SabresBaltimore

Pretty underwhelming defense in front of Comrie, especially considering the forwards the Penguins are playing. Still no Clifton or EJ. I guess they really want to see what they have with their defensive depth before sending most to Rochester?

Ah. If that's the case maybe they stick around until just before or just after the Saturday afternoon game with Columbus. Especially since there is a big gap (compared to this week's insane schedule of games) until the next game on Wednesday

I'm a little surprised that's it. I guess we still have 4 more preseason games left (counting tonight), but I'd have thought we'd start trying to flush out the last 1-2 roster spots, defensive pairings and determine which 2 goalies we want to keep. I think the goalie battle is probably most important. I'd like to see them play behind our actual defense. I think a lot of the players don't have a realistic shot at making the team and could safely be returned. Hopefully we see at least Clifton and/or Erik Johnson tonight.

Maybe I'm giving him too much benefit of doubt, but I'm sure KA tried to upgrade our goalies during the offseason. I highly doubt he "refuses to address" the need. I do think he's maybe too reluctant to trade away some of our pipeline to win now though. I do find it telling that most (all?) UFA goalies stayed put. Plus no one traded for Hellebuyck or Hart. Those were supposedly the 2 goalies on the trade market this summer. No one here knows what was actually being asked for those guys. So it's impossible to speculate if KA is refusing to do what's needed, or simply not going to get fleeced simply to appease fans impatience due to a long playoff drought that is largely not his fault. People want Olofsson and Byron gone, yet somehow think other teams will take them as part of a trade for a quality goaltender. I suspect the asking price for Hellebuyck and Hart was simply too high. As bad as UPL played last night, I suspect he won't clear waivers. Some team will take a chance on him. I definitely think we need to upgrade on Comrie and UPL and I'd love it to be a vet who can start for 1 or 2 seasons while Levi gets used to playing a rigorous NHL schedule. But seems that ship has sailed.

With that line-up do you want to see Levi start or Comrie? With how bad UPL looked last night, I'm tempted to say Comrie. It is in theory his "turn" in the rotation too. However, while Levi looked great against Boston, Boston wasn't playing a line-up like this. Either way this should be a much better test for whoever gets the start than their first game was.

Oh yeah and the Pens announced their lineup yesterday. It seems like a lot of their starters:

3rd game in 3 nights. Hopefully they look better than last night. Per: https://www.nhl.com/sabres/news/how-to-watch-buffalo-sabres-preseason-games-2023 📺 Watch: Sabres.com (Pittsburgh feed with Penguins commentators) 📻 Listen: WGR 550 (Dan Dunleavy and Rob Ray)

Apparently the game is on NHL Network too. So I guess I can watch it after all. Go Sabres!

This kind of thing is an issue in all sports, not just hockey. Players of all ages are going to want to play all the time even when they are hurt physically (or mentally). Both physical and mental issues related to playing sports has long since been ignored by the leagues, coaches and even players themselves as players were expected to "tough it out". That's lead to a lot of long term health effects, especially with repeated concussions, etc. So the player's association really needs to be the ones pushing to ensure players aren't being put in unfavorable positions because if left to the league, the team and/or just the player, they are likely going to favor playing even if there is a good reason they shouldn't. The NFL's concussion protocol is a good step in that direction, but if you look at what happened to Tua last year he was out there playing when he should have clearly been required to recover. Athletes play hurt all the time. Tage was playing hurt last year in the push for the playoffs. I'm sure others were as well. Inevitably I think the best that can be done is provide enough experts for physical, mental/emotional health as well as nutrition to give these guys the best information possible to make good decisions about their careers and weigh the risks accordingly. Teams are always going to try to do what they think is their best chance at winning games/a championship. I don't think Benson is any different than Rousek or Levi in regards to if they play or not. If they are good enough they play. I'm not sure Levi's ready for a full NHL season straight from, especially if he's our starter. But we're going to find out because he wants to play and the team wants him to play.

It was on the Caps RSN (Now called Monument Sports Network). Not sure what you mean by the Jumbotron feed, but the TV coverage seemed like the normal deal. It was the first live game aired on the new network (I guess the Caps/Wizards owner bought out the old one from Comcast) Its hard for me to say what is normal for the Caps games and ESPN+ since I'm always blacked out and have to watch on TV instead.

In that hypothetical, I'd prefer Tuch with Cozens to start with. I think we saw last year that giving Cozens 2 rookie was a bit of feast or famine. Spreading the youth/experience out a bit should ideally help both lines.

Joe Yerdon posted some slightly different lines. Mersch with Weissbach/Jost instead of Kisakov. And Kisakov is with Slaggert/Richards instead of Murray again.

I like the look of the Cozens line. As expected Power is with Joki. I'd have preferred Johnson just to see how that chemistry looks.

I'm saying No, Yes, Yes. Unless he suddenly looks bad during the rest of camp, he's at least earned a shot at up to 9 regular season games. I don't want to say he'll be wasted in Juniors this year, but I really wish we could send him to Rochester instead. You can see he has all the intangibles you want for a top 6 player, but he needs work on strength/speed like LGR said. I don't think he'll be eligible for Rochester next year either, but I think if he can keep this up he'll make it unneccessary to care about that. Plus in theory we'll have more room for a rookie to crack the line up with Oloffsson gone.

Yeah. I think Benson gets a few games in Buffalo, then is sent back down to have another year to gain size and cracks the roster for good next year. If we could send him to Rochester this year, that's where he'd be best suited. Although I'm not ruling out the possibility that he makes it hard to send him back to Juniors this year. At this point I'll be shocked if he doesn't at least get 1 regular season game.

Still no Clifton or Erik Johnson? Maybe saving them until we've pared down the roster closer to season size to play around with the pairings a bit? Benson, Kulich and Rosen unsurprisingly with the night off after playing in the first 2 games. I'll be curious if they play tomorrow to see how well they can do a 2 games in 3 nights deal. Looks like Rousek is back in after missing last night. I'll be curious if they have him go back to back tomorrow. He didn't look great in the Caps game compared to Benson or Rosen. I think Ryan Johnson looked solid in game 1. I'd like to see him go back to back (tonight/tomorrow) as well. I'd like to see him play with Power, but I assume it will probably be Joki. I don't see him cracking the lineup this year, but no reason not to give him the chance to prove otherwise

Right now I'm saying neither. We'll see if that changes as pre season goes on

Man Benson looks good:

Per: https://www.nhl.com/sabres/news/how-to-watch-buffalo-sabres-preseason-games-2023 Watch: MSG (Sportsnet national feed) / NHL Network Listen: WGR 550 (Dan Dunleavy and Rob Ray) I haven't seen line-ups yet, but one has to assume UPL gets the start in net since Comrie and Levi started once already? It's looking like I'm SoL on this one down here in Maryland. Game 1 was on locally for me. Yesterday was on ESPN+ for some reason, but I didn't see tonight's game listed (or Thursdays for that matter, but I think that one is on the website).

Yeah, it's been a few years since I've had to listen to him..but he sounds off..normally I can't stand him...but this is something else

Change the x.com back to twitter.com It seems to convert when you post, and the forum code must only work with the old url, not the new one. But the share button gives you the x.com urls instead, so you have to either go to twitter.com and copy from the address bar, or just manually edit the urls yourself. And keep in mind the URLS have both a link and a display text. By default they are the same, But if you edit your post and try to change it there, it will just update the display text and not the link url, so it still won't work. It took me a few tries to get your tweet to embed below:

Was any reason given? I was interested to see how he played with Mitts. I'm still not sure what they plan to do with Mitts. It sounded like Granato wants to keep him at Center, but we have too many Centers. Is he going to center our 3rd line? He showed last season he deserves a shot at playing top 6 minutes, but I just don't see them moving Thompson or Cozens to wing either. That also seems to leave Krebs on the 4th line unless they move him to winger and have Jost center the 4th. But I kind of expect Jost to be 13th forward My initial thought is something like. Skinner-Thompson-Tuch Peterka-Cozens-Olofsson/Prospect Greenway-Mitts-Olofsson/Prospect Girgs-Kreb-Okie Jost I don't really love Olofsson on the 2nd line though. I'd rather have Mitts play second line and do something like: Skinner-Thompson-Tuch Mitts-Cozens-Peterka Greenway-Krebs-Olofsson Girgs-Jost-Okie Unless one of the prospects make it impossible to keep out of the mix.

It will be interesting to see Benson playing with Thompson and Skinner. It'll also be interesting to see how Levi plays. I'm a bit disappointed Dahlin isn't out there with Clifton. Hopefully that happens in one of the other games at least.

Ah yeah, I guess I read that too quickly. I live in MD, and the Caps game was on the local RSN for me (Now called Monumental Sports I guess and is owned by the same guy who owns the Caps/Wizards), so I didn't pay much attention. It did look like ESPN+ has tonight's game. However given that link says MSG is showing the NESN feed, I'll likely be stuck with that instead of having my choice of feeds.

It should be. It was previously announced all 7 preseason games will be on the website: According to this it will be on MSG (but the NESN Feed). https://www.nhl.com/sabres/news/how-to-watch-buffalo-sabres-preseason-games-2023 I also saw it listed on ESPN+ for anyone who has that. I assume that will also be the NESN feed