DarthEbriate

But... again, any worse than Dunleavy?

Tough loss to the hottest team in hockey. Good thing the entire AHL squad is ready to go to Vegas with the team.

The Avalanche have had really good sticks tonight deflecting pucks off of Sabres' sticks, and putting things into the corner. Power out. Wi-fi should drop momentarily... Yup. Back.

I like the final drawing of 56. It was a Tage impression.

Well done on the kill!

Toker was tokin' there. It has been a long time since he's played. Glad he's healthy again though, because he's better than Dell.

Trouble is, right now his shot is broken. With Golofsson not shooting and Thompson out, the PP has no one to just crank it.

Good job driving the net, Muel. Forced the takedown.

Gotta shoot on the power play.

They've also been very pro-Tuch all game.

The Avalanche as fast and play fast. The Sabres warmed up to the speed in the 2nd, but have trouble sustaining it. They need their goalie to steal some saves and get at least one favorable bounce. They've not gotten those things tonight. So far.

..... where it's kid's night and they're having kids on doing the interview/play-by-play... Is it better than Dunleavy-watching-a-TV-screen-from-Buffalo? No. But, it's not worse.

We can show cauterized, bloodless dismemberment and decapitations all we want, but we're limited to one instance of "hell" and one "damn" per film. It's an older code, but "bippy" checks out.

That's two. Niners cover. The Sabres are going to win this.

That's one. (Although as soon as the Bengals got their FG with 6 minutes to go the Bengals + the points was nearly assured.)

COL -650 KC -7 LA -3.5 Card player, gambler, scum... you'd like him. (Thanks.) You'd make quite the pretty penny if you happened to throw down an all-underdog parlay today. Biron will explain all about it during the intermission.

The Sabres had lost 5 straight (and Anderson and Olofsson) on their West Coast road trip when Edmonton came to Buffalo. Edmonton was white-hot with a 10-2 record coming into the game and Draisaitl and McDavid were vying for the scoring title and all the MVP talk (as well as Ovechkin's early season goal run). Cozens 2 goals, 0 assists. He, Caggiula, and Hinostroza were matched against McDavid's line all night as a defensive speed line. Cozens won the matchup all game long. (McDavid did get an assist on the power play.) Since that game, Edmonton is 8-9 overall. Heck, you could say... Cozens broke McDavid. You'd probably be wrong, but you could say it. Edit: Zegras and Anaheim lost a 6-5 game to Edmonton so far this year. Zegras 0-1-1, -1 and 4 shots. Cozens wins!

It'll be All-Star break after Thursday, so the Amerks should be fine on the weekend. Wednesday's Checkers game though... this is where the fun begins.

No. The D always shoot left. I'm here all rotation!

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?