msw2112

As stated by at least one other poster above, Granato has a track record of developing young players (Dahlin, Thompson, Cozens, etc.) and also for getting the most out of veteran players coming off of a down season or seasons (Skinner, Okposo). Maybe he sees somthing in Stillman that he can develop. That's what he says. If so, the Sabres have acquired a younger bottom pair defenseman with NHL experience who brings a physical element to the team that is sorely lacking. To do that, they had to give up a bottom-six forward prospect whose chance of making the Sabres team as a regular contributor was pretty low. It seems like a reasonable risk to take. I don't follow the Canucks at all, but I know that they are not a very good team right now, so perhaps they were either a) improperly utilizing Stillman; or b) doing a poor job developing him. One final thought on the trade - if the Sabres have any injuries on defense, who can they call up from Rochester that would be better than Stillman? Maybe Pilut? Clague and Bryson are already with the team. So this trade also adds some depth to the roster.

We are in agreement. The intent of the comment was to praise the team for NOT folding their tents and I agree that they have NOT done this during the Grantao era. All teams lay eggs from time to time (such as the Kings getting beat 6-0 by the Sabres in Buffalo recently), but good teams put those performances in the rear-view mirror and move forward with better performances. Granato and staff do a good job in this regard, whereas Sabres teams of the recent past would go into downward spirals from which they couldn't recover. Pretty much from November on....

Yes, but should have been a 5 minute major and/or be looked at by the league. It was a total cheap shot in the middle of the ice when Dahlin didn't even know he was there. This is far more egregious than a cross check when a defenseman and forward are battling in front of the net or fighting for the puck in corner. In that case, the player getting cross-checked is battling and knows that someone is behind them making contact. They can establish position, push back, brace for the hit, use the boards to absorb some of the hit (if in the corner). In this case, he hit him in the back in open ice and Dahlin had no ability to defend, brace or protect himself. He's very lucky that he didn't sustain a serious injury.

It's pretty awesome that we can have this debate right now. We may have more highlights to choose from this season than the 5-10 seasons before it combined! After the poor showing against the Leafs, the Sabres could have folded their tents and said "we're a good young team, but aren't ready for the big boys yet." Especially when Tampa took early control of the game and the 1-0 lead. But they fought their way back into the game. They lost multiple leads and then were on the wrong side of some terrible officiating in the final few minutes of the third period (borderline too many men, missed call on elbow against Okposo, borderline delay of game at the end), but fought through it and came out with the win. I was impressed (and pleasantly surprised). I liked the fire of the team after the Okposo incident, including Granato going ballistic on the bench. Tampa tried to intimidate the Sabres, but failed.

The Sabres laid an egg against the Leafs and have typically stuggled against the better teams. That said, they have fairly recent wins against Boston, Washington, Winnipeg, Dallas, and Minnesota, so anything can happen. Go Blue and Gold!

But perhaps better than what we have in the bottom pairings. I agree that the situation in Buffalo is best for his shot at regular playing time soon and the opportunity to burn the year of his ELC and get to his 2nd contract a year sooner would be attractive. Also, he has familiarity with the organization and may like what he sees. Most of the other young guys really like being a part of what's happening. He could also solicit input from Owen Power, a fellow (former) Big 10 defenseman (and Johnson opponent) who recently came to the Sabres and could offer some valuable insights.

If you are saying that they should first focus on being good enough to make the playoffs before focusing on being a successful playoff team makes sense. I think that's where this team is at. If being offense-focused can get them to reach the playoffs at all, let the chips fall where they may after that. In the future, they can worry about advancing through the playoffs and adding playoff-style play to their repertoire. I think that's what the Bills did. In McDermott's first season(s), they had a "playoff caliber" mantra. After reaching that level, they switched it to a "championship caliber" mindset. Unfortunatley, they got over the first hurdle, but are a little bit stuck trying to get to the next one. For the Sabres, merely reaching the playoffs would be a huge step in their development as a team (different from individual player development, which is clearly happening).

Yes, I believe he's on record saying that offense is eaiser to teach with younger players and that the focus on that is intentional to get the team to improve/develop/gain confidence. It also may have to do with the team's personnel. Right now, there is just more offensive talent than defensive. Signing Samuelsson to a long-term deal was a big step in the right direction. Dahlin's defensive game has advanced quite a bit and Power's needs some work, but again, he's gaining confidence as a full-time NHL player by skating the puck up the ice and getting invovled in the play. I think that the focus on veterans in free agency should be on defensive defensemen. I think that Granato will start to incorporate more defensive concepts into the team as the team matures and/or gets more defensive personnel. I certainly hope so. As to special teams, all Power Plays have ups and downs, but the Sabres' has been good overall and I don't see much of an issue there. They could stand to take more shots to create rebounds, rather than always looking for the perfect pass, but they seemed to be doing that last night, so maybe they've figured that part out a bit. The Penalty Kill is terrible, for sure, but I think that ties directly into the defensive conversation. More time and focus, with some better defensive personnel, should improve the PK.

Jost had been with 3 different NHL organizations and Comrie with 4, so I think their opinions mean something. Jost is getting plenty of icetime and Comrie was given an opportunity to be the guy earlier in the season and is still getting some games now. If he got hot, I think they'd let him take over the crease. I trust their sentiments and opinions to be genuine. As a fan/observer, I am very impressed with Granato. Young players have developed (Dahlin, Thompson, Cozens, Olofsson, Jost) and veteran players have improved or re-gained their form (Skinner, Tuch, etc.) Mittlestadt may be in the next wave of developed/improved players. The team has also climbed the standings each season that Granato has coached. Is the the BEST coach in the NHL? I can't say, but I am happy that he is the Sabres coach.

My guess is that he's more concerned about Levi than Comrie or UPL. There's also the young Euro goalie they drafted this past season, but I believe that Portillo is well ahead of him on the development curve. I don't monitor other NHL teams' pipelines, but I'd have to think the Sabres offer as close to a good goaltending opportunity as any NHL team.

Did the Earl of Bud appear in Rochester too? His dance on the rail at the old Aud in Buffalo was the stuff of legend.

This is a tough one to answer. The Sabres were my first love as a child, but my affinity for the Bills grew as I got older. My family had partial seasons tickets for the Sabres my entire life, so I was on their lap at the Aud when I was a little kid and driving downtown for games with friends when I was a teenager. I didn't start going to Bills games regularly until I was a teenager. I'd say I love them equally, but I have lived away from Buffalo for a long time, and NFL football is way more popular around the country and gets way more media coverage and water cooler discussion than NHL hockey, so I spend more time/focus on the Bills. I also went to a major Big10 school with nationally prominent football and basketball teams (as well as many other sports), so those teams compete for my attention too, but my Buffalo teams come first. Actually, my family comes first, but I do record a ton of sports on my DVR and watch a lot of games after everyone has gone to bed, or on rare occasions when I am the only one home. My wife is not a huge sports fan, so she rarely joins me, but my kids sometimes do, although they don't have the attention span for entire games. My daughter really wanted a Josh Allen jersey, so I bought her one, and she gets excited when the Sabres are on TV and score goals. Maybe she'll want a Tage Thompson jersey before too long....Obviously, the Eichel Tower has toppled over. She just happened to be watching with me when the Sabres had the scoring barrage against Columbus and she really got excited during that game.

Thanks for the info that is bolded and underlined above. I said in the Cozens thread that they need to extend Dahlin ASAP. I now amend that to say that they should extend him ASAP after July 1.

The Sabres are taking some gambles on these deals, but they are worthy gambles. You need to identify the young talent with leadership skills early on and get them locked up. Not doing so cost them guys like Reinhart and Ullmark. They will swing and miss on some of these deals, but if they hit on most of them (and so far Thompson and Samuelsson look like hits, and Cozens, in my opinion, will be a hit) the team will be in great shape for the foreseeable future. To add, they did a "bridge" deal with Dahlin and, in hindsight, a longer-term deal would have been the better route. They need to get him extended again sooner than later. He's thriving under the current regime and if his recent open letter is to be believed, he wants to be in Buffalo.

I was thinking the same thing. I don't have time to look up success rates for drafted players, but I believe that having 3 NHLers in one draft, 2 of whom are having very productive, longer-term careers is a pretty successful draft. It's a bit of a stretch to think back that many years, but I believe that it was consensus at the time that the #2 overall pick was going to be one of the "Sams" and I think the Sabres picked the better of the two. If I'm not mistaken, both Sams are now playing for the Panthers. There isn't much doubt that Draisaitl is having a much more productive career than either of the Sams, but I recall him being projected in the #3-#5 range that year. Also, Draisaitl certainly benefits from being the #2 guy on his team - more than Reinhart benefitted from being the #2 to Eichel. Opponents have to focus on stopping McDavid first, and then worry about Draisaitl. If they are on the ice together, the first guy to control/stop has to be McDavid. Even if they are not on the ice at the same time, a team has to devote its best defensive efforts to when McDavid is on the ice and not when Draisaitl is on the ice.

I realize that goal scorers can be streaky, but I don't think the Sabres should move on from Olofsson. He's been a good goal scorer for a number of years and this year he is taking it to the next level. He's no longer a one-trick pony, scoring goals on a one-timer on the right wall on the PP. He's scoring 5 on 5, he's finishing 2 on 1's, scoring in OT, on breakaways, etc. You don't trade pure goal scorers. There just aren't too many of them. Mitts is playing much better hockey of late and I like what he brings to the table too. He's still young with a draft pedigree. I'd like to keep him too, but I understand that to acquire something of value, you have to give up something of value. I'd be more willing to trade Mittlestadt (+ draft picks), although I believe he has less value on the trade market than Olofsson.

Other guys have developed too: Dahlin, Mittlestadt, Cozens, etc. And vets who were lost have come back much better, such as Okposo (20 goals last season) and now using his leadership "talent" as a huge asset to the team and Skinner (press box to high scoring 1st liner). Granato is an excellent coach. Not only are the guys developing and improving, they are winning games. A coach can be a both great developer of talent and a good game-day coach. They don't have to be mutually exclusive.

Cozens and Samuelsson too! Great news. Hopefully they can play in the one game without furhter injury and then rest up and heal for the post-break push.

Depending on the injury, he might be able to do this competition without any threat of further injury, and sit out the actual games. To reiterate my comments above, I understand that the ASG is meaningless to the Sabres season and Thompson's health and the Sabres' season are much more important than an exhibition game, but it's a career milestone and honor to participate in the game and Thompson has earned it. If he can participate in some way WITHOUT ANY FURTHER RISK OF INJURY, I'm in favor. I don't know the type or severity of the injury, so I don't know whether there's a risk or not.

Will he have to miss the all-star game? While the ASG does nothing for the Sabres' season, he earned the opportunity to go and it would suck if he had to miss it. Going to the ASG made a huge (positive) difference in Dahlin's confidence level, but I suppose that, at this point, Thompson doesn't need that type of confidence booster. He already gotten paid and is now acknowledged as a top player in the league. The ASG is a low-contact event, so maybe he can go without further risking injury.

Fandom for Buffalo sports teams knows no boundaries! There are Bills and Sabres fans all over the country and the world! But, more to the point of the post, I would agree that Syracuse is probably the boundary. West of Syracuse is mostly Buffalo fans, Syracuse is split, and east of Syracuse is other teams - Rangers, perhaps Bruins (certainly when you get into Mass) and north of Syracuse could be Montreal fans. (Of course, the Sabres' own Alex Tuch is from Syracuse and grew up a big Sabres fan). Same goes for football. West of Syracuse would be Bills fans, Syracuse is split, and east of Syracuse is a combination of Jets, Giants, etc. In other directions, I don't know. Is Erie, PA Sabres fans or Pens fans? And for Southern Ontario, are there Sabres fans there, or just NHL fans who come to Buffalo because its affordable NHL hockey (versus Toronto) where they can support their favorite teams and players?

Some of the folks here definitely overreact. Just because the Sabres lose a game, it doesn't necessarily mean that they played poorly, lacked energy, got pushed around, etc. It doesn't mean that "Adams is incompetent" or "nothing is being done about the goaltending situation" or "Granato is great at developing kids, but isn't the guy to get us over the top" or "here we go again, another season with no playoffs." Sometimes they face a hot goalie, hit a few goalposts, and outplay the other team and don't get the win. Other times, they play against a really good team and go toe-to-toe with them and lose by 1 goal (or 2, in the case of an empty net goal). Even the worst teams in the league this season (Chicago, Anahiem, San Jose, Columbus, Arizona) have won around 15 games so far, with a lot of season yet to be played, so they are going to occasionally beat another team that is a better than them. For example, there was a lot of doom and gloom on this board after the OT loss in Chicago. I watched that game and thought the Sabres controlled the play most of that game. They played hard. They did run around in their own end a little bit in the 3rd period and got burned for it. They still made it to OT, where they had a 2 on 1 and had the player (Mittlestadt, I think) made the pass rather then shooting the puck, they probably would have scored and won the game. He didn't, the puck went the other way and Chicago scored. So, yes, the Sabres lost to a bottom feeder and many people were up in arms on this board. Meanwhile, since then, they have won 5 straight, including beating the Islanders, a team that they are competing with for the Wild Card, and Dallas and Winnipeg, the top two teams in the Western Conference. Rather than dwell on the result of one game, I am focused on the bigger picture. I like what I see.

I'm out of market and have the NHL Center Ice package. While both the Sabres' and opposing team's broadcasts are options, I have been watching the opposing team's feed quite a bit lately. I'm curious to see what outsiders think of the Sabres. It's been overwhelminghly positive. Last night's Winnipeg TSN crew was gushing over the Sabres most of the game (and rightfully so) and even went so far as to say that the Sabres dominated the Jets in thier previous game and that the only reason the Jets won was that Hellebuyck stood on his head. Most of the other teams' broadcasters are as good or better than Dunleavy and Ray. The only one I saw that I couldn't stand was Boston. Jack Edwards sounds like he's in slow motion and Andy Brickley has that marble-mouthed Boston accent that I can't stand. That said, both were very complimentary of the Sabres, so I have to give them credit for being objective.

I saw the play and it looked like unintentional, incidental contact to me. Regardless of our different interpretations, Cozens definitely came out of it woozy and off-balance and it behooves the team to evalute for a concussion, whether he ultimately sustained one or not.

I had not thought of this, but it is true. The Sabres rarely have a guy parked in front of the net to screen the goalie. Because of this, they need an almost perfect shot to score. Many of the rockets off of Tage's and Olofsson's sticks have been those types of shots, but defenses are adjusting take that away, so perhaps putting a big body in front of the net to screen the goalie will allow some less than perfect shots to find their way in, or to result in a rebound with a guy right there to put it home.