DarthEbriate

Phew. UPL's arm. Negative... it didn't go in. Just impacted on the surface post.

I was always a fan of Cragganmore 12. Not doing Scotch very much these days, but it is the holiday season.... perhaps it is time.

Chex Mix is baking. Trying the new Elysian Skalrok Nordic style pale... which apparently has replaced their Bifrost winter beer this year (at least at my local market). It's garbage. Bring back Bifrost! Oh, and Dahlin Dahlin! The Clone of Lukonen looking really solid.

The Sabres are really neat, The Sabres are not elite. We believe in the Sa-brrres!

This thread is my kind of scum. Fearless and Sabres-based.

But we don't have that point. So... it was good. Or will we finish 2nd lowest by 1 point, and then the team that finishes 3rd lowest wins the lottery?

I'm still thinking 23/24 at the earliest. All our D will still be under 25 then and Cozens won't yet be in his prime. TB and FLA will still be good-to-great in 2 years. DET on the upswing, TOR still should be decent. Bergeron and Marchand should still be good in 2 years, too. It's not like the division is projecting to be weak or facing a lot of teardowns that haven't already started in the next two seasons. Skinner should have either been extended upon completion of the trade, or rented at the deadline for a 1st. He would have been the top scoring threat winger, worthy of a late-round 1st and a prospect as a rental (like Evander Kane was traded for). Instead, we'll end up buying him out in after 2 or 3 more seasons because he'll be too much on the cap as we try to re-sign the next core.

I missed last night's game, but it looks like it didn't have any controversy or anything interesting happening, so that's fine.... Will also miss tonight's game, but if Dell or Subban starts, at least the entertainment will be in watching to see how many Ovechkin can net in his Gretzky chase. That should be fun.

Nice. The Amerks are now responsible for 2 of the Comets 3 losses on the season. Now, to get some AHL-level goalies back onto the squad.

For sure. And anyone who saw UPL last year knows he wasn't ready for NHL full-time duty... so the Anderson-level deal this year should have theoretically been a 2-year deal to attract someone possibly younger. A 2-year contract wasn't going to block UPL, Levi, or Portillo. It's a failing on GM Sheevyn to slight us on the goalies... getting a 40 year-old who had said he was going to retire and an AHL-level goalie who'd regressed in the last couple years. Brossoit could be a decent stopgap.

Bummer. For him and the Sabres. It'd be nice to see the team at full strength, even if briefly. day-to-day: a player appears to be horrifically injured... but is fine in the next scene week-to-week: a player requires a swim in a Bacta tank month-to-month: a player is encased in a metal suit with limb replacement

This stinks. I guess the good news is: hashtag Jankowski is already signed to rock and or roll. It was quite the slash...

Good PP if a shot ever ends up on net.

Not at all. Until UPL starts stringing multiple quality starts together at the AHL level he can't even be considered to be the NHL backup. (Note: if UPL plays consistently great the rest of the season on the Sabres, fine... then they still need a starting caliber goalie who is ready for the grind.)

There's a reason NJ traded us a 5th to take his salary.

To be fair... our recent what-used-to-be-Carruba collision of the game has often been the opponent initiating said collision. We don't often throw a noticeable check.

From time to time. Dear, oh dear.

Yup. Also a.k.a. the clone of Lukkonen (for folks who've read the books back in the day).

6K is fine. But K^6? That's where it's at.

Sir! The odds of Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen pulling a Binnington is approximately 3,720 to 1.

^That, Life Day, and Boonta Eve are pretty much the perfect birthdays.

Next order of operations, they need to start purging the team of folks who a) don't want to be there, b) are causing locker room dissent, and c) are not "their" guys. So --- who all do you want from Vancouver? What do you do to acquire them? For example, a really bad idea: Get Vancouver to retain $1M/year on RHD Myers and send us a 1st to take his contract. He'd have to waive his trade list for it to work. Then, pair him with Power to form the tallest D-pair anywhere. And despite being the biggest on the ice, never ice them on a D-zone faceoff. After two years (2024-25) he's off the books as we start needing to spend to the cap on our kids, or buyout the final year of his contract. Note: We should rather do a broken Travis Hamonic (also needs to waive his trade clause) as the RHD than Myers. Both are bad ideas, but ideas are free.

--Goalie Ukko-Pekka has volunteered to lead the Sabre defense. +Good luck.... You're gonna need it.

Goaltending should be able to steal a game to break long losing streaks. So should scoring 4 goals in a game. But right now our defense/goaltending is so out of whack we could easily spiral like we did last year once Ullmark was hurt. Thankfully, this year we don't have Hall or Staal as veterans fully checked out. To the bolded -- This is verging into its own thread: a Bridge to (Friar) Tuch, when we'll be able to hopefully evaluate our forward lines from January-to-Trade Deadline (or Olympic Break if it happens). What do we do in the meantime until Tuch returns to break these losing streaks? I like your thought on a bit more specialization. Get Girgs and Okposo back together. And whether it's Cozens or Eakin may not matter as much as just having a line we can trust to cycle and turn momentum. But I'd tend toward Eakin with the As, and Cozens back with the speed line.

The bad part is 1 and 2 haven't changed from this offseason. And 1 has been a need since Hutton's third month with the franchise (exempting one blip October of games since). And 2 has been a need since drafting Dahlin. He did have a veteran D-man who was his primary partner his rookie year... Bogosian. And since Bogo was traded he's been mostly paired with Risto, Montour, Miller, Joker, and a touch of Borgen and Casey Nelson. None of them are veteran defensive stalwarts.