Jorcus

Dahlin is +/- negative 7 and has not played a game where he has had a positive +/- stat. I said this last year but if he is not +20 at the end of the year we are probably not in the playoffs. He has the capability to go off at any time though and it certainly helps that players around him are doing well. I would expect things to go better. It would be hard to win without him playing well.

I pretty much think this is the way the division is going to go this year. The teams are much more even in maturity and player quality. Florida is hurt, Tampa has little depth. Toronto misses Marner. As down as the Bruins are they still can win on any given night. Wonder if Tampa and Florida are regretting the pre season war they had? No super teams no walkovers will make for an interesting year.

Because it was an Espn game I could go back and look what went wrong here. The Sabres were changing and Dahlin instead of staying behind the net and working with whomever would be coming on he pushed up the side wall. Two Leafs were in the zone and started to come at him. Two more were on his side of the ice in the neutral zone. Having no apparent outlet he does the flip. Lindy always want's them to rush out of the zone. Not sure if that's the excuse but certainly there was better play to be made from the get go. Dahlin does flip the puck way more than he should.

I see 88 on vivid seats which is cheap for Toronto.

Well Grubauer is in his 30's, makes 5.9 M and has been sub .900 in save percentage 4 years in a row. Who would you choose between the two?

I am certain he would. As I posted in the other thread his record is 155 games 71 / 65/ 15. His save percentage is low at .898 but he was playing behind young crappy buffalo defenders including forwards and blue liners.

Is he over Lyon at the moment? Probably not but I think that could change. I think the situation last year was partly a case of burn out. When the third pair is Clifton and Bryson, a second pair getting not enough D out of Sammy and Power it's tough. Add in that some of the forwards were not as responsible as a few we added I think we might be in a better situation. So while UPL might not be the whole solution I still think he is part of it compared to the alternatives. Only his play will determine where he is. UPL's record is 155 games 71/65/15 .898 behind a lot of crappy Buffalo D. Lyon is 119 games 53/42/11 .904. Some of that was on Florida and Carolina two of the most defensive teams in the east. Maybe at age 32 it's all coming together but that is very few games for a player of his age. Best case they both hit .910 or above and share the workload. If you go with Ellis, Lyon is playing 70% of the games and my guess is that will not go well. We just have recency bias with UPL. A 26 year old goalie with a winning record in the NHL is not going to get waived unless he is hurt beyond repair. So I have talked myself into saying yes he can lead us to the playoffs if everything around him is better.

In the right system at least to the playoffs. Maybe more. So yes.

There is just no way we can go with Ellis as the second man in the rotation. This is the Levi situation 2.0. Not trusting this season to a rookie goaltender.

UPL vs Ellis I am taking UPL. It doesn't really matter what I think because UPL is coming up. Ellis is getting waived. Georgiyev is just waiting to be traded for future considerations to a team that has injuries and no better options. Levi and Leinonen will continue on in Rochester. If Ellis gets through waivers then maybe they send Leinonen some other place. You can pretty much book all this happening barring injuries.

Also Ref's The criminals look for the weakest link. Either guys who have addictions or don't get paid very well. Ref's are an easy place to start. In game betting makes it worse. In the book I referenced there were people in the stands giving signals to players or refs during the game by turning hat's from one side of the head to the other. It's easy when you have a sport with a ref who can call penalties at will or a goalie who can determine the outcome late in a game on his own.

I doubt it. Once UPL is back Ellis is gone unless there is a roster space open. Before we think Ellis is the second coming of Ryan Miller try to remember back to Devon Levi's first stint in Buffalo. All good until it wasn't good enough. Ellis did not have the likes of Clifton, Bryson, and Johnson, playing in front of him. UPL has had some bad games in Buffalo but he has had plenty of good ones. If the team plays like it did last night in front of him he will be better than he was last year for certain.

Some of it is circumstance. In Matthews case last year he had some injury issues and he was playing for a defensive minded coach. I think a healthy Matthews on a free wheeling team he would be right back to where he was. A few games in he is still probably a point a game player this year. McDavid I kind of feel that there is less and less support around him. It's him and Leon doing almost all the work. Both these players reached very lofty levels that would be hard for anyone to maintain. Go back and look at Crosby and Ovechkin numbers and I think you see what Hall of fame stats look like over the years. It's hard to expect some of the outlier years that these guys had all the time.

Made a number of good saves the first goal he might have been better. Tampa's Geekie is a good shooter. The second he did not have help around the net. Late in the game Amerks had 2 men in the box but Syracuse could not score. All in all a good nights work.

Watching my favorite business podcast this morning discussing this. Draftkings and Fanduel are not allowed to operate in some states including Texas and California. They fear that the polymarket groups are going to get a back door into those markets. Also interesting to note Donald trump Jr. is a paid advisor to both platforms and directs investments to polymarket. Not to say Draftkings and Fanduel did not do a lot of political wheeling and dealing to get where they are. I only bet on horseracing so in general this is of no concern to me except the more money that is involved the bigger chance of game fixing. If you don't think that could be a problem I suggest reading the Big Fix by Brett Forest. It's about soccer match fixing. NHL would be a border line fixing target but some salaries are low enough that there could be an opening. The more that is wagered on the NHL the more vulnerable it becomes.

Maybe they are going to keep exposing Jones to waivers until someone claims him. Maybe there are too many players named Zac on the team for Ruff to keep track of. I expect they are making room for Greenway.

Some context is needed. When Mitts left Buffalo it was in a season where many of our scorers had been injured. I think when he left his rank in NHL scoring was over 100 so best of a bad situation. I posted this before but I was following an Avs. board quite a bit and the best description I found said he was an east west player on a north south team. I think the other situation is that he is a much better player along the wall than he is in front of the net. Granato was the key to his play. The best thing he does is gain and maintain the puck. When he is playing well he distributes the puck nicely but he can go into streaks of bad turnovers. That is the kind of thing that gets him on the bench. I haven't seen the Boston Mitts too much but he would seem to be a better fit for teams that are more about puck control than run and gun so you would think it was a better spot for him. There has been no injury that I am aware of. It's just the regression to where he was in systems and rolls that don't fit his game.

I did not know leads suck plays for Montreal.

It's a scary set of stats because you know it can't really hold up. Montreal has a frightening power play. At least Liane won't be able to drop a hat trick on us tonight, and he is on unit 2. The best thing O. Power does is carry the puck down the ice. When you watch Hutson do that it's like he is in a class all by himself. He can twist sideways and still move with speed. If the Sabres take a bunch of Penalties tonight they are done.

A turtle hug is not going to do it if he cheap shots one of our guys. I don't really expect that kind of game out of these two teams but if they got a guy we need a guy. If he takes out one of our guys we take out one of theirs. That's what Lindy said after the Thompson incident last year.

Who gets to fight Xhekaj if the need comes up?

All the numbers make sense which is why I think the Sabres want to sign him long term. Shorter term would be a higher AAV than longer and you end up with less money to work with for the other players. I think the Sabres would rather backload the contract to get over the Skinner hump and then have the salary cap increase to help pay for all of this. The trouble is players and agents seem to be going after front loaded deals with high guarantees. I don't worry about the drop off as much as you do. Of course a lot depends on how the team is looking overall. If the Sabres are in a playoff position at Christmas are they really going to torpedo their chance by moving Tuch? That would probably be right up their with the Briere Drury exit. I don't worry about Tuchs drop off nearly as much as you do. It would be our only aging contract and most established teams have at least one. There is a limit of course. I still think at the end of the day it will be in that 9-10 million slot no matter where he goes.

When Kozak came up last year I thought it was a situation of convenience because he was waivers exempt at that time. Although he did not play that many games what impressed me was his NHL edge stats. He is a fast skater and a hard shooter. It's rare that you could find 7th round picks with that much raw ability. He certainly can get up and down the ice and will play in front of either goal. He is can be wreckless with his body which shows effort but also can lead to injury. He had a board crash today. He has not shown much offensive ability in any league so far but between injury and player roll it's still possible that its in there someplace. I like him quite a bit but there is a fair chance we may lose him if he goes back. I am not sure why he is not still waiver exempt. If he sticks around he might be a Krebs replacement next year. If everyone is healthy someone has to go, it will probably be him.

Kodak Kozak, Hey that's pretty good. Both he and Malenstyn played more time short handed than they did 5 on 5. Amazing job on the PK.

I try not to say negative things after a win but Quinn did not have a very good game. In the second he had a shift where he made 3 mistakes that could have let the Panthers tie it up. The last shift I think he stayed on the ice too long. It wasn't all bad but his play away from the puck is sketchy.