Archie Lee

I agree. Some will interpret this as being ok with losing the extra point. That’s not it at all. We’ve lost 4 or 5 games in regulation this year where the score was tied in the 3rd. If we get 2 of those to OT we likely have 3 more points. We will win more of these than we will lose. It’s possible to be unhappy with the loss and happy we got the point at the same time. If the Islander score holds, we are tied for wild card 2. I realize we have played a game or two more than other teams, but we are 3-1-1 in our last 5. The trend is in the right direction.

Agreed with everything here. Olofsson is prone to being streaky. Even last year there were stretches where he was the only guy, or one of the only guys, who was cooking offensively for a stretch or two.

The %’s you have noted actually prove that there is movement after Thanksgiving among bubble teams. The Sabres went into this year as a bubble team. I doubt that will change between now and Thanksgiving and we are likely going to be in the wildcard race for most of the season.

Tough crowd when it comes to Okposo. He played 17 minutes last night. He plays an important role on what is at the moment one of the league's top PK units. Is our captain and, by all accounts, is one of the most respected leaders in the league. I haven't seen a noticeable drop off from last season. Okposo, Krebs, Girgs (and Cozens) are tops among Sabres forwards in D-zone starts. How many goals do people think 4th lines score? Boston? Dallas? NYR? Colorado? The answer so far this season is fewer than ours.

I agree with this. I applaud his willingness, but if he plays another 10 years in the league I hope that he has no more than 2-3 strategically placed fights with carefully chosen opponents.

What fascination are you referring to? He’s played 3 NHL games. The Sabres are giving him and Rousek looks to see if their games translate to a higher level. I think this is important. You might have a Derek Ryan in your midst. Also, you give such players, who are most likely career minor leaguers, some hope and something to keep aiming for. If they don’t rise to the occasion they will be back in Rochester.

Sometimes it is hard to learn a lesson when you win. The Sabres could/should have learned a lesson on Wednesday about intensity, defence, structure, etc., but scoring on 33% of their shots and UPL saving 38/40, instead taught them that they can evidently win without being committed to those things. The lesson will be more obvious after last night’s game. I understand that we are well past the point for some where any excuse is acceptable. I still think though that these tend to be lessons that young teams learn the hard way. I stand by my view that if we can hover right around true .500 (NOT NHL .500) until game 60-65, we will be in it. We are a 5-6 game winning streak away from most people wondering what we were worried about. Along the way there are going to be some distressing nights.

Thanks. I didn’t know the 25% max on 2nd retention.

Someone who knows more about NHL contracts can advise if this is allowed: how about the Sabres trade Olofsson to SJ for Kevin Labanc while both retaining 50%. They are the same age, play the same position and make the same money. Both are on the outs and are UFA next year. If either gets going with a change of scenery, that’s good. Also, with their cap hits cut in half, they could be moved with further 50% retention getting their cap hits down around $1.2 million. Would this be allowed? Not ideal, but both teams would be giving a vet player a shot at a change of scenery. Labanc comes from the USNDP. As is, I think we would need to add a pick to move Olofsson, even with retention.

Also meaning nothing: the team’s winning % after 8-10 games. This time last year ours was .700.

To provide some context: - Prior to be becoming an NHL goalie last season, UPL had consistently been a ranked top-10-goalie prospect or an honourable mention top-goalie prospect for several years on many prospect lists - In UPL's first 13 NHL games split over the 2020/21 and 2021/22 seasons, he had a .913 save %. - Last year, through January he played 20 games and had a .901 save %. He was the NHL rookie of the month for January 2023 - It's worth noting that UPL's save % through his first 33 NHL games is objectively better than Levi's to this point in Levi's career (not in any way a shot against Levi, who I am excited about) - UPL's Feb and March last year were very bad (though he did end the season with 2 wins and a .911 save % over his last 3 appearances) What team waives a young goalie who has been considered a top prospect for years, because they had two bad months in their rookie NHL season? Thankfully, not the Sabres.

I enjoy advanced stats. Using them for single game evaluations can be misleading though. Goals saved above expected really does not work as a single game stat. To begin with, you can’t give up 1.26 goals in a game. If you face a Jack Hughes breakaway the first shot of a game and are scored on you will be negative on goals saves above expected. Doesn’t really tell you much other than you got scored on by Jack Hughes. Also, UPL faced 22 shots against NJ in only 28 minutes. Vanicek saw 27 shots over 60. Workload matters. What was the team corsi over the 28 minutes UPL played against NJ? I was listening to the new Expected Buffalo podcast last night. They are not UPL fans. They glossed over Levi’s poor start, largely blaming it on how the Sabres managed his workload (I agree that they overused Levi to start the year, but can also acknowledge he has been below average in performance through his four games). Then they proceeded to pick apart individual goals that UPL gave up while labeling people who defend him as “UPL-lovers”. I don’t see a lot of people blindly loving or defending UPL. I mostly see that some of us want to put in context that he is a young goalie who for most of his NHL career has not enjoyed the luxury of a stable defensive environment in front of him. At the start of the season the Sabres were the league’s youngest team by average age at 25.5 (per capfriendly). UPL is a year younger than our average age, playing a position where it is universally understood that development takes longer. Some of us just think there is a good goalie in there and want to give the kid a break.

Worst case scenario with Krebs is he is a versatile bottom six forward who can kill a penalty, win a draw, get under the other teams skin. If those are the things he can do in the NHL, then he will probably be better at them when he is 25-26 than he is at 22. No need to lose patience or be disappointed yet. No reason he can’t be our Casey Cizikas.

Thanks for this. I agree. I should add though, that I think Adams did himself no favor when he failed to get Ullmark signed. My position going back to Ullmark's final year with the Sabres is that the Thatcher Demko 5 x $5 million deal was the benchmark for getting a goalie like pre-Bruins Ullmark signed long-term. It is, basically, the deal Tristan Jarry got this off-season as well. All three were basically .911 - .915 goalies (not stars, but upper-mid-level starters) at the time they signed their current deals. Ullmark, to his full-credit, is benefiting from the team-impact on his #'s. Had Adams offered Ullmark 5x5 before the end of the 2021-2022 season, I can't imagine that he would have declined. Adams's reluctance to go past 4 years, I think, helped Ullmark decide to test the market and when the Bruins matched our offer he took the opportunity to go to a winning team rather than stay with the Sabres through a rebuild. Make no mistake though, Ullmark at .911 - .915 here, would be plenty good enough. Vanicek, in my opinion, is at least a grade-level below Ullmark, Demko, and Jarry and I'm not convinced he would be better here than the goalies we have on our roster have been.

NJ were 3rd best in xga last year. We were 27th. I’m not convinced that Vanicek would have thrived here or that UPL/Comrie would have floundered there. For clarity, I’m not of the view that this is undoable. We are 8 games in and I think there is a clear effort to get the team to play better defence. I don’t think Eric Johnson makes the comment he made if coaches were not emphasizing D. He was, in my view, imploring his teammates to take serious what is being preached. The lack of great results thus far does not mean it is not being stressed or that it won’t be successful as we get deeper into the season.

If the point is that Adams should have got a better goalie then my answer is, fair enough. I think you judge results and thus far the goaltending results have not been good. But not every team in the league is 25th in expected goals against. 24 teams do better (so far this season). UPL won’t magically turn into Connor Hellebuyck. It doesn’t take magic to play better defensive hockey than we are playing. We can wish and hope for better goaltending or we can reduce the number of opportunities we give to other teams.

No, we could stop turning the puck over and giving the other teams multiple odd-man rushes per game. The 2nd and 3rd goals against yesterday started with unforced and careless turnovers that lead to breakaways. We could commit to reducing those type of plays, without sacrificing scoring, and allow fewer goals against.

It would, honestly, require a Saros or a Hellebuyck level goalie for the Sabres to look like they have good goaltending. If this team could just learn to commit to team defence and be offensively patient at times (not passive, just patient), we could have dragged 2 or 3 games to OT this year, we would have 2-4 more points in the standings and our goaltending would be fine (not great, just fine). Until we stop being careless with the puck and being happy to just trade chances with the opposition, including in the 3rd period of tied games, this is just what it's going to look like. Per MoneyPuck, we are 25th in the league in expected goals against at 5v5 and in all situations. Our expected goal differential in all situations is -3. We are at -4. Our goaltending has been far from great, but it has not been the issue.

They should do what they should have done from the start of the season. If all are healthy, rotate them like a rotation of starting pitchers until one or two emerge or show they aren’t the answer. The NHL sample sizes on all 3 are too small to draw any conclusions yet. If you can’t decide based on what you have seen to date and therefore need all 3, then play all 3 and let them sort themselves out.

It is beyond me that anyone could watch tonight’s game and come away thinking that UPL didn’t play well. The last 5 minutes was a complete collapse of the team’s focus and commitment.

The way hockey used to be back when there were never any cheap shots? In all my years watching hockey, there has never been a time where being physical with a player like Tkachuk, stopped said player from being a cheap shot artist. Now, if your argument is that at some point a good team needs to be able to “fight fire with fire”, I can accept that. But players like Brady Tkachuk won’t stop being who they are because they took a few heavy body checks. Indeed, that’s the sort of thing that encourages them.

Very happy with the win. Disappointed that the priority in the 3rd seemed more to be getting Skinner a hat-trick than preserving a good game for their young goalie.

Hockey, is a strange game.

I think this is oversimplifying things. The message E. Johnson was trying to send this week is that the offense is going to be there and we will win games by out scoring the opposition. But, if we want to take the step from being a .500ish team that flirts with the playoffs to being a true playoff team and contender, then we will need to play better defensively so that when the offense dries up for a spell, as it currently has, we can win low scoring games with some consistency. This will, obviously, also serve us well once we are in the playoffs. I agree with you that if our offense was clicking right now we could be 3-1 and nobody is panicking. That would not change the fact though, that ultimately we need to be a better defensive team.

Just my view, but you have reached a number of conclusions without much evidence. I’m not making excuses. They have not been good through 4 games and need to be better in all phases. But I’m not ready to conclude at this early stage of the season that the youngest team in the league is incapable of committing to growth in any particular area.