matter2003

Avalanche are just a bad matchup for the Sabres...they have gotten smacked 6-1 twice in a row at home by them

A 2% mortality rate is a pretty weak virus for there to be this big of a panic. Its inline with the flu and far lower than SARS and MERS. This is irresponsible mainstream media creating a panic over something that doesn't even make any sense to create a panic over. Must be a slow time for media and they need new stories...they can get months worth of content from this. Just take sambucol 3 times a day and you'll be good. Prevents viruses from replicating due to blocking the point of entry at the cell receptor site.

There is definitely some of that, but Jack has said he spent a lot of time working on his shot and becoming better when he does shoot the puck, so I am assuming some of that is hard work paying off, but there is no way its more than double his career shooting percentage improvement. I'd say he likely falls back to the 15% range, which would still be a huge improvement over his career average.

Dahlin is about to get dealt ?

Precipice of going over Niagara Falls in a barrel again for the 9th straight year hahahaha

Maybe, but players do make that jump and play well. Depends on how he progresses, but I think he at least will start the year in Buffalo unless he has an absolute disastrous camp next year.

Could be a quick fix if Cozens quickly becomes a viable #2 center next year. That would fix a lot of ills on this team. By all accounts this kid is the real deal and should become a stud. Also do not need to worry about him being pushed around like Middlestadt...at 6' 3" he has enough of a frame to add 10-15 lbs of muscle pushing him to near 200 lbs and he is already considered pretty strong at 183 lbs. Kind of sad because Middlestadt outweighs him at 198 lbs but he is a soft 198 lbs...he is not in the type of shape from a weight room perspective that will help him in games.

I have often wondered if there would be different results if teams allowed their players to rest more on off days rather than get up early, get to the rink and practice. Are all these practices beneficial or are they detrimental to players? Wonder if some team takes a look at this and makes some changes. Would be interesting to see what the results would be.

Pirates were good for a short run recently and made the playoffs 3 years in a row...they turned it around but recently went back to their losing ways again. Those low revenue teams in baseball just have a huge uphill battle where they have to constantly draft well and replace players leaving on rookie deals that have become too good and outpriced their budget. Basically they have to draft good players, hope they become good major leaguers and then hope they can draft their replacements when they leave in 4 or 5 years and that those players then become good major leaguers...its just too hard for these teams to remain competitive year in and year out when playing against the big boys and it turns into an endless cycle of churning players and watching them leave. Yeah they can do it for a few years here or there and catch lightning in a bottle for a year and maybe even win a World Series, but long term, they are going to have a lot more losing seasons than winning seasons while the high revenue teams simply poach all their good players once they hit FA or trade for them when they are in the final year of their deals so they get something for them instead of nothing.

I have no idea why they would keep playing Hutton knowing he isn't any good. Play Johansson and at least see what you have in him.

Turgeon put up 106 points for the Sabres in his 3rd season and then "dipped" to only 79 points the next year before being traded to Toronto earlier the following season. He scored 122 goals and had 323 points in 322 games for the Sabres, so yes that is Eichel like production. However, it should be noted he played in a much more offensive era where 100 point players were a dime a dozen. That being said, he finished with 515 goals and 1327 points in 1294 games so he was a damn good player for a long time, averaging over a point a game, with a high of 132 points in a season for the Islanders including 58 goals that year.

Norris type defenders have simply become the defenseman who scores the most points now. They should just call it the best offensive defenseman award now, not best defenseman.

I think you mean Frolik

Uhh, I don't think so. Lehner has posted far better raw numbers than Ullmark has. Even his first 2 years here, he had save percentages of .924 and .920 and GAA's of 2.47 and 2.68 on REALLY bad tank teams which are both better than Ullmark's numbers this year. The last 2 seasons he also posted .930 and .922 save percentages, which are both far better than Ullmark. The only place Ullmark is an upgrade to Lehner is in shootouts, where for whatever reason Lehner is the worst goalie in NHL History

With Ullmark likely being out for a while, I wanted to reflect on who he reminds you of as a potential goalie of the future. Personally, I don't think he is going to be a number 1 goalie in the NHL, I think he will be a quality backup that can give you 25-30 games a year and play well enough to give your team a chance to win if the starter goes down for any length of time. Looking at similarity scores for Ullmark on the Hockey Reference site, his top similarity scores are 2 ex-Sabre goalies: Marty Biron and Darren Puppa. As soon as I saw Biron, that is who I thought of with him. Biron came on as a young player and played really well for about 15 games in his first year when Miller was hurt and the Sabres were going on their runs...Ullmark came up early and played really well also, even though the Sabres were tanking and he didn't get a lot of W's, he was a respectable 8-10-2 in his first season. That being said, with both players, that might have been the high-water mark for their careers. They both kind of drifted and never really established themselves as legit #1 goalies in the NHL, but quality backups. I think that is what Ullmark is ultimately destined for. He lets in too many bad goals at bad times to be a number 1. What are your thoughts on who Ullmark reminds you of and if he can becomes a #1?

Can this team kill a damn penalty tonight?? JFC...the team was trending positively in this area for a while and back to letting a crap team go 3/3 on the PP. Seriously??

This site is showing him having played 35 games with 28 goals, 31 assists for 59 points this year, on pace for 114 points, well ahead of the 84 he posted there last year in 68 games. https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/286938/dylan-cozens

That really doesn't mean much. Players don't progress linearly as in they must play X number games at this level and Y number of games at this level before they can be in the NHL.

Wow, RK really changing up the lines...

Yeah and the problem is there are at least 3 or 4 teams they will need to leapfrog to get into a playoff position and those teams seemingly are winning almost every night and the Sabres go on good stretches and either stay the same number of points back or sometimes even lose ground. If they can get to 90 points this year I will deem that a fairly successful season. Right now they are on a pace for about 85 so they need to improve slightly to reach that. The roster clearly isn't where they want it to be yet. Hoping Cozens is ready next year and they continue to add pieces via trade for next season.

Hopefully this can give us proper goal or no goal calls when situations arise like earlier in the year when the Sabres appeared to have scored a goal since the goalie's entire glove was in the net with the puck in it but they ruled no goal because they couldn't "see" the puck, even though there is no possible way it could not have been in the net.

Do they admire all the number book takers?

See Bills, Buffalo

Just like the message said.. "And their eyes wil sing a song of great hate" I wonder if the places they stay and where they play look like one great big alleyway

Very valid points...