GASabresIUFAN

Krebs has played all 9 games so far and has zero pts. FO% 48% -1 RFA Jost has played in 6 games so far and has a goal and 1 assist. FO% over 52%. +3 UFA IMHO Jost has outplayed Krebs so far this season. I also haven’t seen much play making from Krebs which is supposed to be his forte. With Benson, Savoie, Kulich and Rosen already pushing for NHL time what is their future this season and beyond? For this season, Krebs could soon be on the bench. I think the Sabres plan to rotate Benson and Savoie (3pts in 3 AHL games) in Buffalo until the year end and they can play for team Canada. Savoie is going to be back with the Sabres in a week. Rosen (4 goals) and Kulich (6 goals) already have 9 pts each in 7 AHL games and are rapidly earning a call up. If Jost and Krebs don’t produce, the Sabres will give someone else a shot. Obviously with nearly 90% of the season left there is still time for both guys to earn a new deal, but they have to be looking over their shoulders.

Can we update the title to former Pens player. He played 13 games for the Pens from 2018 to 2020. He deserves to be recognized for making it to the show.

I forgot to post about this earlier. I hate to make a comparison to 05/06, but that season you were shocked if a team scored a PP goal against us. I am getting that feeling about this revamped PK. The Sabres finished that year 2nd in the NHL at 88.6% on the PK, but that team had Ryan Miller in net. This team is doing it with Comrie, UPL and Levi. Greenway, EJ, TNT, Mule, are leading this PK with size, physicality, length and very solid positioning. I think the PK time is also helping TNT play a more complete game. I get the feeling from TNT that a goal scoring barrage is coming. Tuch is also looking more like his old self that last couple of games. Amen brother.

Is one else having a deja vu moment with UPL and Comrie. Last season, Comrie got hurt and UPL got his chance. His first game last year was awful, but then he actually played mostly solid goal over the next 19 starts. The Sabres were 13-4-2 in UPL’s starts after the first clunker and he had a 900 or better save % in 11 of those starts. This season, Comrie gets hurt, UPL’s first start is a clunker, but then he shuts out the Cup contending Avs and looks great in the process.

Absolutely. So many of us on this board were furious when KA failed to re-sign Ullmark. We pointed out that the Sabres, even in the dark times, played playoff level hockey when Ullmark started and wanted him extended.

Just finished watching the game. This was the best game UPL has played in the NHL. He set the tone for the Sabres in the first 5 minutes and the Sabres complete team effort did the rest. Just a couple of superlatives. UPL of course. Congrats on his 1st career shutout. Well deserved. Mitts was our best forward. Played 200 feet, scored a excellent goal and his setup to Skinner in the 3rd was awesome (to bad Skinner missed). I loved EJ today. He and Jost had significant jump today. DG said Bryson got stronger this off-season and that was clearly evident. Don’t look now, but JJP is tied with TNT with 4 goals (Skinner has 5). He keeps getting better.

Title: Former Pens player dies in tragic accident.

Confirmed. 😞 https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/38770208/ex-nhl-player-adam-johnson-29-dies-freak-accident

Pull a Hamburgler.

Awful news. I still have nightmares about Clint Malarchuk.

@JohnC My best to you and your family.

Whatever.

By the way, the year KA signed Comrie, 15 goalies changed teams many for very reasonable prices, including Adin Hill, Vanacek, Georgiev, Samsonov, and Gustavsson. The funny thing is that KA was willing to trade a former 3rd rd pick for Stillman (who has since been cut) but wouldn’t use a similar asset to add goaltending.

You are talking quantity, I'm talking quality. I've been advocating for months to pair Levi with one proven NHL veteran goalie. Instead KA gave us Levi and 2 AHL quality goalies on his NHL roster. Once Levi got hurt, the choices in goal became 4 AHL quality goalies. Who cares who is on the NHL roster, none of UPL, Comrie, Tokarski or Cooley are good enough to carry this team in case of injury. Why are we in this position? Easy KA has refused to invest in the position and it's destroying his rebuild.

The Sabres have scored 23g and allowed 27. Apparently we have scored 5g but allowed 14 in the 3rd period. Are the Sabres not in good enough shape?

If the goaltending need just cropped up this last off-season then the arguments that maybe a deal wasn’t there has more merit. However it hasn’t been one off-season. It’s been 3 off-seasons and two trade deadlines and what do we have to show for it? Consistently nearly the worst goaltending in hockey.

Actually I wouldn’t write such a post. I’d have praised KA for taking the risk and attempting to properly fill an obvious hole, just as I praised him for adding Greenway, Clifton and Johnson. Injuries happen. I also praised him for bringing back Tokarski as goalie depth in case of injury as I think Tokarski is actually better than Comrie and UPL. I’ve learned a lot from watching Anpodolis GM the Braves. He seems to have found the balance between developing prospects, signing his young studs long term, trading prospects for vets to fill holes and signing the right FAs. He is also willing to move from vets like Swanson and Freeman when their prices got too high. As I’ve said before KA has done so much right making the failures in goal even more glaring. I’ll put this another way. Let’s say KA caved and traded Rosen and Savoie for one season of Hellebuyck. A huge price I know, but how much damage would that have really done to our forward pipeline with Benson, Östlund, Kulich and Wahlberg plus many others still there? We’d still have one of the deepest pools in hockey. How much better would the Sabres be right now?

Not sure that’s true. GF is down from 3.57 to 2.88. GA is slightly improved from 3.68 to 3.38 but our save% is actually worse and still well below league average according to hockey-reference. The PP is worse as well. Only the improved PK stands out as a major improvement. If these trends hold the Sabres differential this season will finish around -41. Last year their differential was only -11. That’s not improvement.

So you are giving him a participation trophy for trying but failing to upgrade the goalie position for 3 years? Sometimes trying isn’t enough. This is a success oriented business where success means winning on the ice. No goaltending = no winning. His excuses of no market, prices to high, confident in our prospects are all BS at this point. He needed to step up and move on from both UPL and Comrie and didn’t. Now with Levi and Comrie injured our goaltending tandem against Col could be UPL and career AHLer Cooley. That sure should help the team’s confidence. The high price WPG wanted for Helle is looking cheaper by the day. The funny thing is I bet KA is congratulating himself on his foresight for having goalie depth on his NHL roster. Notice I didn’t say having 3 NHL goalies on his roster.

For the last 3 years?

Everything bad that has happened with the goaltending over the last few years was foreseeable and was foreseen by the people on this board. Many here wanted Ullmark extended for multiple years when KA first arrived. KA extended him for a year. We also wanted Hutton gone as well. KA did neither. Prior to expansion, I suggested that KA use his cap and picks depth to get a goalie for the expansion slot in case Ullmark walked. He didn’t, saying he wanted Ullmark in that slot to give him more negotiating time with Ullmark. How did that work out? When Ullmark walked we all asked if KA had a contingency in case he walked. We asked this because we all thought Ullmark would walk to play for a winning program. Ullmark walked and KA didn’t have a plan B. Instead he signed Anderson from retirement and Dell on the cheap. Anderson did fine in the limited games he played but we ended up getting subpar goaltending from the other 5 goalies we tried. His next step was to bring in a goalie, Comrie, again on the cheap, who had 28 games of NHL experience, but was an analytics darling from a D first system to pair him with the solid but limited Anderson. How did that work out? Injuries, UPL and 304 goals allowed. The Sabres missed the playoffs by a point because of the bad goaltending. Now with a playoff caliber forward group, and a deeper D group, KA brings back the terrible UPL, the injury prone mediocre Comrie and the rookie Levi. He tells us he is confident in this group. I wonder where that confidence is now? All these moves show an unwillingness to properly invest is the most critical position on the ice. Ultimately this poor judgement has already cost the Sabres one playoff birth and maybe another this season.

Greenway was a reclamation project of sorts, but was acquired for his physical game and the fact had two years left on his contract. He was acquired because he filled a need on this team just like Johnson and Clifton. Veteran goaltending was as obvious a need as veteran D and a physical forward. It’s been an obvious need since before Ullmark walked. It’s a need even he has acknowledge by his attempts to land Murray and Jones. I love Levi’s potential as much as anyone, but to go into this critical season relaying on 3 goalies with only 100 games on NHL experience between them was stupid and we are now paying the price for that stupidity. What drives me nuts is that KA has done such a credible job in so many areas of this team, but for reasons unknown he and his staff can’t make good decisions regarding the goaltending.

Greenway

How? Who is trading us a good goalie? The time to do that was the off-season. it’s crazy when you think about it. KA got vets for the defense. He got a vet forward to add to the ones he already had. However, for reasons known only to him, with Millions in cap space and a pipeline overflowing with forwards, he wouldn’t even entertain the notion of getting a proven netminder to protect our season.

He’s 28. Were we supposed to wait another 4-5 for him to develop? We also had a good goalie named Ullmark. So are we supposed to wait another 4 years for UPL to develop? How many losses will that cost us. Sometimes you have to move on. We are trying to make the playoffs. UPL isn’t going to help us to that goal this season.