Taro T

8/7/87 to be specific.

Put this elsewhere but guess it should go here instead: Kind of surprised they have 7 goalies in camp. Wonder if they're planning on loaning #5 to a different AHL team, #7 to a different ECHL team, or God forbid bring back the 3 headed monster. Maybe 1 or 2 of them are still Juniors eligible?

Kind of surprised they have 7 goalies in camp. Wonder if they're planning on loaning #5 to a different AHL team, #7 to a different ECHL team, or God forbid bring back the 3 headed monster. Maybe 1 or 2 of them are still Juniors eligible?

Nah, it'd be Thorns or Thorner.

Yep. His issue in Buffalo was his GMing, not his coaching. But 1 clarification, he was GM in St. Louis briefly.

It is. But it is right in line with what the presumed 11 and 12 are getting. Still expect the 13th guy on any given night to be determined based upon matchups with the opponent that night.

Good for Krebs. Still see him as the 13. Will be interesting to see if, when the team is fully healthy, the top 12 are static or if the 13th guy changes based upon opponent. Expecting it'll be more dynamic than a simple case of the 13th guy being there until somebody gets injured.

Per a Sabres Mailbag article on their website, TC opens on the 18th. No data if that's the day they report or the day they hit the ice.

McGill - Wexler

Missed most of the Kids Q&A which had Biron moderating McLeod, Byram, and Thompson. In the B&GI session, Marty had said all 3 said beer was their favorite beverage, so Munich in October could be interesting. 😉 There wasn't as much meat in the B&GI session as in the past. A lot of the questions were more geared to how Dahlin and Tuch spent their summers. Ras spent most of it in Sweden with some time spent working out with teammates in Switzerland. He's been back in Buffalo for about a month skating with teammates. Tuch got married and usually starts skating in July but started at the beginning of summer in June this year. When asked specifically about their off-season training regimens, Ras mentioned he works hard on condiditioning and nutrition as he wants to play every minute of every game. (So, don't be shocked if he still ends up playing 24-27 minutes each night.) Tuch talked about how he added pilates to his regimen. There was a Q about the PP and Ras said he felt a big part of the problem last year was that they were VERY focused on the X & O's and getting to set plays at the expense of letting guys with high hockey IQ's just play. They knew everybody knew they were working towards getting Thompson the 1 timer, but that was still what they were getting coached to do. Both made it sound like under Ruff the goal was going to be getting pucks to the net with a lot of variety in how they do that and that they're expecting Tommer to have a bounceback on the PP as they'll be doing so much other stuff that 1 timer will actually open up again. It also sounds like Tuch could be either the bumper or the net front guy so nothing new on that front. They expect to do a lot of planning and video work still to get off to a quick start. Both are expecting Ruff to make the season fun but with expectations that the players will put in full efforts. And if somebody isn't giving full effort nor doing what is asked of him that there will be consequences in lost ice time. "You have to earn everything you get." They expect the practices to be hard but expect the work will pay off in the end which will also make it fun. There were a few Q's about leadership & accountability. IMHO, the responses made it sound like they're going to be co-captains. They both spoke to last year being a learning experience for the young team and how between going through that, being a year older, and bringing in guys with playoff experience that they now understand how much they have to work and not just work but work within a structure. It isn't enough to just go out and play hard. There needs to be a purpose within each shift. Other teams hadn't game planned them 2 years ago but did last year and talent alone won't beat a quality opponent with a focus. The "structure within the game is something that is so important" you can't just "feel the game" to win. You need to rely on the team game and not just the skill. They were asked about goaltending and both raved about UPL (Tuch - "he's already underpaid this coming year;" Ras - "everybody loves him because he works so hard;" etc.) and never mentioned even in passing either of the other 2 goalies. So, really am personally coming around to the fairly common thought around here that Levi will be starting the year in Ra-cha-cha. A bunch of other stuff about favorite restaurants and golf courses. But that's the meat of it. Nothing terribly earth shaking. The slam of Ellis (without naming him specifically) was mildly unexpected. The slam of no plan / system last year was not unexpected. No mention of Levi at all was mildly unexpected, but Ruff had responded pretty much the same way a couple of months ago, so it was only mildly unexpected. And again, sounded like we're going to have co-captains. Will know if that was an accurate read in a few weeks at the latest. Didn't end up seeing any of the other player interviews on the main stage outside nor in the rink. Those were (or at least seemed to be ) on kind of going on a bit of an unstructured schedule unlike the stuff you were supposed to need tix for. Overall, most of the fan fest is geared towards kids (as it should be). And, realiizing there are single game seats on sale, so some seats are officially not available for seasons, but even with just looking at seats available for quarter season packages there are well less than 2,000 seats available and maybe even less than 1,000. (Which puts the STH base (in equivalents) somewhere a bit above 12,000 seats. (Which is getting close to the old 14,000 sth seat cutoff. Expect they'd have a full STH base had they not spit the bit last year. As much as people want to consider Buffalo just a football town, it really is a hockey town too. They just need a team that is actually putting in a real effort to demonstrate it.)

Yeah, he does look like he'll be a good one when he gets adjusted to the NA game. Because of all the time in Sweden, see him being about 1 year behind where Kulich is right now. Meaning, expecting Kulich to be a full time NHLer by the end of the season and expect Östlund will be there 1 year later.

Personally see 4 "kids" with a VERY outside shot (well 3 with a very outside shot and 1 with an outside shot) of making the Sabres out of camp: Kulich, Johnson, Rousek, and Levi. Expect before the season is out Kulich and Levi will be full time Sabres with Johnson having a little less than a 50-50 shot of being full time on the big club by then and Rousek needed a few injuries in the bottom 6 to even get to that level of chances he's a full time Sabre by the end of the year. There's a few others that will likely get looks when injuries hit (Tullio, Rosen, maybe Östlund, Helenius, or even very outside chance of Wahlberg) but doubt any of them stick when the guy they're in for gets healthy.

Would be shocked if Ruff would put Kulich in the 2 Euro games and then send him down as soon as they get back on this side of the pond. This season is about winning and unless they see Kulich as earning one of the top 12 slots they aren't going to risk starting the year 0-2 because of feelz. And if he is in the top 12 after camp, can't see him dropping to 14/15 after 2 games. Fully expect him to get action against Red Bull, but then expect him and about 5 others to be deemed Amerks by the time the games move to Czechia.

Well, considering he's at best 11th on the depth chart at present, he will get that time.

It was more of an off hand comment at the end of a long statement pointing out that they're all older and guys that can help on the leadership front such as Zucker (who was specifically mentioned for having won a SC and having played w/ Tuch before) have been brought it. Specifically mentioned how there is a lot of leadership in the room now. They both also specifically said there are no excuses this season. Post made it seem to have a different flavor than it did hearing it live. Sorry about that.

Fwiw, they held another B&G I at the Fan Fest today. The 2 players taking questions were Tuch and Dahlin (and Biron was the moderator). Based on the way they were talking in the session, am standing by the contention from when this thread was bumped - expect there to be co-captains this season and would not be at all surprised if there are multiple guys (or outside possibly even none) wearing an A along with the captain that isn't wearing a C that night. They both were talking about how there're a lot of leaders in the room and how neither one of them need to stand in front of the team every single game because of how many leaders there are now in the room that can help them out with it.

It is SIGNIFICANTLY bigger than the old one. Hoping it's not so large that it's distracting to those watching up in the nose bleeds. Didn't head up there to check out the view of it from there. There do seem to be more sound dampening panels up in the rafters near the new rood (but that could very well simply be due to noticing them now and not really noticing them in the past) but the speakers are still arranged in the same pattern as before. So, am not overly hopeful that the accoustic issues in the barn have been adequately fixed. (Need hearing protection in our section and people in the 200's claim they can't hear a thing there.)

Not trying to guess who your buddy works for. But pretty sure it was fairly well known that Arizona wanted Kulich when the Sabres drafted him.

And speaking of McDermott being Bellicheatian (minus the soul selling).

He didn't face much, but Ratzlaff looked good too. A Drydenesque game. Didn't have to make many saves, but seemed like when he did have to they were against really good chances. And on the one goal against it seemed the F's got a little lost in coverage during the 4v4.

How did Kevyn Adams hijack Thorny's account? 😉

And the Bills, much like the Cheats used to under Brady, are perfectly content to run long drives and wait for the right opportunity to try for the long strike. If they're going to give you underneath stuff that picks up 8 or 9 yards a pop, take it. You rarely end up in a 3rd down situation that way and you keep your D off the field a bit longer. Force them to take those plays away and then the long ball opportunities open up. Like when a putz like Jaylen Ramsey covers Ty Johnson. (Absolutely love watching Ramsey get torched. Especially after he shoots his mouth off about Allen.) Might want to ask the Titans QB that one. 😉

Kirby Smart? Try Bellicheat. Except for the fact he hasn't sold his soul (as evidenced by 0 SB's yet), there is a lot of Bellicheatian similarities in McDermott. Always has a strong D with a next man up approach that keeps rolling. They were missing the entire middle of their defense (Milano, Bernard, Johnson) for 50 or so minutes last night and gave up all of 10 points. His teams almost always take over the 3rd Q (as you'd mentioned). He has a willingness to walk away from guys that have been core pieces (Poyer, Hyde, Morse) when he and Beane expect they're ready to fall off the cliff. Only missed the playoffs once so far as a HC.

They literally squeaked out the victory against Dallas last year. Minus Dallas fumbling at the goal line, the Fishies lose that one as well.

He wore different ones in the post game interview. Those were more the Grandpa's $2 cheaters for trying to read the menu at Stuckey's.