and all of the worst defensive defensemen you can picture, which means when he's on the ice the team gets a scoring chance once or twice in a blue moon. He's also bottom 10 among 412 NHL forwards in the other metrics, scoring, possession and otherwise. Sorry to continue to complain about this, but Tage is putting up the numbers and metrics of the worst of the Sabres tank forwards, which is why he shouldn't be here. Especially because without him playing, we have four lines that post GOOD metrics for the first time in a decade. Line four spent ~10 games taking 60% of all shot attempts and being incredibly useful to resting our top 3 and tiring out the other team, until their game with Tage, when they were submarined and spent 75% of the ice time in their own zone chasing their tails. It's not good for Tage, it's not good for the Sabres, and it keeps happening. Berglund is four tiers of competence better than Thompson. Thompson should be in the AHL, as he is roughly the 16th best healthy forward in this organization. Don't mean to complain in the GDT this early, but these guys aren't helping themselves against a ridiculously good team tonight. Sh*t, you can't watch NBCSN games on NHL.TV, can you. I might not be able to watch too much of this one then!

100%, the biggest concern with the new lines is that Sobotka is really, really bad on any line that doesn't have Samson. I think Pominville/Sam should be fine, it's Vlad's line I'm worried about.