matter2003

Crazy the Sabres have gone 6-1-1 in their last 8 and picked up no ground on the other teams ahead of them.

Gutsy effort...good win over the 2nd best team in the NHL and according to moneypuck analytics, the best team in the NHL.

Well damn...this is looking like a bullseye. Feeling pretty prophetic 😂

A random person versus the official NHL statisticians? I'm taking the statistician. Why would you think 2 players who are 20 wouldn't get better? Look at Cousins first two years in comparison to this year.

Cozens isn't making $7.1 this year, he is still on his ELC I believe isn't he? That number doesn't kick in until next year.

Mitts is starting to find his niche as a very good passer and set up man. He has started to show some tenacity in both backchecking and puck battles as well. I am starting to like his game more and more. I think he has another level he can take it to next year that may see him around 20 goals and 65-70 points.

% of PP Share(Penalties Against to Penalties For %): 1st - 55.35%(Pens 2nd - 53.75%) % of shot attempts that are blocked: 3rd - 24.23%(STL 1st - 23.77%, TOR 2nd - 23.82%) % of unblocked shot attempts that miss the net: 4th - 26.49%(COL 1st - 25.41%, BOS 2nd - 25.72%, EDM 3rd - 25.81%) Defensive Zone Giveaways to Opponent(fewest): 6th - 295(COL 1st - 247) This is kinda surprising to me...the Sabres have the highest percentage of PP time in the NHL, meaning Sabres both draw a lot of penalties and don't take a lot of penalties in relation to other teams. Watching the games, I get frustrated by how many of their shots seem to get blocked and/or miss the net but they are in the top 4 in both categories in terms of having the fewest shots blocked and shots that miss the net as a percentage of their unblocked shots. Basically they get their shots on net more often than most other teams. Also, unlike many seem to think, the Sabres are very good in terms of not turning the puck over in their own end compared to other NHL teams ranking 6th in terms of fewest turnover in the defensive zone. I think the Sabres turnovers in the D zone are many times of the egregious variety that lead to very high quality chances more often than other teams so I would say the percentage of quality scoring chances off turnovers would likely be very high even if the actual number of turnovers isn't.

I'm simply going to say you don't watch many other hockey games then because the Sabres are actually 6th best in the NHL in terms of turning the puck over in their own end. However, it seems the turnovers they do have are of the really bad variety that lead to high quality scoring chances. So I would say it's more of the quality of the chances given up from the turnovers that are bad rather than the number of turnovers themselves. They also block the 2nd fewest shots in the NHL and are the lowest hitting team in the NHL but that doesn't mean much as Carolina blocks the fewest shots in the NHL and is 2nd fewest in terms of hits and they are 2nd in the NHL in points.

Levi's movement skills are next level. Like elite level RIGHT NOW for NHL goaltenders. It looks like our other goalies are moving in slow motion. Even Marty Biron let out an uncontrollable "oh!" on one of the highlight clips during the intermission of the Ranger or Panther game on a save he made where he flashed his pad out so quickly that it caught Biron by surprise and he just reacted to it. That's hard to surprise a former NHL goalie THAT much with your movement ability and quickness. He will adjust. This kid is going to be special. Just watch.

Highly unlikely...New Jersey had 63!! points last year. As of today they have 108 with 3 more games to play, which likely puts them around a +50 point total differential. There is NO WAY the Sabres go +50ish point total differential next year. Mainly because they already have 20 points more than the Devils do and will likely end up with around a +25 difference by the end of the year with 5 games left, which is half the total. Now if you are saying they could end up making another 20-25 point jump next year then sure, I could see that very easily. But it would basically have taken 2 seasons to make the same jump NJ did in one, which is almost unbelievable really. Outside of an expansion team, the Devils are about to set an NHL record for largest point increase from one year to the next, both in terms of number of points and point percentage increase. And even with expansion teams, only the San Jose Sharks who went 11-71-2(24 points) had a larger increase but that's because it was almost impossible for them not too. Yes...an NHL team REALLY did have only 24 points over an entire 82 game season once...almost unfathomable. Currently the 06-07 Penguins and 17-18 Avalanche are tied with the largest increase with 47 points. NJ needs 2 more points in their last 3 games to tie the record, 3 points to break it. Also my prediction prior to the season that the Sabres would end up in the 87-90 point range and just miss the playoffs is looking pretty freaking good right now.

Why couldn't I eve have dated one of those twins where she tells me they share EVERYTHING with each other and asks if I would be OK with that... Our structure is to have no structure.

Once in OT and then in the shootout.

Well at least we have a goalie that can win a shootout now haha

If they lose this game it will be one of those you sit there and wonder how they lost the game. They have been the better team by far all night.

No lead is ever safe with this team.

Just two brutal goals to allow within 50 seconds of each other. This team is determined to single handedly prove the old adage that no lead is ever safe.

Dunleavy is out to lunch on this broadcast...but I guess what's new. Irritated I am forced to watch the MSG broadcast as they don't have an away feed. Girgensons all alone in front of Detroit net on pass from Krebs and get stopped and Dunleavy announced it like he shot the puck from center ice. He should not be on the radio ever. You literally have no clue what's going on in the game.

Outside of shootouts, Lehner put up some good numbers

I was crying in my family room and my wife was hugging me

Too bad Baltimore doesn't either. You are misremembering...had a chance to take care of our own business with Pittsburgh when they played 2nd and 3rd stringers and puked all over ourselves at home.

Hopefully they loosen up the grip on their sticks now and take the lumps of coal from out between their butt cheeks that they played with last game. You always know when they are uptight because their offense goes straight down the toilet. They miss shots they normally don't miss and they don't generate the type of chances they normally generate even when they are pumping out shots, they are mostly of the not great variety. There is a happy medium between them playing loosey-goosey defensively and them playing so uptight that they can't produce any offense and they still struggle to find it too often in games. Likely will come in time but they need to figure it out for next year. The game for them was perfectly summed up in 2 plays by 2 stars over the last 15 seconds. Tage Thompson completely whiffing on his normal one-timer right in the wheelhouse and Dahlin making a pass so bad back to the point that it went out of the zone to effectively end the game when they had a 6 on 3. Pretty much a fitting ending to how the other 59+ minutes went for them.

So you automatically assume Levi will fail based on what exactly? Because other players have? Tom Barrasso played pretty well as an 18 year old... This isn't 1980 anymore when young players had to play in the minors no matter what because everyone thought they could never play in the NHL as 18 or 19 year olds...until a whole bunch of them got a chance and played really well and now it's fairly common place with high picks. The Sabres didn't burn a year on his ELC to send him to the minors next year. There is this myth that somehow players get ruined if they aren't put into some perfect situation. No offense, but if a player is that mentally fragile, they weren't going to make it anyway. Apparently there is some revisionist history that these players who crashed out of the NHL would have somehow been perennial All-Stars if only they were coddled like a spoiled 5 year old for a few years and protected like a fragile little flower. Not buying it. They would have sucked regardless and found some other way not to overcome their mental fragility. But now we get to hear them all pull the Uncle Rico "if coach would have just put me in the championship game back in 1982, things would have turned out different...". No it wouldn't have.

Carter Hart has been a starter since he was 20. Levi is better than Hart. Some players you just have to let play. He is clearly good enough to play here. Let him play.

Levi is the starter going into next year. There is no reason for him to play in the AHL, he can improve while playing here...it's obvious he is the best goaltender on the roster currently. He has next level movement skills. He looks like he is moving at 1.5x the speed of our other goalies. That was obvious by the end of the 2nd period of the first game. He is making spectacular saves look easy because he is covering up the entire net before the pass even gets across. On that save against Duclair last night, he literally had nowhere to put the puck. Yes it was an amazing save simply by him getting across, but because he got across so fast it ended up being more of a routine save. There is no valid reason he is not the starter next year in Buffalo. He can handle it. He is built differently from most 21 year olds. He thrives under the pressure and wants it.

The second goal was a direct result of Skinner getting manhandled by Tkachuk along the boards and moved off the puck.