Taro T

Really expect Okposo to have essentially the season he did last year. Is he the the next captain? No figgin' idea. He's the conscience of this team & Tuch is it's heart. One is the representative of the past that stayed professional while all around him was falling apart the other is the representative of the future where all the little details matter and letting things fall apart will in no way be acceptable.. Which does Granato and Adams want wearing the C? Again, no friggin' idea but either will be an obvious choice in hindsight and the one that gets the A will be the other guy's biggest supporter.

And am very interested how Lyubushkin fits in during year 1 here for a similar reason. D very often take a year of acclimation to a new system before fitting in. He, hopefully will be but, could be an exception as he stepped fairly seamlessly into TO's mix last year. Regardless, am expecting more out of him in year 2 than we see this year. (And that's from someone pushing for him to be Power's primary partner.) Could definitely see Detroit, the Otters, & Joisey all have growing pains trying to work all the new guys in together. Hoping for it at any rate because if they all do and any of Bah-stan, the Caps, or the Pens falter; this season could be better than expected if Comrie is all we hope Bales could make him.

Never seems to be a problem for Tua.

Absolutely hoping it's not the case and it very well might not be the case but just read the tea leaves wrong. But until he actually goes after a goalie that is clearly likely to be what we're all hoping for, he hasn't done so and regardless of our hoping he'll do what he's going to do.

IMHO, that would be a ridiculously dumb move. Granted small sample size, but that pairing has been the 1st time the Sabres have iced a legit top pairing since at least Ehrhoff's departure & likely since Myers magical rookie season which owed an awful lot to Tallinder.

Still have the same Q as before. Ain't breaking up Samuelsson-Dahlin. Which of Jokiharju, Lyubushkin, or Subban are you sliding to the left side or out of the lineup w/ him in the fold?

Not crazy, just dumb. Be a STH for over 1/4 of a century.

Wtf does Aaron Rodgers have to do w/ the Buffalo Sabres analytics department? 😉

Ha! That was the 2nd song they played Thursday. They actually played both as bookends around Enter Sandman.

Thanks for that. Personally, don't see Krebs' gaffes as being as spectacularly 'watch me, I'm the best player out here' which was always my take when Connolly screwed up pre-lockout but more of the 'I've got a teammate w/ a great opportunity if I can thread this through.' Thought Connolly was a selfish player early and don't see any of that from Krebs. Also, though Connolly was only a little bigger than him, he increased his strength tremendously before coming back from the lockout. Not convinced Krebs has the frame for that to be possible. (Would be very pleased to be wrong about that.) Timmy matured greatly after the lockout. Guess the younger Connolly is too etched & it is so different than Krebs to fully see where Krebs path might follow Tim's. (And hopefully minus the injuries.)

Talentwise, he is at best the 14th skater on this team. But unless they decide they're going to force Asplund into the 4C role when it seems they see him as a 2 way winger, or they decide they're going to roll 4 offensive lines (including a line w/ Cozens-Okposo on it) rather than 3 w/ either a checking/ energy line, fully expect him to be the 11th or 12th F on opening night.

Agree w/ this in large part. Really think he believes that Levi can be THAT guy, but even if he isn't he knows that when the skaters are ready, they will need GTing. But really not convinced that he thinks they need THAT guy. Expect he believes that with enough tickets, he can find one that can get hot enough at the right time. (Again, his SC ring came courtesy of Ward & Gerber behind a playoff roster that only lost 1 man game in 4 rounds from what it started with. (And Eric friggin' Cole was the injury replacement.)) He's lived 'meh' goalies getting hot at the right time behind enough firepower. Still believe that's a large part why the Sabres have Bales, he's made 'meh' goalies good enough in the past.

Truly an excellent show. As soon as the sun dropped below the scoreboard the temperature dropped a good 20 degrees and the weather was excellent from then. The 1st act (Ice Nine Kills) played for just over 40 minutes and were quite theatrical. Greta Van Fleet played for an hour. Then Metallica played for 2 hours with a bunch of the songs having some (or all) of the band set up on a small stage in the middle of the crowd. And it got dark just as they hit the stage. Perfectly timed & the 6PM start finally made sense. Disappointed they didn't play the Unforgiven, but that's a minor complaint. GREAT show. Had everything. The band was energized, the videos tracked well. Had layers, fireworks, & LOUD. Had never seen Metallica live. Went with the kids. It was worth the price of admission.

Distrust & the corresponding dislike of those that don't fit into our "tribe" (however determined though politics, race, age, sex, religion, regionalism, etc.) definitely seems to be on the rise though it's still lower than it was 50+ years ago. Not sure of the causes (though have some thoughts on that which will NOT be delved into here) but one solution seems to be to stop putting people into groups and rather focus on the individual. Also, try to cut our fellow human beings some slack (far easier said than done) when they say or do something that just flat out seems not up to our own standards. That person who seems ignorant, might actually be ignorant and not intentionally an arse. If you have the time & the inclination, help them; if not, ignore them and the next time you do have the time & the inclination, help the next ignorant person you run into. You know you will have plenty of opportunity to do so should you choose. And by help, don't chide, that won't do anything positive, but actually help. Understand yourself where that person is coming from & then maybe you can help them to understand your perspective. My 2 cents.

What in his game reminds you of Connolly? Don't see that at all. At Krebs age he was REALLY lazy in his own end, which Krebs isn't at all. Connolly at that stage also would carry the puck too much before making really dumb passes he was forced into. The dumb passes Krebs makes aren't a result of overplaying the puck but rather from believing he can put the puck through tighter windows than he can actually do so. When Connolly took the game seriously after THE lockout his style still seemed different than Krebs IMHO, though maybe there's a similarity there (thus the Q at the top of the post).

If you are referring to expected point totals, yes Savoie is more likely to be Briere than Krebs will. Krebs probably fits in more somewhere between Derek Plante & Derek Roy. But wasn't referring to his scoring, was referring to HOW he'll be deployed / have his greatest opportunity at success when playing C. And IMHO that will be as a C mainly in name & less in actual deployment. Briere was not good at the defensive responsibilities of C but he usually didn't need to be because he had guys like Hecht & (until he walked) Dumont on his line & then guys like Leino on his line who could help cover for his defensive deficiencies. Haven't seen enough of Savoie to know whether he'll need help or not, but just don't see Krebs bulking up to a point where he doesn't need help w/ the defensive responsibilities, though could see his savvy and earnestness at the 200' game being able to mask the deficiencies when he isn't going against top lines. Could see him centering Mittelstadt or Cozens with his "winger" getting a lot of responsibility in the Sabres end.

Johnson. (Ryan's dad.)

They're only going to keep 13 F's on the roster when everybody is healthy. Someone besides Bjork will be in Ra-cha-cha IF they come through TC unscathed.

Interesting. Really thought they'd hold the ceremony against the Ducks. 🍺

And for how many years did we expect Eakin to not be in the opening night lineup? Agree that he shouldn't be top 12, but expecting on opening night he is. Until he's actually made this year's Jankowski, will expect he's this year's Eakin. And Eakin did actually get healthy scratched at times by Granato. But he was in the lineup on day 1 every time. As for Asplund, expect he'd get that slot, but could see Hinostroza there as well. (Which is why he was listed 1st of the 2.)

With Sheahan, could see: Skinner - Thompson - Olofsson Quinn - Cozens - Okposo Krebs - Mittelstadt - Tuch Girgensons - Sheahan - Asplund/Hinostroza to start opening night if everyone's healthy.

You can call him the 14th forward, but unless Granato is being very creative (and he might) Sheahan will be slotted in as the 4C. It'd be cool to see the checking line be a true 2 way line with say Asplund- Cozens-Okposo (& Girgensons as the fill in when things slot around) in which case Riley is the 14 but not expecting that. Expecting him to C Girgensons & somebody. Okposo is an obvious choice, but expect him slotting higher. Maybe Hinostroza, maybe Asplund, maybe ???.

@Curt probably has the points about right. Expect Krebs will play more W than C but expect him to play a fair amount at each. LT expect him to play a Briere style C role where he's nominally the C but a linemate helps with a lot of the heavy lifting of the job.

Didn't sell T-shirts to help the local youth hockey team my kids had grown up through. (We didn't benefit, but a lot of my friends kids do.) Nor to buy the Ameks nor revive the Kin-ig-hit Hawks. Pretty sure the donation to Penn State didn't come through a foundation either. Of course they use fan good will/ generosity to make themselves look better. So does Wegmans everytime someone purchases that $1 or $5 charitable donation at the register. Pretty much every other corporation interacting closely w/ the public does the same. There are very few Paul Newman's that actually don't make a penny off stuff like this. Wish there were more like him, but is what it is. (And, sadly, he ain't here no more.)

1. The Knox Brothers buying into the Seals. Set the stage for us getting our own team. 2. Signing Imlach. Set the stage for us having an actual HOCKEY team rather than an expansion team. 3. Imlach putting on his glasses and getting us Bert on that lucky 11. 4. Fleecing Chicago for Dom for only Ruuttu and the pick that turned out to be Daze. (No, the trade in reality wasn't Beauregard & a pick for him. That's the lazy way of looking at it. Kind of like saying we traded Reinprecht to land Drury. Sabres obtained Steve strictly to land Chris. Same durn situation.) 5. 70 saves to go back to Joisey.