DarthEbriate

See Mitts -- that's how you dive and force them to call the penalty. Edit: I mean...er, draw a penalty.

Bold power play entry plan there....

Power play: Commence primary ignition!

Caggiula was skating a long time (long time) with Okposo and Girgs there. Is that a result of Mitts out, Eakin moving up the lines, or just the icings?

Bryson's got to pass that quicker and harder. Miller shoots hard but he isn't Eichel.

Hmmm. Chanel is using one my favorite Bowie tracks.

Mitts, you musn't coast and look back there. You must press forward and force Gallagher to take the penalty and the refs to call it. Cozens earns a makeup though.

And still on the Con circuit.

The penalty clock didn't want to be here. 😇🍺

That's a good kill, gents.

That, Mr. Ray, is what a good period looks like. And Cozens almost got a tally in the final moments, to boot.

All aboard the Z! (Welcome back!)

We're passing through their deflector screens!

Can Okposo skate 22 minutes a night? Or is that blocking someone?

The intros and empty seats.... More Sabres fans might show up (or at least make more noise in order to be heard) when here in Seattle. Really disappointing how far the tanking has taken the support. (And rightfully so... when the owners tank, it's hard to justify spending full NHL prices.)

Okposo! I wonder if he means Old Ben? Kylo Okposo!

That's so foul. That's like Star Wars Rise of Skywalker script logic right there. (or the prequels, or the "plan" to rescue Han from Jabba in Jedi).

All wings report in. .... Lock Sabres in attack position. <cue the music>

Fun game so far. Active. So nice to have an engaged crowd.

1) Leading scorers - Goals, Assists and Points Olofsson - 27G; Dahlin - 38A; Mittelstadt - 58P 2) Team record 26-47-9 61 points 3) Team MVP Really tempted to say Hinostroza as a glue guy on a competent (if overmatched in their own zone) first line. Instead: Dahlin 4) Team ROY R2 Ruotsalainen 5) First Player traded Eichel 6) First player recalled from Rochester The diminutive defense gets collapsed leading to net-crashing and tweaked goalies. UPL isn't ready so early in the season. The answer is Dell. 7) Surprising in season move (trade or acquisition) Bjork sent to waivers and claimed elsewhere 😎 Best surprise player R2. Someone has to step up for the... 9) Biggest disappointment Skinner. Hard to be the biggest since he's consistently been disappointing. But yes, he'll be right back down on the 3rd/4th line just like every one of his previous coaches has done. Any other bold predictions (or not so bold). Cozens joins Girgs and Okposo and they become the COG line and make us happy.

Full capacity in Las Vegas for their opener. Good first shift for Seattle.

Turnover is expected. And given the constantly changing GMs, the turnover should be much higher than league average. The issue is the turnover of legitimate building-block players in their prime -- the top-6 and top-4 and starting caliber G types -- and replacing them with lesser players or futures picks that have yet to appear. You can definitely lose one or two of them because they've outplayed their previous contracts and you simply can't afford to keep them with your core and under the cap. I'm going to go back to the 2018 trade deadline just to add a couple more, but in the last 3 seasons here are players in their prime we've simply moved on from: Kane (on-ice 20G+/season Kane, not off-ice Kane); O'Reilly; Reinhart; Eichel; Scandella, Ristolainen, (arguably McCabe as a 4D); Lehner, Ullmark The total "acquired" talent for this group of players so far that's currently on the roster (they're all still active in the league): Tage Thompson, Robert Hagg.

Announcing is fine. Game presentation is fine. Overhead cam is fine. ESPN will be fine. Better than NBC/NBCSN. Oh... but the NHL on ESPN theme music coming back? All the feels. Love that.

When you have a top-flight goalie you can lean toward offense and trust him to play to his best level, too.

Good. There's no need to name a Captain. For the past 25 years, every time we get one they get injured or disconnected and get run out of town Force-choked out of command of their Star Destroyer. Let's have some fun for a bit before we get into our weird Capticidal promotion strategies again. And... have someone earn it this time.