SabresBaltimore

Yeah. I really hope we're not looking ahead to revenge/doing better in Washington on Friday. We need to win this game, and ideally in regulation like we did against Boston on Sunday. It'd be nice to have a no stress win over a team we should beat. We have back to back games this weekend (I'll be driving up Friday for Christmas and attending the Anaheim game with my sister on Sat), so winning this one easily and having some more time to rest before the weekend will help, especially with how banged up we are right now. I honestly think Tage will start scoring again if they put him back with Middlestat and Okposo. I think that line isn't as good without him and he certainly hasn't been as good either. I'm sure Sheary would be unhappy to be demoted to the 3rd line though, and then maybe we end up with another Berglund situation.

I wasn't around for the French connection, and I didn't watch hockey during the Mogilny days, so to me this is the most exciting line I've gotten to watch. The next one I can think of was the Roy-Pommers-Vanek line back when we were so deep they were our 3rd line and running over other lower lines/bottom defensive pairings. This line is doing it against the best in the league though. When we lost Drury and Briere and that line had to take up the slack, they couldn't. As to names, I got nothing. I agree with those who say you can't break up this line, even if our second/third lines aren't producing right now. In future seasons it'd be nice to rely on Sam to help anchor another line, but maybe that's just not in the cards. In which case JBots needs to bring in someone to help the second line instead of demoting Sam. At this point I wouldn't be upset to see several forwards gone from the team next year, and they all play on the second and third lines. Contracts probably make too much of a shake up tough unless JBots can pull off some deadline/offseason magic. I think the line of Girgeson, Rodriguez and Larson is in some ways almost as important as our top line and should be left alone too. Girgenson came up really big twice last night, once keeping the puck in right before the Eichel line got in, which resulted in a goal, and once sacrificing his body for a shot block..which lead to a goal. They've been shutting down a lot of the league's top lines and providing most of the scoring that doesn't come from our top line or defense. I think if JBots/Housley can figure out something with our middle lines leaving the top and bottom alone, and shore up our defensive depth we could be a cup contender. Of course all of this assumes we can keep Skinner around and then survive the Expansion draft without too much damage.

The boys visit to my neck of the woods was a disappointing result, but we can't let that stop us tonight in an important division game. Beating the Bruins is way more important. Let's go! Pilut got hurt last night too? I saw Beauliu struggling after that hit, but what happened to Pilut? I had to watch the Caps coverage and they didn't say anything about it.

I'm kind of hoping we find a way not to send Pilut back to Rochester. He's earning his place up here. I'm not sure how his contract is setup though. I assume we can't just keep him up? Will there be a point (like 10 games?) where he'll have to clear waivers to get sent back down?

Yeah, I think we looked better in our losses to Toronto and Nashville than we did in our win against the Kings. I hope the losing skid and the barely beating a terrible team becomes a lesson in effort. I was at that 9-2 Ottawa game last month. I want to see another effort like that tonight. Can we give Jason Pominville another ceremony or something? ?

I'm going to say 3: Skinner (done), Eichs and Reinhart. I don't think Pommers will get many more goals this season unless he gets put back on the top line for some reason.

The winning streak* will continue tonight! I'd like to see them move Sheary down to the third line and Tage back up. I feel like our second line was finally starting to click with Mitts, OK and Tage, and they've been silent with Sheary. We need more secondary scoring and we can't rely on our checking line to put up 2 like they did against the Kings. *Does winning 1 game constitute a streak? I vote yes. Especially because it's going to 2 tonight!

Losing skid ends tonight. Time to start that next winning streak. Let's go!

I refused to make a thread again today since the results for yesterday sucked. I'm banning myself from starting any GDT threads in the future. While every game is a must win, This is a REALLY must win for 2 big reasons: 1) Toronto fans love to invade our barn and we need to send them home feeling like they wasted their time/money. No joy for them in our house. Ever. 2) We need to end this 3 game losing skid and get back to winning. There are a lot of other reasons why we need to win like: division game, showing we can beat another top team, nationally televised game, etc. But those are my top 2. My big questions are whose in net tonight, and who comes back from injury? Typically he's been playing Ullmark on the second nights of back to back. I feel like our goaltending tandem continues to be solid so I'm good either way. I'll be curious if Housely decides to play Hutton again or not though given the importance of this game. We also have the rest of the week off until Saturday night. They mentioned last night Pommers may be able to go tonight. Sheary seems to be close too. I haven't heard anything about Mccabe. Getting all or some of those guys back would be a big help, particularly McCabe.

Well if Sheary is back, that'd explain why no call-up for Pommers. I hope Risto is good to go tonight and that yesterday was just a maintenance day or something.

Is Sheary back tonight? I think I'd rather keep Tage on the Middlestat/Okposo line either way. I'd probably also play Rodriguez over Elie

I haven't seen one. With Berglund returning Friday night, they scratched Elie. I image both will play tonight. Maybe they'll call up someone for depth for the home game against Toronto?

I didn't see a thread for this, so I figured I'd make one. Sabres are on a 2 game skid, while the Predators are coming off a 5-2 win over Chicago on Saturday making them 5-5-0 and their last 10. Both teams have 37 points, but Nashville has the current tie-breakers without a head-to-head record. This is the first of two big games back to back. Will Hutton start tonight or tomorrow? Or will Housely play him back to back? Let's Go Buf-fa-lo! I get up at 4am for work, so an 8pm start is rough for me. I'll probably try to stay up for the whole game, but I'll likely be taking a nap before tomorrow night's game against the Leafs.

Yeah, and we're still ahead of them in the standings, so they were going to have a similar motivation as the Bolts did last night. They are playing Chicago on Saturday before our Monday meetup. Hopefully we stay focused on tonight's game and not the big games coming up next week..

With our upcoming schedule (@Nashville, Toronto) this is a game we need to take advantage of. Florida is coming off a loss as well, and are 4-5-1 in their last 10. They last played on Wednesday at home against Anaheim, so they'll be more rested, but we're a much better team.

I was OK with us losing on Tuesday to San Jose (ideally in OT). I am NOT OK with us losing to Tampa. So let's get that streak to 11 boys and set a new franchise record! Tampa is only 6-4-0 and their last 10. What a bunch of losers. They are coming off a 3-1 loss to the Ducks on their home ice. Let's extend that streak to 2..

Lol. I'm changing my vote to that.

I don't want the streak to end, but of all the games this week for us to lose, this is the one, ideally in Overtime so we still get a point in the standings. But western conference team is better. The next best option would be Florida. So I vote we HAVE to lose, we lose Friday at Florida ending the streak at 11. Actually nevermind. I vote we end the streak when we win the Stanley Cup. That's realistic, right?

I'll take that. Hopefully JBots makes that happen.

That's a good point. I'm just simply looking at point totals for those games. I don't have a good/easy way to do that without way more time than I'm willing to put into it (looking at individual game stats/making a spreadsheet). I do think this team would fall apart if we lose either Eichel or Skinner for more than a game or two, but productions from other places does appear to be up slightly at least from the pure point perspective.

I was curious to see the trend, so I contrasted the 9 game streak with the 9 games prior to it at least 1 goal from 12 players (9 not counting the top line) 4 players not from the top line with 2 or more: Okpokso (4), Berglund (2), Sheary (2), Middlestat (2) 3 goals from defensemen at least 1 point from 19 players (16 ignoring the top line) 14 of those have more than 1 point 16 points from Defensemen So it's not dramatically different, except the goals Pommers scored (7) are little more spread out than in the last 9 (he only has 1 in the last 9) 9 game streak Record: 9-0-0 Just Eichel/Skinner: 21points: 10g, 11 assists Everyone else: 63points: 20g, 43 assists total: 84 points: 30g, 54assists Previous 9 Record: 5-2-2 Eichel/Skinner/Pommers: 39points: 16g, 13a Everyone else: 50 points: 15g, 35a total: 89 points: 31g, 49a

With regards to secondary scoring. During the 9 game streak (NHL.com stats) we've had: at least 1 goal from 17 players (15 not counting Eichel/Skinner) 4 players not named Skinner score 2 goals: Thompson (3), Middlestat (2), Sbotka (2), Reinhart (2) 6 goals from defensemen: 1 from each of our top 7 minus Scandella at least 1 point from 18 players (16 not counting Eichel/Skinner). 15 of those have more than 1 point. 27 points from Defensemen So things are trending in the right direction, even if Eichel/Skinner are still carry the bulk of the load.

Definitely a bit of mix between luck and good. I am still worried about how top heavy our scoring is. We're getting a lot of points from our defense man though, and we have finally started to see some more scoring from guys on the other lines. We're not as balanced as the post lockout years where we had nearly 5-7 guys with around 20 goals. My guess is we'll have a few 10+ goal guys, and maybe only 2-3 with 20+. Both Eichel and Reinhardt's goals are down (although Eichel's still racking up the points). Pommers has 9, but his production has tapered off, and he's not playing with Eichel and Skinner as much now. Okposo and Sheary have both done it in the past too. For the Detroit game, I had their coverage and they were talking about our balanced scoring, but I don't really buy that looking at the numbers. During the winning streak though it has been different guys coming up big. So maybe that's what they meant.

Wow. I wouldn't have guessed he's 210. He looks so small out there. NHL.com lists him as 201, and Jack as 200. Maybe it's just the babyfat like you said. I agree about the angst. It's come out in a few games recently, but not as much as I'd like.

I expected they'd be better this year, but not this much better. There is still a lot of season yet to play, but it's certainly trending in the right direction. A lot will depend on how the rest of this season goes and more importantly the offseason. Last offseason worked out really for us. We need another like that. At the top of last offseason, you've got the Skinner and Hutton moves. Of course the Skinner move will require a fat check this offseason. I'd like to see JBots lock him down before then. I feel like Skinner is more than happy playing here (he did waive his NTC to come here too), but will he take a discount to stay and/or be willing to sign before testing the market with the season he's having? I'm not sure if we have enough cap space for what Skinner will warrant the way his season is going though. And will he keep up the production after signing a new deal? Pommers is in the last year of his deal (hopefully we can sign him to a much cheaper 1-2 year deal) and I think Molson also rolls off? I'm not sure if Molson is counting against our cap or what. There is 1 more year of Bagosions deal. And of course all that money we're wasting on Okposo right now. I like the guy and feel bad for all his health issues, but he's not earning his paycheck right now. He's making more than Skinner. We need to resign Mccabe too though. And he's due for a huge payraise over what he's getting right now. He makes less than Beaulieu somehow. They should bump him early with the way he's been playing. Edit: I didn't notice Ullmark is due for a new contract too. With Hutton playing so well, we need to decide what to do with him. Can we keep him in a backup roll for another 1-2 seasons? He's playing well in that role, but is he a starter in this league? Will he want to leave to go elsewhere as a possible starter? It helps that he's a Restricted Free agent. Would another team make a bid for him though? I'm also starting to change my mind about Tage Thompson. I wasn't happy about his acquisition, or even him playing instead of Rodriguez. However, he's been a lot more visible out there when he's playing lately. Scoring a few goals in the last few games doesn't hurt either. We'll see if he can keep it up going forward though. I was also a bit skeptical about Middelstat playing in the NHL this season. I felt like JBots signed him just so he wouldn't walk away from the team completely. I wanted him to spend some time in Rochester playing big minutes. He seemed small and underdeveloped, but he seems to be coming on as the season goes on. He still needs to bulk up a lot though. Then again Jack was pretty small his first year and has bulked up quite a bit. Overall I'm ecstatic with where the team is right now, and hopeful toward the future, but we'll see where we are next season.