DarthEbriate

It's terrible. A 20 year-old should not be the savior on a team that has been building around top-10 picks (very few remaining) for 10 years. But numerically-draft-order speaking Benson has been their worst at 13 (except Helenius 14) initial first round selection since Armia back in 2011. And yet it's Benson who drives the entire team. Lyon and Ellis need to get every game on the road trip. The team responds to them. "What are you thankful for, @Doohickie?" -- At least I'm not watching the Sabres game right now.

Put your Opponent NHL GM hat on. Are you claiming Luukkonen and his 3x$4.75M (plus the rest of this year) on your cap? If you mean a favor by ending the powerplay and giving the Sabres a chance in the game -- I disagree. The instant the Sabres pulled their goalie to go for a goal the Blues denied the blue line and scored. If you mean by injuring UPL --- why would they care? In fact, it'd give Ellis a chance to play and some of their guys probably like him.

St Louis should've run UPL on their closing powerplay. Just have Parayko go stand in front of the net and fall into him a few times.

They rushed. They could have kept Granato and then canned him the instant Boston let Montgomery go, as St. Louis did. They could have canned Ruff when Montgomery was let go by Boston -- hey, you didn't want to be HC, how about stay on as advisor immediately. Then, give Montgomery full control over his staff and he and Ruff can combine forces to tell Adams what players can stay or go. Alas, too late.

A boot still on Benson means he's probably at least a week away -- so unlikely for the entire road trip. He can re-energize the team. We've seen it already this season. But, it may be too late with everyone in the East scooping up every point available. Tonight: BOS/OTT - OT, MTL/NJ - OT, WSH/PIT - tied in the 3rd

I suggested Dunne. But Luukkonen is the one who should've started the fight there.

If they go down 3-0, Dunne should do something to start a fight for real. Get the team ready for the road trip that could make or break their season.

TNT nearly killed Quinn (or his own knees). Coincidence?

Sigh. They're not even shots on goal.

STL broadcast thinks it shouldn't count. And they were right. They're homers... but not angry or insane.

12 shots against with 17 minutes remaining in the game. Good defensive effort! And yet, Luukkonen's season save percentage has gone down during the game. So it's a bad defensive game.

I forget which game it was, but I wouldn't judge Zucker since he first hurt his shoulder this season. He was one of the lone bright spots in the first 3 losses, then got hurt, played through it for a week, before getting shut down. But he was not himself after that injury.

Put Kozak with the AHLers. Get Tage back with Greenway and... whatever. And change the goalie. Show some desperation.

Montgomery had a team get killed last night (they're on the second night of a back-to-back). He benched his highest-paid forward. The kid who drew back into the lineup has a SHG. The goalies who couldn't stop everything have a shutout and beautiful timely saves. And all he had to really do was say, "you beat the Sabres by outworking them. That's all." If the Blues had come in trying to run and gun or outscore them, nope. Just win puck battles and it's over.

Kyrou healthy scratched and their team responds. At least for one period. Target the shield generator.

Next goal wins?

Huh. That could’ve gone better.

Dang. Good save.

This one is going in. Rosén or Östlund are feeling it.

Thank goodness that was Byram’s skate blade and not his ankle.

Good opening shift.

There is value to a good tough guy, but Geertsen is not that guy. Perhaps if Geertsen had gotten into a fight in one of the Sabres' losses they would have won instead> Dunne is the only "dress vs. tough teams" guy they would need on the roster because of all the other folks listed up thread. For the record. DesLauriers skated 6:24 in that PHI-MTL game. DesLauriers is 34 years old, has played almost 800 NHL games, and although he's slower now -- he still good enough speed to get around the ice and make tons of hits (now over 2000 in his career). And when DLo wants to go no one laughs at him. He's an NHL player (not a great one, but still effective in small doses). Geertsen is a bottom six AHLer.

You want Ellis back? You also have to take Quinn and you need to retain on Kyrou. We'll make the handoff in pre-game.

He's been a stabilizing influence to their entire bottom 6 since his debut.

Peak Hasek didn't appear until a playoff game in his age 28 season. (Not that he wasn't good earlier, but at that point he went ascended saiyan goalie.)