DarthEbriate

Err, um... <pushes blast shield up into helmet> Technically, the Sabres are already in 7th by points percentage. Detroit already is in 8th. And these are the two teams with 3-4 games in hand on all of last year's playoff teams.

Thinking back to the flat game vs. Toronto.... Play onward, Sabres. Tickle this fickle heart.

His father he is not. Edit: (Though... he is really good offensively.)

Yup, as expected Tkachuk sends a message to no one after the end of the game. Your team is behind in the standings against the Wings and Sabres (and Isles). And everyone's got games in hand, to boot. You might as well quit and sell off at the deadline.

Great shot kid, that was one in a million! (or... you know, similar to a couple goals earlier this season)

Work complete! Hockey begins! Can't say I like that since they took the 2-goal lead they've been playing "Sabres with a 2-goal lead" style hockey. The most exciting period in hockey! Sabres entering the third with a 2-goal lead! Remember the Death Star Alamo and here we go:

Yup. Annnnnd... they gave up a top-10, a 2nd and 3rd to get him. They're resigning him to the longest term they can and he'll get paid for it. Their alternative is to bridge him back to UFA (or maybe RFA if 1-year?) and then trade him. But they won't be getting a top-10 pick in return. Edit: Based on his production, he should be asking for a Skinner-level deal.

For tonight's game... A Sabres loss doesn't end the season, it just means Florida had a 3 full days' rest to get ready this while the Sabres played last night. And while the Panthers will be up 4 points with 4 more games played, they've been consistently middling all season so there's no reason for them to suddenly put it all together now. A Sabres win doesn't win the season, it just means Florida was lazy from 3 full days off and missing Barkov while the Sabres were hopped up on Force-Lightning from last night. And the Sabres will be even with 4 games in hand and has been consistently streaky all season so there's no reason to worry about a single win now. And the Panthers will completely fall apart as a result and be sellers by the end of next week. Also --- expect Gudas, et. al. to attempt to hurt people tonight. Tonight is a playoff game for Florida.

It depends on your definition of playoffs. In the 2020 24-team field (which I qualify as a 16-team playoff, with an extra 8 for play-in round), the Sabres were within the top 24 teams in the league until they lost 6 of 7 to close out the year.

The fine is trivial, but any infraction worthy of a call should be an automatic suspension. They play 82 games. Make the minimum suspension 5 games (the equivalent of a 1-game suspension in the NFL). Then, double it up to 40 games. (Anything that requires a full-season suspension --- McSorley on Brashear, Bertuzzi on Moore is a one-off and can be handled as such.) Most importantly, keep it cumulative to a career, or reduce it 1 level at the end of every other season (i.e., from 10 games back down to 5). The players would not risk it. Marchand (multiple career calls) would be on eggshells the latter half of a season rather than trying to hurt someone for the playoffs, because he wouldn't dare miss the playoffs himself.

Too busy with work to watch... but I monitored just enough to know that the Sabres had a 2-goal lead heading into the third. The most entertaining thing in hockey this season is the Sabres starting the final period with a 2-goal lead. Hope Dad Okposobi is in the lineup tomorrow. We all know VO has one more 10-game, 10-goal bender in him this season and will be a reason the Sabres are in the playoff chase going into the final few games. Nice start to the road trip. Boushh is someone who loves us. Tonight, we are all gummy bears.

What a crappy effort that period. Contrast that with Toronto's forwards and how tenacious they were. It will take time to get to the level of Toronto and Carolina, but we'll get there. The scouting staff is now drafting Carolina-style/-metric players at the least. Stir in some missed shots instead of on goal + a shaky (albeit hung out to dry) UPL.

After this mess, just watch the Sabres lay waste to all of Florida and DC and play with our hearts.

Cozens missed a shot and since then... vicious forechecking and backchecking by Toronto turning into easy goals. Great defensive awareness.

Dear, oh, dear. Don't worry about Goalie Luukk. He'll be all right. He's quite big, you know...for a human being.

Yup. Everyone keeps thinking that Toronto is an offensive juggernaut with no defense, but that's hasn't been the case for years now. Sure, they've yet to get far into the playoffs with the current core (Tampa and Carey Price can do that sometimes), but they're not just an offensive dynamo anymore. (It's why I'm happy the Sabres are an elite scoring team with the kids... the defense will improve over the years.) NHL Goals Allowed rankings for Toronto: 2022-23: 6th (current); 2021-22: 18th (with very shaky goaltending); 2020-21: 7th. Sure, back in 2019-20 they were 27th in goals against, but that was a long time ago in a galaxy when the Sabres were icing lineups with the likes of Bogosian, Sobotka, and Dalton Smith.

This is the way. The issue with the Sabres' defensive picks, pipeline, or picks used in trades for D, isn't that they aren't good or that the Sabres haven't used the picks on defense, it's that there are no under-24 prospects in Rochester that you can call up as an injury replacement and say "this is a future top-8 in Buffalo". It's because Power skipped the AHL, Johnson is staying in college through his senior season, Fitzgerald was claimed, and a bunch of are playing in Europe or stayed in Europe and were never offered contracts. Note: Only one trade has added a defender to the Amerks' current lineup (Cecconi in), but it resulted in defender Laaksonen going out. Only one trade has added a defender to the Sabres current lineup (Nylander for Jokiharju). For the completists, this is every recent Sabres draft pick that has been used on a defender in some capacity. (And savior Borgen [2015] was claimed, too, to our chagrin.) 2022 4 Lindgren 5 Komarov 5T Colin Miller 2021 1 Power 2T Colin Miller 6 Novikov 2020 7 Lyckasen 2019 1T Montour (+ 2015 2nd [Guhle]) 1 Johnson 2018 1 Dahlin 2 Samuelsson 3T Scandella 4 Lindstrand-Kronholm 5 Kukkonen 6 Worge Kreu 2017 3T Beaulieu 3 Laaksonen 4 Bryson 2016 2T Kulikov 3 Fitzgerald 3T Kulikov 5 Nyberg 5 Budik 7 Osmanski Back on target: Beniers has earned the Calder buzz (thus far). He has earned his spot on Seattle's top line (though, like a baby Eichel to a ROR, it's Gourde who gets more minutes currently with all the PK, PP, and defensive responsibilities). Barring injury he'll surpass 25 goals and he is the major reason (with Burakovsky) for the Kraken's surge in the standings. Remember, they're 2 points out of first place in the Western Conference. If Power is hot this entire stretch run and the Sabres get into the playoffs, then we can add his name to the hopper.

Apart from this year's injuries, the real mess of their team is they're paying $6.5M each to Krug, Parayko, and Faulk and none of them are putting up production worthy of it. Their supposed strength has been a weakness and they've all got NTCs (so do Leddy and Scandella for that matter). And although Binnington can get hot here and there, this season he's garbage again.

Interesting, interesting. It makes sense with Kyrou's and Thomas' new contracts kicking in next season. Why start a hard rebuild when your new core is already signed up and being paid $8M each? Binnington's inconsistent, but he has been known to get hot here and there. They've a bunch of UFAs to retool the entire bottom of the roster on the cheap. Get in-prime Meier to replace older Tarasenko and see where the chips fall. Their division has Colorado and Dallas, and while Winnipeg is good this season, I can't say that they really scare anyone. The Wild are about to go up to $14M buyout penalties for the next 2 seasons. Nashville? Meh. And 2 rebuilding squads. A quick reset and they're back in the playoffs (albeit likely in the 5-8 slot) and hope that Binnington gets hot.

I'd tend toward this as the starting point. But I'd be much more concerned simply on reducing wear-and-tear. Starting Tuesday, the Sabres play 19 games in 35 days. That's rougher than the playoff schedule. It doesn't have to be Schenn, but anyone who can play 20 minutes/game and be a bit safer than Bryson/Clague is a valid addition. Someone who can take 2 minutes away from Dahlin when the Sabres are already up 3 goals to save him from forecheck hits to "send a message" for the NYI rematch... that's a valuable player. Their only true shot-blockers are Muel and Boushh... Schenn provides insurance for them if someone needs a game off after a nasty block. Anderson and Jost for sure.

Angry Pilut is the best pilot. But Pilut and Bryson are the same tweener except one has a $1.8M contract next year and the other gets to try out free agency with all the AHL squads this summer. (Personally, I like Bryson better because of the speed.)

Vancouver loves Schenn because he was a great partner for Quinn Hughes and allowed the kid to go be a forward playing defense. There are excenllent parts to his game, but he's much more the player he was in Philly or Tampa than he is with Hughes as his partner. (Remember, Tampa elected to keep Bogosian over Schenn.) He's a 3rd-pair rental making only $850k and he doesn't score points that don't go through Hughes, so he's not going to garner too much in draft capital. All that said, he'd be a near-perfect fit for the Sabres for a playoff push as he'd do the dirty work and be able to work with Power, Dahlin, or even Bryson as the right-side guy. And if you needed a lockdown game-end pair whenever Dahlin isn't on ice, a Muel-Schenn pair might look pretty stout. If Clague is hurt long-term, then you get a player like this right now and have him ready for the Florida trip. A 3rd should be enough, but Vancouver could hold out until deadline day and a desperate contender shells out something higher. Buffalo lacks the 3rd, so maybe a 4th + 6th gets it done for Buffalo. Alternately, if you needed, you could send the conditional middle of Buffalo's three 2nds (probably Buffalo's) now for Schenn + VAN 2023 3rd or some combination of other picks coming back. That extra 2nd gives Vancouver a ton of draft flexibility in their rebuild, while the Sabres drop to the top of the 3rd but only about 18-22 draft slots.

That stinks for NYI. Good thing they already acquired a top-line center via trade?

Blergh. If it's anything long-term, a rental trade would be appropriate. There is no defensive depth in Rochester.

They didn't need to wait for Ullmark to develop further; they had him fully developed. In a league where scoring has been going up and save percentages going down, Ullmark was .915, .917, .917 and now Vezina-level .936. Compared to his peers in 2019-2022 he was already an above-average goalie and was a #1 capable starter every season. He was also downright dominant in shootouts. His issue was with 2 injuries and COVID-shortened seasons that had prevented a 40+ start workload. The Sabres let a #1 walk to UFA. If you believe in him, you sign him in-season and if you don't believe then you trade him at the deadline to a contender with goalie issues (maybe for a late 1st if they're a real contender). The Sabres did neither and paid for it. They were forced to patch with a 40 year-old Anderson who played surprisingly well, two AHLers in Tokarski and Dell, and a prospect in UPL. Of them, only UPL surpassed .900 in save percentage. If the Sabres had Ullmark and a .917 this season, they'd already be the 7 or 8 seed with games in hand.