DarthEbriate

Starting up the research... Colorado is riding a 17-game home win streak and have won 9 straight overall. They're 19-2-1 at home this season. Nathan MacKinnon will miss tonight's game after a collision with Taylor Hall of Boston last Thursday (broken nose/concussion). Colorado was trailing Boston 3-1 in the third period, but came back to win the game in OT to extend both streaks.

Episode 44. It is a period of endless rebuild. Sabres skaters, striking in the desert, have won their first game on the Mountain Time road trip. During the previous game, the Sabres iced an actual NHL goalie who offset any lineup losses to COVID protocols. Up next... the evil Galactic Avalanche. Pursued by Colorado's elite roster, the Sabres race onward in their quest to play the kids and remain Effective, Efficient, and Economical in their quest to restore relevancy in Hockey Heaven....

And Cozens is being asked to grind against McDavid. I'd be willing to bet Anaheim is not line-matching Zegras against McDavid on defensive zone starts.

They both have Zs in their names and they're both excellent young players. Zegras is more exciting. Cozens is more physical. Some other notes on their performance this season that may indicate why Zegras looks better overall and scores more points this season: Cozens' linemates: everybody! He did get a brief look at the top line with Skinner/Tuch before Mitts and Thompson were back in the lineup from INJ/COVID. But last night his starting wingers were Butcher/Hayden in a 3rd line role. Zegras' linemates: Henrique and Rakell. Established scoring line veterans. Cozens: 58.0% oZS; 15:55 TOI Zegras: 73.7% oZS; 17:28 TOI

There is no way Vegas dresses Eichel on Tuesday (unless someone with a $5M salary is seriously injured in practice today/tomorrow and goes immediately to LTIR). They aren't going to rush a trade just so he can face his ex-team.

Technically, they're a couple games into the 2nd half of the season. @nfreeman made the comment in the Goaltending thread that I wanted to use as a springboard to this. Anderson and Toker are back. Tuch and Krebs are in. Mitts is dishing saucers. With any luck, Girgs, Houser, and the Swedish contingent will be either asymptomatic or only mild cases of COVID. Note: Per The Athletic he Sabres had the 22nd hardest schedule in the first half (.495 opp pts percentage) and the 2nd hardest (.525) in the second half. The Sabres will still face a ton of backup goalies. Can this team pull off the deLuca .500 in the final 40 games (including last night)? Say 20-16-4? Or NHL .500? 17-17-6? Team record in the final 40? Any individual points or predictions you want to make? What say you, 'Spacers?

The passing and puck support looked like a team that had actually been able to practice as a single, healthy group for a few days -- until earlier today when the COVID tests started failing. But the Sabres had the semblance of a nearly full roster. Plus an NHL-caliber goalie. And yes, the Coyotes are who we thought they were. Vejmelka kept that game respectable. It could as easily have been in the 6-1 or 7-2 range.

Nifty game, gents! Good to see Anderson back in the net. Good to see Dell back toward Rochester.

Pysyk with the perfect skate angle to deflect it... off the post.

The Coyotes have no answer for our new top line. Curious to see how the trio does against the Avs.

(So does McDavid)

Another happy landing!

Krebs-Thompson-Tuch on the final shift of the period... absolute control.

Fantastic save

Samuelsson and Fitz on the PK look like they've done that before [for] the Amerks. Tager retains possession instead of a clear... to Muel... draws the penalty. Smart and beautiful. Like an '80s movie... taking off the glasses and shaking out the hair, this team.

Since Anderson left the lineup, absolutely. He's just a calming presence for this team.

Anderson with the easy catch on a routine infield popfly.

We won every single puck battle that shift. Just ran out of speed on the final shot.

Ohhhh! Fitz almost with the backhand wrapper

Didn't look like Bjork missed by much there.

In the Mittelstadt District?

KrebberTucher!

Mitts is going to start racking up assists the second half.

Coyotes broadcast must have mentioned how hard they played against Boston last night at least 20 times so far on the broadcast. If it were a drinking game I'd be in as bad a shape as if I were doing an episode of GI Joe Drinking Game.

Skinner is looking much improved on the power play as the season goes on. And Krebs on the PP is a good thing.