DarthEbriate

Here we go again. Even the suggestion of the open-ice hit got him injured before the game started. I guess at least Johnson will dress, then. Novikov should make his debut within the month.

"This is a trap game if ever there was one." - Avalanche broadcast crew. "The longer you let Buffalo hang around in this game, or let them score first.... the worse it is." The Avs should go for the kill shot immediately. Skate hard for 10 minutes, net 2 or 3, and coast the remainder of the day. Add some empty netters to pad the stats.

That's sports radio/tv though. And we here at Sabrespace don't seem to get tired of the same thing non-stop....

4th line energy guys -- 1st shift: each guy get a hit in the stats column. Go rattle the boards a bit. Even if the guy dodges, make some noise. Get the crowd buzzing. Quinn - crash the net. Take the puck and just crash the net with it and see what happens. Pretend you're Zucker. Samuelsson -- line someone up at the blue line. You might miss. Get the audience to go woooo if you do, and for the Avs forward to look back over his shoulder and say, "whoa, was that Muel-PO?" And if you hit, it'll be fun! You're heavier than anyone on their roster, even 40 year-old Brent Burns. (Edit: Muel-PO probably shouldn't do that because the possibility of getting injured is approximately 3:1.)

They're within $3M of the cap (yes, some tough injuries to get around at the start of the season 1G (though, he's worse than the 2G historically), 1C (though... he's a 2C when healthy), 1LW (though, he's a 2/3LW at this point in his career), and D4 (though, he's only done that for a single season because of injuries, so he's a D6 at this point in his career)... huh. When I say it like that it's like the injuries aren't even the problem. That said! This isn't a tank. They're within $3M of the cap. This is EEE. They can't even EEE correctly. That said that said 930 AM hockey. Let's watch! (...to the side of reviewing documents...) Who's with me? LEEEroy Jenkins!

Tuch got to live his childhood dream and wear the crest. (Both old school and ‘90s.) That’s awesome for him. But this organization is not the Sabres of his dreams. It’s the Pegula-Adams version. And as a hockey player with a dwindling number of years to play, he and any other self-respecting player who wants to win, should get away from it if at all possible.

If you get 4 minutes a game, you'd better be getting 8 hits and drawing instigators left and right. Keep your elbows down, stay on your skates, and run people. Get the home crowd excited and your teammates engaged. Whatever it is Geertsen does, he doesn't do that. Kiefer Sherwood had 462 hits last season (which is silly!), but he already has 11 this season. Geertsen has 3. Go be a cult icon. It'd be so easy to be beloved by the Sabre.... hood? Sabrehospicecenter?

When Sabrespacers fight amongst themselves, Sheevyn wins, cackling, "Good... gooooood."

If Tuch gets into self-preservation mode: drop in blocked shots, not going to scrums, peeling off checks, etc., then you might as well listen to trade offers now, because he won't be helping relative to the minutes he'll be on the ice. There's a ton more value if you can get move to a team willing to extend him and give him 9/10 of an entire season at a bargain price (once their coach finds new ways to re-motivate him), vs. holding him until the trade deadline. But before listening to offers -- axe Adams and give Jarmo the control of the team. (Because if Tuch doesn't extend pre-trade, and you want to get him back in the fold as a UFA, he's not rejoining a team led by Adams.) And once you've done that, then you might as well go into complete tank 2.0 to get those top-flight centers again. Dahlin and TNT would fetch the value of at least 7 firsts.

I don’t think he gets fired. Instead, they agree it’s time for him to be POHO so Darth Pegulas the Wise still has his yes man. Jarmo will get the opportunity to be a yes man GM with Appert as the coach and Ruff as an advisor. If he doesn’t want that, they’ll do an exhaustive search… for Ellis or Forton or whomever is breathing the word yes. But there is a possibility they clean house after the season. However, I don’t think Norris is the final straw. It’s Tuch. Tuch is their golden local goose. If he wants out, Dahlin and Tage ask out. Benson can go the JJP RFA no-thanks route. That would end it all.

The team reflects the owner and the GM who orchestrated the tank and EEE and lack of action. Simple as that. This is their manifestation on ice.

If Tuch goes into self-preservation mode before November 1, then they’re really in trouble. Because then TNT and Dahlin should start getting their agents involved in standard don’t want to be here anymore messaging. They need Benson and Kesselring back post-haste.

Checking in between two events…. 16-1 shots against. Is not the response I figured a Ruff-coached team would show. Maybe Ruff has to tell Geertsen to run someone to fire up his teammates?

For any folks who were thinking he wouldn't report and that the Sabres were getting a glorified PTO... Georgiev isn't about to let that cash slide. He doesn't have a Minors Salary breakdown listed on capwages. But maybe he's an elite AHL-level goalie?

I might not be able to see this one live, but it is also a game I'm looking forward to as well. Test their mettle and resilience and how they respond. For a large stretch of game 1 they carried the play, but with the exception of Zucker they stayed mostly away from the crease. Now, another team that is not going to want to play freewheeling open hockey awaits. Can the Sabres offense exert their will upon it? We shall see.

I'm really glad that that HBP call wasn't the deciding inning. Fun baseball, though.

To the bottom of the 12th. The Tigers and Mariners are having themselves a game.

A PP drawn by Kuntar delivering a hit (clean? unknown until highlights, but he wasn't penalized) and a Marlie jumping him and taking an instigator penalty. Amerks capitalize. Another PP, another Rosén goal. One-timer.

It doesn't mean anything, but Mrtka got to start the Amerks' season opener, paired with Rathbone. Wahlberg - Helenius - Rosén was the forward line. Levi starting and Leinonen as the backup.

I was looking forward to a series of Delta Force, Missing in Action, Octagon, and Invasion USA fodder this season. The highbrow Norris, if you will. But this feels more appropriate today

They have a couple Cups.... but Florida isn't making excuses for Barkov or Tkachuk just yet. During the season I'm sure they'll get a bit of flak when someone says "oh, yeah, we missed Barkov, he's one of the best" when a team reporter asks them a leading question "Normally you'd rely on Barkov in that situation... probably missed him today, huh?"

It's a little bit apples-to-oranges though. Quinn was already on the team and just signed a 2x$3.375M extension. (You can certainly argue about the wisdom of that contract.) Benson was replacing Jost (a waiver claim) and Olofsson (a 7th rounder on the last year of his deal who the coach no longer believed in). I don't think either Östlund or Rosén was beating down the door in dev camp or the preseason. And rushing Helenius is probably the worst thing they can do for him, even if he has the stoutest frame of the 3.

I think it was in the 2nd, but he went to the net and gave Shesterkin's glove a couple whacks as he was covering the puck. We'd have wanted him dead if he had done that to UPL Lyon Comrie Hutton Anderson. We respected Anderson.

But mediocrity isn't the question. You keep everything else the same and swap out the center spines -- which group would you rather have? Eller and Evans are there to kill penalties and win d zone faceoffs, which they do. But Stutzle and Suzuki are so much better than anyone the Sabres can put at 1C that I take their full spines in a heartbeat over the list as shown. Boston is the only team that I clearly rank below the Sabres. McLeod is good. Kulich has some potential. Krebs is a JAG at this point who is poor in the dot. Kozak is a 4th/tweener.