GASabresIUFAN

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.

He is 24 and has had subpar numbers in Buffalo and Roch. The sample size is large enough to know what he is at this point. On D challenged team we need a better goalie. It’s not that hard. KA should know this and should have moved to get a more proven goalie this summer. Now we are stuck.

That doesn’t explain the rest of the goals. UPL is not an NHL goalie and Sabres still don’t play defense.

Why didn’t we get Boston’s schedule. Ana (2), SJ, Chi (2), and Nash.

Yes and there are other issues as well. Ruff is a great coach and they play so much faster than we do.

Trade UPL please. DG learn something from NJs PP.

Taylor Hall’s dad played in the CFL. Ryan Reaves dad as well.

Benford and Benard are future stars. Solid D game plan. Dorsey still stinks. How do continue to fail in the red zone and don’t have a play to get 2 yards with the game on the line.

You may not care, but I assure the Sabres do. As the Sabres pay their core, having effective guys on cheap contracts will help them stay cap compliant. Right now, I’d also argue he isn’t the right man for the job. He is feisty and high skilled, but he isn’t strong enough yet for the NHL.

So the NHL is making millions off gambling and allowing these companies to try to steal the money of their fans, but if a player gambles he's a criminal. Holy double standard Batman. I am in general a free enterprise guy, but I don't think sports leagues should discuss, accept advertising from or permit players to gamble on sports if they want to promote the integrity of their sport. However, if they allow and promote gambling (such as Marty's terrible betting lines discussion in game) then they are at least partially culpable for creating the Shane Pinto's of the world. None of this means that Shane Pinto shouldn't follow the rules. He should, but let's not be naive to think he is the only NHL player, ref, or executive using the sponsor sites.