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Chris Talyor said that Mitts was playing more of a 200 ft game and Cozens is already defensively responsible.

That looks like the only choice. I fear RK won’t take it. I’d love to see Skinner Mitts Cozens. Yes tons of question marks as to maturity or readiness, but at least they have the talent to add offense.

@Thorny playing Skinner with two of Eakin, Okposo, Lazar, Rieder or Sheahan is a hopeless offense situation.

It looks from the scrimmage that the D pairs are set Dahlin Montour Mccabe Ristolainen Miller Jokiharju I love these pairs. I’m thrilled Montour is back on the right side. That 1st pair is highly skilled and highly mobile. They could be really dynamic. I’m also glad that Miller is the player moved to the left side. I also think McCabe brings out the best in Risto and covers for some of his defensive lapses. This group could end up being the strength of this club as Dahlin and Joker mature.

Well here is the good news. If I’m right about the initial lineup, RK is going to keep his word and play Cozens at RW to start the season. The lineup will look something like this Hall Eichel Thompson Olofsson Staal Reinhart Skinner Eakin Cozens Rieder Lazar/Sheahan KO If Cozens proves ready this could work, but that means Cozens becomes the catalyst for that line. As to Skinner, this might simply be a case of having 3 top 6 LW and only 2 slots. Sounds to me like neither Skinner or Olofsson were comfortable at RW and Olofsson definitely showed chemistry with Staal, thus he got the 2LW role. This promoted Thompson to 1RW since Staal/Reinhart are now a pair. This isn’t the worst situation. Hall has an injury history and with this compressed schedule and COVID, we are going to need all this depth. Camp chemistry is great, but in season chemistry is better. Mid season prediction. Mitts takes the 3C job from Eakin. Eakin then becomes the 4C. Rieder plays his way to the bench and either Sheahan or Lazar become the 4th LW.

Yes and no. Yes Skinner needs to make the best out of his situation but the organization also needs to put him in the best possible situation. He is an incredible asset when playing well, why work to diminish that asset?

It looks like the Sabres plus Taxi Squad. 13 f, 7d and 2 G make the Sabres plus 3 forwards, 2 D and 1g on the taxi squad thus the 28 players you see If I had to break this down the taxi squad is JoJo in net, Borgen and Bryson on defense and Asplund, Quinn and Mittelstadt at forward. Lazar is the 13th forward and Irwin the 7th D.

I don’t how he wouldn’t feel that way. RK does nothing to help him. Last season he refused to break up his pair of Jack and Sam to get Skinner some talent to play with and now has demoted him to play with Cody Eakin. I’d be pissed also. We invest $9 a season in this guy. We need to put him in a place to succeed.

I’m Ok with Eakin centering a third line with a couple of young skilled wingers. Not ideal but not awful either. I’m also ok with Lazar or Eakin between Rieder and KO. What I’m not ok with is Skinner buried with Eakin and KO or Sheahan or Lazar on a line. Skinner is the 2nd or 3rd best goal scorer on the team after Jack and Hall. When paired properly he can out score anyone on the team. Putting him in a place to fail makes no sense.

They blew the call, which I grant them was a difficult call. However they also blew the replay where there was conclusive evidence to overturn the call. NFL should have the guts to say they screwed up but they don’t.

So where do we stand? RK has two pairs that we know will be together 1. Hall Eichel. ???? 2. ???? Staal Reinhart KO, VO, Skinner, Thompson, and Eakin will in the lineup somewhere. After that there is still some uncertainty. The Candidates Rieder - Had a good second scrimmage and was signed to kill penaltIes. 95% chance he is in the opening night lineup. Sheahan - Earned a contract. C/LW will certainly make the team, but will he draw into the lineup? 75% chance he is the opening night lineup. Lazar - Earned RK’s trust last year, but has Sheahan taken his job? 75% chance he is in the opening lineup. Mittelstadt - Reports say he looked good in the scrimmage at center. Practiced at wing. Could he be RK’s choice to center a 3rd O line with Skinner on his wing and push both Lazar and Sheahan to the bench or wing? 20% chance, because I think RK wants to start with the vets. Cozens - KA and RK want him in the lineup this season, but has he had enough camp to learn the system? I suspect they’ll let him get acclimated for a week or two before he draws into the lineup. 20% chance. Routsalainen - Fin seems to be adjusting well to NA hockey. He’ll play in Buffalo this season, but when? I don’t think he opens in Buffalo but I think he dominates in the A and forces their hand. 15% chance. Quinn - I’m very excited about him. He’ll start in the A if there is no CHL, but I think he is a chameleon. Someone called him Jochen Hecht in the WJr thread. I like it but Quinn has more a higher scoring ceiling. Coachable kid looks like he can do anything. Want him to dig in corners? No problem? Need a goal close in? No problem. Kill Penalties? Sure! Play with high skill forwards? Easy. Sick pass to Mitts in the scrimmage. 0% chance now, but if he stays in the A all year, I hope he’ll earn a callup. Asplund - I was hoping this kid would get a chance to fill the Girgensons void, but now behind Sheahan and Rieder. Starts in the A. I think Rieder, Sheahan and Lazar will join the 9 locks in the opening night lineup. This is my nightmare scenario, but it seems the way RK wants to start. I hope I’m wrong. I hope 2 of Mitts, Cozens or R2 beat out Sheahan and Lazar, but don’t count on it. Our initial bottom 6 will be the worst in the league.

Some Bills thoughts: 1) Won despite playing not playing well as a team. On defense. We gave up 150+ yards on 27 carries (almost 5.7 yds per carry)to their top 2 running backs. Ours gained 40. We got little pressure on Rivers and when we blitzed he torched our zone coverage. We couldn’t cover their tight ends. They converted 14 or 16 tight end targets for 136 yards and a TD. Ultimately On the positive front. The Defense made a goal-line stop in the first half and stopped the last drive to preserve the win. I worry that our 4-2-5 scheme isn’t cut out for playoff football. I would have liked seeing more of 3 linebackers in the game to stop the run. On special teams and field position battle. We failed, especially in the first half to get a punt or kick return that helped us flip the field for the offense. During the season Roberts and our punter often made such plays to set up the offense or take pressure off our defense. On the other hand their punter pinned us deep multiple times. 1st half starting field position: Our 3, 15, 11, 6, and 4. Allen magic turned 2 of those possessions into touchdowns. On the positive: Bass is developing into a excellent kicker who can be relied on critical situations. Set a rookie playoff record with his perfect 54 yrd kick. The GA Southern kicker our played his UGA rival and was ultimately the difference in the game. On Offense: Diggs and Gabriel Davis were excellent. Allen stats were excellent, but the offense didn’t feel right most of the game. Our two running backs only gained 40 or so yards. Allen beat them both with 54. We had terrible field position in the first half which lead to 3 3 and outs. Failing to move the ball at all on those drives gave Indy great field position. We also failed to put the game away in the second half. Up 24-10, we only got 3 pts in our next two drives. We did put up nearly 400 yards on offense. On the positive: This was one our most disciplined games penalty wise all season and we found a way to win despite giving up nearly 500 yards, losing the field position battle, and the time of possession battle. Bottomline: No matter who we play next week we have to be better and I think we will be. This team had a ton of pressure on it to win the franchises 1st home playoff game in a qtr century and they played like it. With this win under their belt I think they’ll be much more relaxed next week and be closer to the team we saw in the last 6 weeks of the regular season.

As I said before, we cannot start the season with all 5 of Rieder, Eakin, Lazar, Sheahan and KO in the lineup.

You do realize that Taylor and Hines rushed for 153 years on 27 carries. That’s about 5.7 yards per carry.

I haven’t yet watched the scrimmage. I’ve been watching football all day with my family. Can’t wait to see how Mitts does at center. Hopefully Sabres.com will post a replay.

I don’t want to play Cleveland or Tenn. We couldn’t tackle Taylor how are we going to tackle Chubb or Henry?

Bring on anyone. We got our bad game out of our system.

The Bills never make it easy. They should be more relaxed next week. They need tackle better.

We have been down this road before. RK screwed Skinner last year by refusing to move Reinhart to that line try to get him going. We gave RK a pass last year because of the lack of adequate centers. That excuse is gone, yet his line combos in camp have been dreadful. We have to be realistic. We aren’t getting MVP Hall, we aren’t getting 40 pt Eakin. Our best hope is that can rebound and player closer to that level, but in Eakin’s case he has morphed into a checking line center and that is how he should be utilized. RK needs to do a better job of finding the best combos to maximize his keys scorers and dumping Skinner with a diminished Eakin is wrong. However, we may be seeing something else. We all assumed that one of Skinner or Olofsson could move to RW to balance the top six. RK maybe finding out that playing them there doesn’t work. So now he has 3 top 6 LW and only 1 top RW. Therefore he is trying Thompson as a top 6 RW to see if that works. However that doesn’t change the ultimate problem that Eichel and Staal are top 6 centers, but Eakin, Lazar and Sheahan are 4th line centers. He needs to try something else. You mentioned a Skinner Eakin Cozens line. I guess it’s worth a try. We may have no choice because of the LW situation and the lack of proven RW’s. it’s asking a lot of a 19year old rookie with no pro experience to elevate Skinner to previous levels.

It’s a diminished Eakin thing, it’s a lack of linemates thing, and an ice time thing. It’s a combination of dumb. We saw last year what Skinner looks like without proper linemates. Do you really want to see that again. I’d rather see him try Cozens centering Skinner.

So is Routsalanen. Makes sense. We need skill wingers in the organization and have a bunch of depth centers like Lazar, Sheahan and Eakin along with Cozens.

Because RK has no idea how to put together lines. Cody Eakin has zero ability to help get Skinner back to being a 40 goal winger.

I never said the some pessimism isn't justified. However when Chris Taylor said he worked hard and improved and then RK verified those facts and said he earned a recall to the Sabres, I think some of that pessimism is misplaced. If he was 24 and not performing at the AHL like Baptiste and Bailey, that's one thing, but a 22 year who just got a legit vote of confidence from his coaches after performing well in the AHL is another.

Imho I want Eakin to either center the shutdown line of Rieder/Sheahan and KO or as the vet between 2 kids. My real preference is for Cozens (if he is ready) to center Thompson and Mitts/Routsalainen. We need to commit to the future. If it doesn't work, we have a whole taxi squad worth of vets to sub in for those injured or not doing the job. Hall Eichel Olofsson Skinner Staal Reinhart Sheahan Eakin KO Mittelstadt Cozens Thompson That's my preference. I have zero problem with Routsalainen beating out Mitts or Cozens. This approach does the following 1. It creates two very skilled and accomplished scoring line. These are our 6 proven offensive forwards. Make it work RK 2. Since Eakin is the Larsson substitute and Sheahan the Girgensons sub, and both are decent to good defensively, make them the shutdown line. 3. RK can utilize, especially at home, the kids at a 3rd offensive weapon. Skill wise they should have a huge mismatch against most teams they play. It would also be great experience in a not overly pressured situation. Hopefully they produce, gain confidence and more PT, as the season progresses 4. A Taxi squad with Rieder and Lazar gives us two proven NHL players we can sub in on the checking line for injuries and matchups. Have a high skill player like Mitts or Routsalainen in Rochester to also call up in case of injury would also help.

Today's line. 4 Taylor Hall - 9 Jack Eichel - 72 Tage Thompson 68 Victor Olofsson - 12 Eric Staal - 23 Sam Reinhart 53 Jeff Skinner - 27 Curtis Lazar - 38 Riley Sheahan 13 Tobias Rieder - 20 Cody Eakin - 21 Kyle Okposo 25 Arttu Ruotsalainen - 74 Rasmus Asplund - 37 Casey Mittelstadt These are even better then yesterday. Lazar centering Skinner, that's really going to help get Skinner back on track. The season starts in 5 days. Ralph, please put some line together that make some sense. Also having all 5 of Eakin, Rieder, Lazar, KO and Sheahan in your bottom 6 is a huge mistake. We can do better. I understand that Staal/Reinhart are now a pair just like Jack/Hall, please try to put some like Skinner in a place to prosper.