SabresBaltimore

We lost the last game so I'm one and done for making the GDT. I'm torn between riding Lyon and trying Ellis on the road to see what you have there. Don't want UPL to get another game yet. At some point you need to try him again, but I'd give him a home game. Must Win is a bit of an exaggeration, but losing 3 straight is not a good look for a "playoff" team, especially against a reeling Bruins team. We looked awful in the first game against them. We're playing better now. Gotta get it done tonight. Looks like Greenway will make his season debut. I don't love having him at center. I think if they lost faith in Östlund, send Östlund and Dunne back to Rochester. Then call up Helenius to try him out at 3c instead. Go Sabres!

Totally forgot Dunne was up. Good point.

That's a bummer. I also hate how vague they are on injuries and timelines. Hopefully not too many weeks, he's been a pleasant surprise. I'd rather he be in the lineup over Krebs or Malynstyn when he gets back. Maybe even centering the 3rd line with Quinn and Zucker with Krebs/Malynstyn/Greenway as the 4th. Although 3 goalies may make the roster gymnastics tougher if enough guys are healthy and taking up roster spots. I still want to waive Gersteen the first time we have to free up a spot that doesn't just require sending someone (Östlund) back to Rochester. But Östlund is probably going back for Greenway.

The people planning Frozen Frenzy so there is more of a chance there is always some game to be showing

Hmm. Why the hell have been thinking they were in our division? Thanks Agree about the wildcard bit though.

OK, well is probably too strong of a word. They haven't been our biggest issue on defense. That was Dahlin and Byram. I also think they've been improving the more they played together. Timmens was awful in the first period of the Florida game (which is when I think they started pairing) and got benched for a few shifts and moved off of the pair until Bryson got hurt. I think they've been trending in a better direction though.

The 4-4-0 Blue Jackets are in town with a strange 6:45 start time to take on your 4-4-1 Buffalo Sabres. This game is the 4th one to start in tonight's all 32 team Frozen Frenzy on ESPN2. Games start at 6PM ET and stagger every 15 minutes or so until the last game starts at 11 ET. Another division conference game (that could have implications on the wildcard at the end of the season) and ideally the debut of Kesserling. Who will he be partnered with? Power was the pre-season expectation but he seems to be doing well with Timmens atm. Meanwhile Dahlin and Byram got broken up so maybe he slots in with one of them. And what of our 3-headed monster? Who gets the crease? I'd give it to Lyon. Let's Go Buffalo!

Not sure if this warrants a whole thread, but I didn't see ones for Kesserling or Greenway, just Zucker. Feel free to delete/merge this if that's preferred. I was hoping we'd see Kesserling this weekend, but hopefully he can go Tuesday. Can't say I'm say I'm shocked Greenway has no ETA. Guy is always hurt.

Yeah, I started listening and they were talking about video review so I was confused and I checked the time code and it matched their notes, so I figured it was something like that. I'm still listening right now. He's been mostly talking about Josh for the 10+ minutes. Still going at the 23m mark. It's interesting to hear his thoughts, especially on his development. Edit: Just finished, ends around the 28m mark. So roughly 19m

The time code in the notes is wrong. He starts at the 8m mark from what I saw, and he starts with talking about his kid at the 8:45 mark:

I have a Ryan O'Reilly jersey I think I got to wear to 1 game before they traded him. Never again. I'll stick to my Pominville jersey for the foreseeable future. I guess though if I got a free jersey for the current roster I'd probably be leaning Benson, so through a very short number of games Lyons and Doan are both candidates. But given my past luck, as soon as I get a jersey the player would be gone (or quit on the team)

This is a big game. With how bad attendance has been, I expect Leaf fans will outnumber Sabres fans. I hope I'm wrong, but it's going to take a lot more winning to get all but the diehards back on board with this team, especially during football season. Winning both games this weekend would go a long way to building some confidence that the team is worth watching again, but got to split at a minimum. Curious who gets the start tonight. I was originally thinking UPL, but now I'm thinking Lyon tonight and Ellis tomorrow so they can see how the rookie does on the road before adding UPL back in the mix. Of course I wouldn't have brought UPL back from Rochester yet, so likely the Sabres have different plans.

It's dumb they didn't leave UPL in Rochester the max amount of time. I'd like Ellis to play at least 1 more game before adding UPL back to the mix. I'd waive Geertsten to keep 3 for the time being and hope we can move 1 of them by the time we have more guys ready to return from IR. Although I thought I saw Kesserling could be back this weekend, so even if they put Zucker on IR there will be some shuffling with Rochester to keep all 3 even for a short while. Not sure about Greenway. He's been skating with the team, but I haven't seen an ETA on his return. The rest are farther off as far as I know. Just another sign of mismanagement by Adams.

I'd rather carry 3 goalies and waive Geersten. I don't think he's adding anything of value. Hopefully Greenway is back soon, then you send Östlund back to Rochester (or whoever they call up to play for Zucker, because I hope to god Geersten doesn't return to the lineup) If we can trade Ellis for something, great. But I'd rather keep him a bit longer until we're sure UPL is going to be good.

original post seems to have been deleted. Hopefully they still plan to have shots and maybe opted for a less snarky post?

I made a starter pack as well that I'll try to keep updating as I find more folks. It's just people who cover the team or the NHL. The insiders don't seem to be there, but there are bots that mirror their content I added to the list. https://go.bsky.app/Qy33Jop

For the lazy: https://bsky.app/profile/joeyerdon.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/llysowski.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/matthewfairburn.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/cmdedominicis.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/sabremetrix.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/puckpedia.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/travisyost.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/notpierrevlebrun.bsky.social

guess I need to go looking for more accounts after work. There has been a big spike on the Bills side of things in the last few days. Until recently I mostly just saw posts from Yerdon there

the main one I follow is Joe Yerdon: https://bsky.app/profile/joeyerdon.bsky.social Fairburn is there too, but he only recently started posting. I don't have a direct link for him. (it might just be: matthewfairburn.bsky.social) None of the national guys (like Freedman) are there yet that I've seen.

If people want something official:

Going to be interested in seeing how the 2nd line looks tonight. Based on yesterday's practice NAK is replacing Kulich in the lineup tonight on the 2nd line: Seems like an odd choice. Likely Ruff wants to keep the other 3 lines in tact because they've been playing well. I looked though and NAKs career high is 11 goals several seasons ago. Likely just a stop-gap until Benson returns, but I'll be curious to see if he tries Krebs or Zucker there again at some point during the game. He started Zucker there last game, but didn't keep him there too long before swapping Kulich back. With how bad the PP has been, I don't love losing Kulich from our 2nd PP unit, but I think he wasn't very good in that last game. Cozens looked better and Quinn finally got a goal (and kind of assisted on Byram's goal by pushing the Detroit defender into the puck, which was redirected into the net). I'm hoping that finally lights a spark for Quinn. Prior to that game, I was ready to bench him to fit NAK in

Levi's only win was against the Panthers a few weeks back. I was kind of expecting Ruff to play him again here, although we have back to back games on Fri/Sat (traveling to Detroit for the second game) so maybe not.

Joe and Lance have both hinted that Joe may continue on, but no real details on that yet. I liked maintenance day, but I don't like Lance enough to listen to Harrington. Sad to hear this news.

This is amazing: https://www.nhl.com/sabres/multimedia/galleries/photos-sabres-at-red-bull-munich#gallery_a3711e0d-0088-40d5-bb69-c3c4159bcb11-1

If you live in the broadcast area, it's streaming on sabres.com If you don't, I don't believe so. The last game was on NHL Network, but I don't think this one will be