Pimlach

Put Jost back at C on the 3rd line at least. Prefer pot playing VO and Mitts together.

Been a fan since 1970. The first 40 years were really good - No Cups but a lot more winning than losing and many great players. The past 12 years, basically the Pegula era, have been a disaster. You can see things looking brighter since Granato took over for Kruger.

Face offs. He needs to get better on face offs. It will help his defensive zone play

After Toilet Brush he was Refuting and Hefty Lefty.

That is tragically Hip !

Right now I have it: 1 Tage emerging as a 1C and scoring leader 2 Dahlin emerging as a top scorer and Norris candidate 3 Cozens a distant third but emerging as a power forward/1C and total player I think Tage and Dahlin are kind of equal, the different positions are hard to compare. Dahlin will eventually be #1 and probably hold it for awhile. the Norris voting will be interesting. I should not go to the most points only, the voting should include points plus total game and impact to team. Karlsson - pretty much all offense IMO Dahlin - #2 in scoring and playing great 2-way defense. Mekar - great player, past Norris winner and on a championship team Foxx - Also worthy, past winner, plus has NY media support. There are a bunch of others of course

Not at all. He was great and RJ will be the first to tell you that. Darling had the technique to describe the play in a synchronous accurate manner, and the velvet voice. RJ had the technique and he brought in big doses of emotion mixed with humor. Ray. I want to like him, and he is ok. I like his humor. But when I watch some other broadcasts, I hear his limitations.

What did you think of UPL last night? He has had a few strong games, and few klunkers. Sometimes UPL plays with good technique (last night) and other times he is a sloppy mess. It is well worth playing him over a guy like Tokarski. Goalies take a while.

Curious to what age you are? To me, Dunleavy is especially weak on radio, I have no picture in my mind of where the puck actually most of the time with Dunleavy calling the game. I grew up with Ted Darling, so my bar is high. I think Dunleavy is less bad on TV as I do not have to rely on him as much. Even yesterday while watching on TV, we were killing a penalty and having considerable trouble clearing the puck under pressure, finally someone cleared it, and Dan's call was: "its cleared by a Sabre". This was Tage and he did a fantastic job using his reach and power to win a puck battle and backhand the puck out of our zone. Dan missed an opportunity to share with the fans another part of his game. It was one of the small plays that helped us win. On the radio pretty much all you get from him is who scores. As for personality from the play-by-play man, think of RJ. The one thing RJ had over Ted Darling was his emotional personality, which leads to energy and to epic calls, and it got him a banner in the rafters. I do not expect him to be RJ, but Buffalo is used to RJ and his emotion and humor. Incidentally, both Darling and RJ are in the Hall of Fame for Hockey broadcasting, so Dunleavy has a huge, and maybe unfair chinning bar. So, I grade Dan as average on TV, below average on radio. He has a good voice. He can improve his accuracy in calling he game. First by tracking the puck position better and continuously updating the puck position as the play moves. He can describe this by use of the lines and circles on the ice to track position, but he doesn't do it enough. Once he gets puck position down, he can work on knowing who is out there. The better announcers know both team's players and call them by name.

It amazes me on my trips to Buffalo how many local sports fans there do not know that the Sabres are loaded with talent, and do not know how good Tage and Dahlin are. Chalk it up to 10+ years of no playoffs that coincide with the Bills building a powerhouse team filled with very likeable players and coaches. The Sabres news has been a revolving door in the FO, continuous firings and restructure, Jack Eichel drama, and constant losing. The Bills are now in the National spotlight, and they have an NFL Super Star in Josh Allen, and Josh has the personality and charisma to win over all kinds of fans. They are a legit Super Bowl contender. They have the steady, stable, and smart tandem of McDermott and Beane running things. They have many excellent players that "want to be here". The Sabres get less coverage because they have deserved less coverage. I was listening to WGR on Audacy yesterday and Bulldog said he didn't have much info on the last Sabres - Av's game because the Bills played that same day. He said he thought Mckinnon had 4-points last game and he would be out for this game. They both did not have much to say compared to Bills talk. The Bills are the priority, especially this year with expectations so high. This will start to even out as the Sabres become a contender again. Let see the Sabres make the playoffs this year, following the Bills Super Bowl win. The Sabres have to appeal to the younger fans. Young professionals, families with kids, they will come back when they see high character guys like Thompson, Dahlin and Cozens lead us back to a winning organization.

Agree, playing Mitts and VO together is not a good thing in our end of the ice. Mitts has a fight on his hands right now because Jost and Asplund deserve ice, especially if they can show they can help clamp down in the defensive zone. This is good healthy competition and should make Mitts look better for an eventual trade. With Savoie, Kulich, and Östlund in the pipeline I don't see Mitts sticking with this team.

Looking at our conference. We have to pass the Isles, Rangers, Canes, Caps, and Panthers, plus we have to beat the negative differential teams like Detroit, Montreal, Ottawa, Philly, and CBJ. We cannot lose points to these lower teams. Comrie coming back and playing better is a big key here.

Adams says he is looking at everything. The only negative here is that Laaksonen was our only D prospect in Rochester so you can read into this that they believe he is no longer projected to make the NHL. In that case improve Rochester if you can. With all the injuries forcing Clague and Pilut up, Rochester needs help.

Stay square, present his size, and control rebounds. Sometimes he does not do this. When he does he is good.

And we know that the one bad streak was when 10, 23, 46, and 78 all went down in a row. Right now, we are missing 10, 46, 78, and 21. It could make the remainder of the trip rough. The depth on the blueline is a significant drop-off but I see that Clagge had another big contribution logging 23 mostly solid minutes last night. I also think Fitz is playing better right now than in his first stint. We can see what area needs the most immediate help; this has been discussed all season.

OK now that was more than fairly impressive. It was fully impressive looking at 5 D and Power, Looby, Joker and Bryson out. The top players are playing like top players, and they are carrying things. The game ended with 72, 89, 24, 26, and 23 on the ice to seal the game. And they did. That is a nice group. Add in three rookies 21, 77, and 22 - all playing well, even fearless at times. Yes, Krebs is looking more comfortable too. Playing with the vets Kyle and Zemgus gives him more confidence. He can create on the 4th line - I like that. He showed some grit after he got plastered, he bounced right back.

Both are great tunes in their own right!

Back in 72, he was just starting with this big hit.

and he was +1

Nice win. Very nice. Played with 5 defensemen and held up.

Cozy closes it. Having Mitts line out is a problem. Call time out just to keep cozy and Tage out

Fitz had a strong shift. He is not big, but he is strong for his size.

Ok. We need to stand up in this period and blues them out.

Krebsie not backing down and playing involved hockey. That hit was good for him.

Dahlin is awesome