SabresBaltimore

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.

I don't want to call this a must win, but I hope that whenever this winning streak ends, it's just not against a division rival and/or someone near the top of the east. If we have to lose this weekend, I'd rather it be tomorrow against Detroit. Ideally I'd like to extend the streak until at least San Jose. Losing to them would mean less. Of course if they want to keep on winning forever..I won't complain. I do like they finally got out in front and managed to play with the lead on Wednesday. Hopefully they do that again today.

Pittsburgh is on a 3 game losing streak and 2-7-1 in their last 10, while the Sabres are on a 5 game winning streak and 6-2-2 in their last 10. This is a game we should be taking advantage of. The last few games we've been on our heels and starting slow. While I love that the team never gives up and has been finding ways to come back/win I'd like to see us come out dominant, take the lead and hold it for the whole game. Incidentally, it's crazy to me that the Sabres have won 5 straight after winning a TOTAL of only 3 games in all of November last year. Let's Go Buf-fa-lo!

This will be a big test. We need to start beating the teams ahead of us, and Tampa is having a great season so far. I'd prefer wins over lightning and pens than the Jets or Wild, but yeah if we can come out with 4-5 points I'll be happy. Pens are 3 points behind us with 2 games in hand, so a loss to them would put us out of the wild card spot. It's early in the season still, but these head to heads may be the difference at the end of the season.

That was easily the best game I've ever been to. The only way it could have been better if Pommers got a hat trick for the 10th goal

While I'm never going to root for the Sabres to lose, I'm paranoid about streaks, especially for home and homes. So selfishly since I'm driving up to Buffalo tomorrow for the game Saturday..if the Sabres HAVE to lose one..let it be this one so they can win Saturday. Really though, I hope they win both of course. But they need to put up some more offense than they did on Tuesday against Calgary. With Ottawa reeling from their road trip, hopefully they can take advantage. We also need to get better at 3 on 3 in case we head to overtime again. We haven't looked good in overtime so far this season.

Pommers is one of my all time favorite Sabres. I own his jersey and I was glad when we brought him back. However, he's currently way overpaid. He's not the player he used to be in the mid 2000s. However, we're far from having enough depth to replace him. There are a lot of other players I'd want gone well before him. I'd be happy to resign him for cheap for a year, maybe 2 if the cap hit was small enough.

I don't feel like Larsson showed anything in the preseason to warrant starting on the 3rd line. He should start on the 4th and work his way up (assuming he even can). I just don't see him on a team that makes the playoffs, except maybe the 4th line/13th forward.

I'm hoping we continue the momentum tonight. The Rags and Knights both have negative Goal Differentials, but the AVs are currently at +3. They are 2-1, and both wins are at home. They are coming off a 5-2 loss in Columbus on Tuesday, so they will probably be looking to bounce back tonight. While I want to see Ullmark get some time in the net soon, I feel like Hutton is playing too well to play Ullmark before the Back to Back November 16th/17th.

Oh awesome! My work PC badly needed this!

I haven't been following much of the preseason, so I'll be curious to see how they look. Can't be worse than last year, right?

Congrats to Minnesota Duluth. https://www.ncaa.com/news/icehockey-men/article/2018-04-07/frozen-four-2018-minnesota-duluth-holds-notre-dame-win-ncaa

And the final is set. Not an all Big 10 final, despite the odds: 3 Minn. Duluth (NCHC) vs. 1 Notre Dame (Big 10) April 7 7:30 PM (ESPN)

I'm assuming this to be an April fool's joke..

I think at this point I'm rooting for Notre Dame because they've never won it before, and have only appeared the once. OSU hasn't won it either (or been to a fina), but I just don't like OSU I guess. Talk about a good year for the Big 10. They are guaranteed to have at least 1 in the final, and very good odds someone from the Big 10 wins it all. Maybe I should root for Minnesota-Duluth. lol. Frozen Four Schedule: 3 Minn. Duluth (NCHC) vs. 1 Ohio St. (Big 10) April 5 6:00 PM (ESPN 2) 2 Michigan (Big 10) vs. 1 Notre Dame (Big 10) April 5 9:30 PM (ESPN 2)

Another 1 seed falls as Cornell goes down. Notre Dame and Minnesota Duluth are through to frozen four. With Providence out, do the Sabres have any prospects left in the tournament? Here's today's Elite 8 games: 4 Boston U. (Hockey East) vs. 2 Michigan (Big 10) Mar 25 4:00PM (ESPN 2) ------------------------------------------------- 1 Ohio St. (Big 10) vs. 2 Denver (NCHC) Mar 25 6:30PM (ESPNU)

Yeah, it was hard to get a shot through and like you said Hawkey stopped the ones that did, including a few really good chances. I'm hoping they'll be good again next season. I'm not sure how much turn over there will be. It sounded like Clarkson's top scorer was a 22 year old sophmore whose being heavily scouted. It wouldn't surprise me if he leaves for the pros. They also talked about having a lot of "old" players so I'm not sure if most of the team is upperclassman. To be honest I've followed the women's team far more closely the last few years than the men's. Even when I saw the men's team was doing well this year, I didn't really pay too much attention to the roster. NHL Network shows some college hockey, but it nevers seems to be ECAC. Most ECAC hockey seems to be on NESN or some other Boston area network. In other games, right now Cornell is losing 2-1 to Boston College in the third. I'm definitely rooting against Cornell. :) Tonight's Elite 8 Schedule 3 Minn. Duluth (NCHC) vs. 4 Air Force (Atlantic) Mar 24 9:00 PM (ESPN 2) ------------------------------------------------ 1 Notre Dame (Big 10) vs. Providence (Hockey East) Mar 24 6:00 PM (ESPNU)

Bummer. Clarkson lost 1-0 to Providence. Minnesota-Duleth and MSU-Mankato are heading to over time tied at 2.

The #1 Overall seed in St. Cloud State is out. I didn't watch the game but Air Force seemed to beat them quite handily. Meanwhile, it took Notre Dame almost all of the first over time period to beat Michigan Tech. Clarkson just started. Let's Go Tech!

Puck drops on the first game in about 30 minutes. I may watch simply because if Clarkson wins later tonight they'll play the winner tomorrow night for a chance at the frozen four.

Ah, OK. Anyways..I'm excited for the tournament! I may only watch the Clarkson game though. Hoping there will be a few more of those :) Notre Dame is going to be really tough to beat though, assuming they make it past Providence.

What I meant was going to college to me seems to give the player more control of how/when they go pro than juniors. Some players are good enough for the AHL, but not good enough for the NHL yet after 1 year. Juniors doesn't allow that if you're 18/19. I think that's dumb/hurts player development. If they are good enough for the AHL, they should play there. What good does 1-2 more years dominating in Juniors really do them? If they went to college instead, they could just leave college after their freshman year to play in the AHL and hope to prove themselves/earn a callup. Personally I don't really care about them becoming FA after 4 years in college. What I meant was if they don't make it right away/at all they have the fallback of a college degree.

Oh, and this may just be me talking out of my ass, but I feel like US Collegiate hockey is on the rise. Is that due to the rise of Big 10 hockey/the aforementioned D1 expansion? Personally if I was a Canadian kid who wanted/expected to go Pro, I'd rather do US college hockey over Canadian Juniors for 2 reasons: If going pro doesn't work out you spend 4 years playing and end with a degree to fall back on. If it does work out, you can leave school early without penalty. This includes going to the AHL to develop/get paid sooner. It's always annoyed me that our Juniors prospects have to play in Juniors or for the Sabres until they are what 20? I forget exactly, but those contracts seem to hurt player development.

I was looking at Clarkson's roster. They have 3 Finns, a Latvian and a German to go along with their typical Canadian heavy (17 players) with some Americans (4 + 1 dual citizen) mixed in roster. Looking back at old rosters though, having Finns isn't a new thing, just something they hadn't done in several years. During the lean years, it seemed to be a lot more Americans. I wonder if the success of the woman's team has had any effect on their recruiting for the men's team at all. Probably not, but it can't hurt to show such a small school can still compete with the bigger ones.

I would watch more Woman's hockey if it was easier to watch. Or at least Clarkson Woman's hockey. I graduated in 2004, so I just missed out on them having a team. I always feel bad they seems to have a much smaller crowd than the men despite the fact that they are the far better team, especially the last 5 years. They had a decent sized pep band in Minneapolis, but it sounded the pep band that went to support the men's team in Lake Placid was bigger. To be fair though it's probalby way cheaper/easier to go to Placid from Potsdam. I feel like the woman's game was gotten a lot more exciting the last few years. In the Olympics it usually comes down to US and Canada, but the Finns have a decent team now as well. One of Clarkson's top scorers is from the Czech Republic. Professionally first you had the NWHL paying its players and now the older/more established CWHL is now paying its players. I do know that for the first round of the NCAA tournament, Clarkson's website had a free stream of the game. It looks like it's maybe the same feed they run on the closed circuit campus TV station. The audio was the radio commentator I think. I need to see if that's available for all the games, or if they made a special exception for the NCAA tournament. Typically I just follow them via the Watertown news and UHCHO website. On the men's side, ECAC doesn't seem to be shown nationally. At best NESN shows a few games for like Harvard or Brown.