DarthEbriate

I hope he plays well for the Amerks, or wherever he ends up this season... (except if his poor play were to help the Sabres in some fashion. Like he joins the Panthers and has a .650 sv% in 35 games played... that sort of thing.)

The amount of churn is ridiculous -- even at a group of positions where you would expect churn. But what is the most damning of it is how many of them were brought in and immediately inserted higher in the lineup than that, plus Bryson has been here the entire time holding one of those slots and cannot be improved upon. (And again, that's not to disparage Bryson who is a valid 8-9 tweener guy, depending on the rest of the roster construction.) And he started with a D-corps that had Montour and McCabe (and Ristolainen, though the trade return was excellent). And he got Matt Irwin!

So.... You're suggesting that they knew from the onset that the injury was worse with a longer time frame to recovery, and therefore signed Georgiev for the entire season rather than a PTO? And then they rushed their #1 goalie back for a meaningless preseason game (in a season that is 6 months long) rather than let him recover fully while Lyon/Levi or Lyon/Georgiev held down the fort? That's even worse than the other options.

A sellout is good -- with luck, they'll arrive early and give the players audible cheers (over the TV feed, maybe the new sound system will help with that) during the introductions. And even better is if the home team, from the opening shift, is engaged and playing hard to give the fans additional reasons to cheer, much like in 2021-22 -- a 5-1 opening night win vs. Montreal. It was post-COVID and the building was empty for the opening ceremonies. But Okposo and returned-from-busted-leg Girgensons set the tone on the first shift and the building got loud (on TV) because the team showed they cared. No flat starts.

The eye test says both: Bryson and Georgiev can go. Johnson won the #7 and personally, I'd keep Kozak as he can give you better, more versatile forward minutes as center or wing -- he's a Danforth type. I know Ruff loves Geertsen, but ... you have to dress him every game to actually be able to use him as a deterrent, and that's hardly likely because a 5-minute forward is almost useless in today's regular season games. (Florida/Tampa's silly exhibition over the weekend was exactly that -- an exhibition. They'll be civil in all the games that matter where their top lines are dressed.) Plus, Geertsen is hardly a deterrent -- Noesen won't be intimidated by him. They'll do a faceoff-based fight this season and that'll be the end of it.

I'm surprised Kozak hasn't been waived to Rochester yet. He's not a guy that should get claimed because every team has 1-2 Kozaks. But if a team is dealing with injuries, I could see it being 50/50 of losing him. He's not going to score but he does the little things right and is positionally sound. We saw how much calmer the bottom 6 looked when he was in the lineup last year vs., say, Lafferty.

To a dark place this line of thought will carry us.

Yes, though if you waive Ellis I'm suspecting STL takes him right back to Springfield where they intended him to go. Which makes it even worse that they knew he was day-to-day and was going to be ready to play in the preseason.

It's not in hindsight. The timeline is: 9/11 - Sabres sign Georgiev. Luukkonen is reported to have an undisclosed injury and unknown recovery timeline. They signed the goalie before they had the information. 9/13 - Within 48 hours, it is reported that Luukkonen has a "tweak" and is considered day-to-day. That's no reason to have already signed another backup goalie. You already have Lyon -- whose career numbers are better than Luukkonen's anyway. And you still have Levi who can clear waivers and should be ready to take in some NHL games this season with any injuries to UPL/Lyon because that's his job as #3 in the franchise. And you can see if he's made the progress you want to see. You still have a week to go before your first preseason game. Shortly after that, it's known that Luukkonen won't miss the beginning of the season and is already ramping up to play in the preseason. So -- you wait until 9/13-14 when you have an actual diagnosis on Luukkonen, and then offer Georgiev (or Reimer - who didn't sign with his PTO with Toronto until 9/26, or another random guy, ... Houser!... ) a PTO to help you with the camp workload. If he shines, great, then offer him the 1-year deal knowing he's destined for Rochester. And no, it doesn't matter that Luukkonen either re-aggravated the same injury or got a new injury during the preseason game. They still didn't need to do anything beyond a PTO (of Georgiev/Reimer) because they had Lyon, Levi, and the waivers claim windows of this week. Or trade for a real #1.

One can only hope. But someone still needs to be Pegula's yes-man next year. Adams POHO, Ruff Senior Consultant, Jarmo or Forton as GM. Appert as HC. It's all the same. Naturally, you then extend the assistant coaches for continuity. And because they're the cheapest coaching staff in the league. All this after a very thorough search and interview process at each position.

Or a team with a distinct chance at the playoffs, or at least one that didn't jettison him at the end of preseason, and then let him walk after he was their best goalie.

It goes back to... why on earth did Georgiev get anything more than a PTO?

Entirely possible. But he'd still have been far and away their best goalie since Miller (and briefly, strictly by the numbers, Lehner -- if he'd been able to keep himself healthy off the ice). 40 healthy games of Ullmark, with ....Anderson?... as a backup and hot Levi to finish, gets them in 2022-23.

The Adams approach to goaltending... ...for a franchise that had Hasek and Miller for 20 seasons. And Ullmark ready to go for five more.

It's the "Reverse Reimer" from last year. Ellis' numbers are lightyears ahead of Luukkonen's... in the AHL. They'll waive him back to St. Louis in a month unless he's just a lights-out goalie. I guess they don't want to risk having Levi play in the NHL this season and accumulate games accrued toward losing waivers exemption. But, hopefully this (temporarily) solves the issue that Adams cannot ever solve. Luukkonen to IR, play Lyon, waive Georgiev to the AHL where if he doesn't report, no worries and no loss. Roll two goalies and keep Levi marinating for later.

The Matt Ellis of waiver claims, at least.

There's a 7.5% chance that Norris and Thompson both meet or exceed 74 games played this season (provided the league has a full 82-game slate). If someone (Benson at the moment) manages to stick on their line all season and they're all healthy, I'd wager that player would out-point Peterka's 68 from last year. Note: Benson would be hard-pressed to get 68 until he gets meaningful PP time, but I'd think he'd easily eclipse Peterka's 29 EV assists from last season with a healthy Norris/TNT. But of course, this is the abandon hopium thread, and that 92.5% is much, much more likely to happen.

With McDavid and Kaprizov off the market, anyone who does want to wait until next summer as UFA will have that much more money available to them.

Well, shoot. He could've just waited until next summer and signed with the Sabres for that. C'mon, Sheevyn! What even are you doing? 😇

Or, try to get him back on the "Okposo" as a veteran leader who can move around the lineup.

Tuch should sign for 2 x $12.25M as a prove it deal (to the owner). Then, go to Florida or Las Vegas on a Cup-mission spite discount.

I like the player, but $48.5M per year is way too high a cap hit for me. 😇

But then they'd have to waive Bryson (or the claimed player) once everyone gets back to health. And Adams can't risk exposing Bryson to waivers.

I think Greenway is a 4th liner on this squad. He's definitely not rolling with the Norris line or McLeod-Tuch under normal 5-on-5 situations. Ruff has a very Ruffian-style kid third line in Quinn-Kulich-Doan. If Greenway skates on the remaining spare parts line of say: Greenway-Krebs-Danforth, then they probably get 9-10 minutes 5-on-5 and Greenway gets another 2+ as PK1. But, I do agree that Geertsen gets much different ice time. If the 4th line for that night is Geertsen-Krebs-Danforth, then Geertsen gets 6 minutes total and other players get a double shift with the Krebs-Danforth forechecking effort. Pasta is from the Italian word for... well, pasta. Noodle is from the German Knödel or dumpling, but a boiled dumpling is a type of pasta.

I think Greenway’s primary historic injury is also a shoulder. Muel-PO seems to be everything.