Thorny

No like he literally set the roster with 3 goalies sorry, do we not attribute roster construction to the GM anymore? The GM sets the roster. Burden of proof is on the other side. If there’s some sort of quote saying Granato demanded all 3, i’d like to see it. Otherwise, Granato is presumably on the hook for WHO played but that he’s picking between 3 is a GM issue

It’s not

Yes, listening to Jake Allen on TSN was an eye opener: he as asked about playing in a 3-man rotation and went out of his way to say how difficult it makes it for all 3 goalies for a myriad of reasons. Said it affected performance of all 3. It’s not even just UPL who suffered from it early on, but all the goalies it’s just a glaring misfire of a set up by the GM and I’m glad it won’t be there going forward

He’s back soon so we’ll see

Adams gifted him the 3 man rotation. That’s the functional issue

Devils won too unfortunately Caps game is kinda key

We lose a lot of tight games and win going away? I truly don’t know. And I don’t know if it’s even predictive. At the end of the day it’s “how many” not “how”, to be fair - - - sabres are technically 13th in east still by points %, which is kinda wild. But the gap to 8 is only 3 points. It’s really tightened up. Until we theoretically pull away the odds will look tough cause if we are about tied with 5 teams its 1/6, but honestly with HOW we seem to be playing, though as a gambler you still take the field, it’s getting to the point where, soon, the Sabres could be the best bet if picking any ONE team

3 games

Looking at goal differential, at +2 Sabres are closer to Detroit (+5) and Tampa (+6) than the islanders (-16) caps (-32) and devils (-15) Realistically Pittsburgh (-5) might be the best team also chasing aside from Tampa and Detroit. They dealt Guentzel so maybe not now but I think they probably were the best. We have to be careful as they are still ahead of us in the race technically, by points%. But imo it’s getting to the point where the math is going to look poor, but only because we are “even odds” with like 5 other teams. But I think we take that smiling

Don’t think he’s getting vezina votes regardless but if we squeak into the playoffs, he might get Hart votes

We went on just as hot (see: a hotter) run last year and KO was here. So he was a fine leader then? It’s just the samuelsson thing again, it’s correlation not causation.

👀

“Some guys just can’t handle Vegas”

Steve Bernier

If he’s physically healthy, he doesn’t need to “rest”. He’s a kid. What good is that? He’s either full healthy or not. If there’s no greater risk of further injury there’s no reason he shouldn’t play. If the reason is, “so he doesn’t suffer another random injury” that’s not a good reason and not a part of his contract

As soon as they lose 3 more games in regulation they are essentially mathematically eliminated. If they have a road trip where we drop a couple games, that’s probably the end of it If we fail to grab 7 points of the remaining 32, we cannot make the playoffs if a team gets 93 Best bet is 12-4, hit 91 and win a tiebreaker. If we beat the NYI tomorrow their current pace would actually be 91

They’re not done. They came into today with an identical record over their last 10 games to us 2 points up on us with 2 in hand = ~ 4 points up on us. And they are the easiest of the 3 we need to catch

10 of the last 12 out of town scores we’ve needed (Tampa, Detroit, islanders, devils, caps, pens) have gone our way, in addition to winning 2 in a row so, 12 of last 14 results have broken our way

Out of town scoreboard has been in our favour of late

I think generally the way it works is they play if they are ready. Don’t rush it, but if you are physically ready you are physically ready: if the doctor says you aren’t risking further injury. At the end of the day it’s still a job: they are paid handsomely to play and the paying customers fork over for what is ultimately an entertainment product

I’d settle for a 2 gamer (2 more) with losses by Detroit to Arizona and Islanders to Ottawa along the way

I think we can read a lot from how Botts lost his job. The subtext there was, “we are bad while spending a lot of money, look, we can be bad while spending less, in that case.” I think he’s willing to fork out, it’s just not the default anymore. Our GM is to do whatever he wants to do in an economic way, first, and if the pillars of the operation progress to the extent it looks like it can support the weight of more cash: it’s on the table. I don’t see close to the urgency in fielding a winner that id like to see, and some of that manifests in our leaning towards spending less, but it’s not a hard line thing

If we go out and wallop the Islanders tomorrow, really wallop them like we saw with Detroit, I’ll probably start to shift from “mathematically possible, still in it” mode to belief they have a real shot. That “we need to go 14-3” (and now 13-3) thing looms large but I can’t shake the feeling the number comes in a bit below 93. If it’s 91: tiebreaker is prob something we own 12-4 over final 16? It still seems just ridiculous but…again, with what we saw vs Detroit..I’d say that team could maybe do it - - - What we really need is for the islanders to drop their game with Ottawa while we play Detroit again. Even if we beat the islanders tomorrow we’d be 3 back with them having 2 in hand so realistically 5 points: a tough hill to climb with other teams still in the mix. But if we take care of business vs Detroit while they lose to Ottawa..1 back with them having 2 in hand…3 points, more less…you never know

Right I mean if we have to have an argument by way of including all of those caveats and stipulations and assumptions you listed for what the GM WILL do, then yes, it would be tough to supplement given all of that. But none of that HAS to be the case. We don’t have to resign Z or Robinson or play Krebs in the top 9. The distinction here is im saying it reasonably CAN be done, not that it necessarily will be. But we have the fluidity to be able to attempt almost anything we want. He did TRADE Mittelstadt. I think it’s fair to credit KA for moving on from a significant complement in the aim of approving the team: at the very least, it showed me he can break from that expected rigidity Pretty big for me. Proof is in the pudding there as it’s a hopeful move to make

That’s a great point: looking at the standings, the teams below us DO have losing records of late (one caveat: Calgary is tied with us and they have one point less over last 10, so they’ve been on a similar stretch, Caps have also matched our stretch and they are within 2) But it’s still pretty salient. Being able to transition to finding results over the course of a full season is, as you point out, just something they need to learn how to do. I say “learn” but it’s not really “learn”: the team needs to be configured in such a way that it’s capable of achieving the results we want We have had a dearth of expectation here for a decade, the process can be an eye opening one and unusual for fans: if you are measuring based on actual results like the rest of the league does it, what matters is our actual output over the 82 games allotted to each team: and your performance in the standings over such is significantly more reflective of the composition of your team than reading in to any ONE segment of games The more you dilute the sample size, the more you try to blame it all on the struggles of a player or two, the further you stray from logic