SabresBaltimore

Yes, but especially against Toronto. If we go 4-1-0 (making us 4-2-0 for the season) in our 5 games that's 8 points to their 2, putting us only 1 point ahead of them (assuming we match their record otherwise down the stretch). However if 1-2 of those 4 wins are OT wins, it diminishes the value greatly.

I'm going to say 90 points.

I think the critical deciding point will be how we do in our 5 games against the Leafs, the one game against Philly, and maybe the 1 game at the end of the season against Tampa. However that game will likely be important regardless if we're still in the playoff hunt at the end of the season.. Would I put money on us making the playoffs? No. Am I hopeful we'll still have a shot next month? Yes. March? Maybe. April? Tough to say..

Basement team or not, we have a chance at the playoffs, making us a bubble team. We're only 5 points behind Toronto too (but they have 2 games in hand). We're 7 points behind Philly for a wild card spot (with 3 games in hand) We're 8 points behind Boston (with 4 games in hand) Winning this game means a lot. But then so did winning that back to back against Boston, which we didn't do. More than anything we need to start being the teams ahead of us. We can't do that with Boston anymore, but we've still got 4 more games against Toronto (not counting tonight) coming up, and 1 more against Philly. We're 5-4-1(.55 points) in our last 10, and we're 10-8-4 (.545) since Eichel came back. That's not great, but it's certainly better than the 7-9-5 (.452) we went without him. If we went .55 all season, we'd have 47 points, putting us almost tied with Toronto for the last playoff spot. I prefer to be optimistic that things are turning around, and we'll at least have a shot at a playoff spot in March.

I'm not sure how I feel about Byslma, but I'm not really convinced that we'd be in a playoff spot with Babcock. Maybe though. I'd certainly have preferred him to Byslma based on their past records. For as bad as we've played at times, we're really not that far out from a playoff spot, making us a bubble team. I keep hoping Byslma will open up the offense instead of trying to play a defensive style of game because we don't have a very deep blue line and on paper we have a pretty solid top 3+ lines, especially with Ennis back if he can play the kind of game that's brought him success in the past.

So you think if we had Babcock, we'd be a playoff team right now?

I got to watch yesterday after I got back in town, but I missed those 2 pretty bad looking losses on Thursday/Friday. I'm hoping that we play another strong game tonight, especially since it's Toronto. Apparently Toronto moved into the playoffs too. If they make the playoffs and we don't I'm going to be frustrated. They got rewarded for tanking, while we seem to be somewhat punished for it..

I'm going to miss the next two games, but hopefully we can keep some momentum going.

Ah yeah, I guess we'd just to give him a qualifying offer. Goalies don't have a minimum game requirement apparently.. One goaltender who is under contract in 2017-18 or will be a restricted free agent at the expiration of his current contract immediately prior to 2017-18. If the club elects to make a restricted free agent goaltender available in order to meet this requirement, that goaltender must have received his qualifying offer prior to the submission of the club's protected list.

Well RFA aside, the exposure rule says 17-18: iii) One goaltender who is under contract in 2017-18 So we'd still have to resign one or both of them I think..but I'm bad at the contract stuff..

Well that simplifies things greatly. I'd protect him anyways. Let Vegas have Bogosian or Gorges if they want.

Both of them are UFA next year. We'd have to sign 1 or both of them, and if we only sign 1 of them, we can't protect them.

Yeah, my original list looked mostly like that (minus Carrier since I think he's safe anyways with Gionta instead if we resign him, which I'd like to do for the right price). I'm also not sure I'd protect Lehner. The problem is, I think we're forced to protect Gorges and possibly Bogo based on their contracts..

Yeah. I'm curious about that too. Technically this is the 4th season he's played some games for us, but it was 7 in 13/14, and only 2 in 14/15. Did those fall under his 10 game tryout?

Probably, but it was on my brain, so I was curious if other people had thoughts on it. The list would certainly be fluid until the deadline. Interesting. I didn't know that (again I'm bad at this). Honestly if we don't have to protect him, I wouldn't bother. I suspect his injuries, and general performance in the last few years along with the price of his contract makes him unappealing, but I could be wrong.

Fair enough. As I said, I'm bad at this. When I first wrote my list I was doing option A and protecting all 3..but then I realized that I'd have to protect both Gorges and Bogosian and it basically messed up everything. I'm not super happy with my list. I'm at a loss as to how to handle it really. I'd be curious to see what your list would look like.

So I brought this up in the Keep/Trade Kane thread, but in addition to the end of free agency, we have the Expansion draft to worry about later this year. I did a quick search, and I didn't see a thread on this. My apologies if I simply missed it. Here are the rules: So if you were TMGM, what's your list? I'm terrible at this kind of thing, but I'll give my list anyways. I'm more curious what everyone else would do. If like me you don't know whose under contract until when I found this site (http://www.spotrac.com/nhl/buffalo-sabres/yearly/cap/) helpful. Someone said Sam and Jack are protected under the first/second year clause. I want to protect both Risto and Mccabe, so I think we need to do option B. Forwards 1) Ryan O' Reilly 2) Kyle Okposo (required anyways) 3) Johan Larson (resign) 4) Marcus Foligno (resign) Defense 1) Rasmus Ristolainen 2) Jake Mccabe 3) Zach Bogosian (Required) 4) Josh Gorges (Required?) Goalie We currently have 0 goalies under contract who qualify. I'm not sure what we do here. Resign one, both? Which to keep, I'm not sure. I'd assume GMTM will resign both and protect Lehner. I might be leaning towards Nilsson, but it would depend on value of potential new contracts. Meeting Exposure Requirements These guys i'd leave vulnerable to meet the exposure requirement list: Possible Defense We need to sign someone to fit this bill? Neither Frason or Kulikov are under contract, and the rest don't meet the eligibility requirements.. Possible Forwards 1) Matt Moulson 2) Tyler Ennis (pending eligibility; assuming he gets to 47+ games this season; he had only 23 in 15/16, and only has 12 this season with 42 games left, which means he needs can only miss 7 more games) 2) Nicolas Deslauriers Goalie See above...

I guess my original question was more like, will the Sabres use one of their saves on Kane, or leave him vulnerable. The rules Our defense isn't that deep, I'd imagine we go with option A. I'm not up on the contracts, and I'm not sure if Sam and Jack are considered 2nd year or 3rd year (previous season, or current?). We have to protect Okposo and we'll definitely protect RoR. What other forwards though?

So if that's the case, do we try to trade him now for a known quantity? Or keep him around to help protect others on the roster? What do we get in compensation (if anything) if they take one of our players? I'm either blind or can't seem to find it.

Here's a question, is he vulnerable for the Vegas Expansion draft?

I've been very happy with his recent play, but for the majority of his time here he's been a disappointment. I'd prefer to see him traded while his stock is high before it comes crashing back down again. Especially if we can get a good defensemen for him. I don't know enough about whose out there to speculate on what that trade would be, but hopefully GMTM is shopping him around for someone he likes. That said if they keep him, I'm OK with it so long as he keeps up this level of play. I'm not optimistic though..

It could be as soon as Thursday or Friday from what I read.

I just hope we're not their bounce back game like with Chicago. At least this one is at home. It looks like Philly is much better at home (13-6-3; 65% points) than on the road (8-9-3; 47.5%). We're pretty much even (8-8-3 home, 7-7-6 road; 50% of points for both).

This is the only game I get to watch this week, so I'm hoping it's a good one. Philly's been playing well this season after a slow start. I'm hopeful we're finally starting to find our game. I just hope we don't fall behind again. We do that too often.

That was really cool. Thanks for sharing.