Taro T

With all the great chances the Amerks had, Mersch ties it at 1 on a poor angle shot off the goalie's stick. Peterka had shot wide on a breakaway. Weisback did likewise on 4v4 & then Peterka hit a post on a 2v2 rush as the 4v4 expired all to no avail. Then Mersch throws junk to the net that strikes gold.

Doesn't seem like that's a done deal yet. Bills want him as OC too.. Wonder how much the Jints will offer him. Hopefully not enough. Really want him bumped up to OC.

They have someone to stop Hill. His name is White. They need someone to stop Kelce consistently.

The only real questions now are: 1. Will we see the Sabres take sole possession of the NHL record by ending up w/ an 8th netminder play this year? And 2. Who will #8 be? (Will they make another Subban-esque pickup? Will the other guy in Ra-cha-cha come up w/ Robson? Will Levi &/or Portillo get a game in to get them to 9 & even 10?)

Hoping the Q is who IS the starter. UPL will definitely be back. They need to have somebody better than him on paper for him to have to battle past. Because this team won't be good enough to have (at best) Marty Biron between the pipes. And if Biron is what the back up ends up, with 3 decent scoring lines, a checking line, and mid-tier D; they may have something that can & should be in the mix.

Mat Robson, come on down (the 90). You're the next contestant on "The Goalie is Right?" Dog it! 6 friggin' seconds!

To the bolded, until we go through a trade deadline that proves the ones that turn dumb when the pressure is on are gone, won't believe it. Haven't seen a trade deadline like that yet. To your final question, pretty much figure that depends on whether the Sabres have concession rights to @LGR4GM's meltdown. If they do, any contract could pay for itself. 😉

Or, teams will have to dump a bad contract &/or get retention on the contract they're taking on along w/ whatever they're paying to get a Miller or Eakin to make the $'s work, and to get the Sabres or other seller to make the deal they now have to give up a 2nd when a 3rd would have worked w/out taking on the extra baggage.

Not really except in the very limited case where bringing in a Boychuk contract & the associated other moves gets a team closer to the cap prior to trying to bring in another guy necessitating putting Boychuk on LTIR. (IE, Prior to bringing in Boychuk the team was $1 MM below the cap, but after bringing him in they're at the cap.) They can now exceed the cap by Boychuk's full cap hit rather than by $1MM less than that amount because they would've been $1MM under when they tried to trigger BF-LTIR without having made those moves to bring him in. (Hopefully, that's clear. Didn't want to write a novella to be more precise in the wording.) A Boychuk type contract for a player that isn't playing is far more useful on the floor of the cap range, or more accurately getting up to the floor.

To the bolded, probably just wishful thinking, but them dropping a couple/few $MM could go a reasonable way towards making up for the fiasco that not paying O'Reilly's $7MM turned into. (Even if Thompson & Johnson turn into home runs, not having anything useful for that season coming back when Eichel, & Reinhart, & McCabe, & Ullmark might actually have wanted to be in Buffalo was a huge mistake. And not being cheap then/there might have saved us a THIRD retooling. Sorry for re-rebringing that up.) Starting to make up for that would be nice. And might help w/ getting attendance back where they want it to be sooner than otherwise, so it might actually save/make them money in the long run.

And they'll never have scheduling priority over the Rockets there. They'd also be playing in a city that's football crazy that couldn't / wouldn't sell out a 65k football stadium during a 7 year playoff run unless the Stillers, Browns, or Pokes were in town. Just sayin'.

Which is why they shouldn't be taking on multi-year bad contracts. But cap space is an expiring asset - when the season ends, that unused cap space expires and has $0 value. There are teams that want to add to their roster THIS season. Use some of that ridiculous cap space available to them to let a team exceed the cap this year & collect a rent that will improve the team moving forward. Pretty sure Adams retained salary on both Hall & Staal, so he & ownership aren't opposed to it if it makes sense. The more thought that goes into this, the more interesting the trade deadline becomes. Was pretty sure it would be completely uneventful for the Sabres this year, but we might see them end up w/ some useful pieces for essentially nothing but the owners' money. (Not expecting any awesome deals, but if they add another couple of 2nds or a 2nd & a 3rd maybe they can use those to get into a spot they want to be in the upcoming or the next draft.

Another prime example of why teams that are in "non-traditional" markets should avoid building rinks where land is cheap. (Sunrise FLA being the other prime example.) The land is cheap for a reason; you can't afford giving the casual fan (which is predominant in non-traditional markets) a ready made excuse to not go. (It's too long of a drive. Waaah.)

Had Mittelstadt not missed 1/2 of this season, expect he'd've had the inside track to being the next Sabre to wear a C. Will be interesting to see what they do w/ the C next year as could really see them go w/ no C once again but w/ 3 A's rather than just 2, or see it go to any of Mitts, Dahlin, Thompson, or Tuch w/ Cozens having a strong chance of getting it in 2 years if they don't hand it out next year.

Really don't mind the idea of Tuch becoming the Captain except for the fact that we've seen so many guys that didn't come up through this organization since the new owners took over show up & become Captain in short order (sometimes even on day 1) & never really ending up able to lead the guys that were already here before them. Realize his is a completely different background from the others (well, to all but Gionta, & he isn't riding out the last couple of years like Geo was) & that he's already been operating as a leader but would hope they could give it deservingly to someone that has been here longer.

Don't know about that. The team is quite adamant in their building a winning (professional?) culture along w/ "not blocking" the kids. For that reason, absolutely expect the 2 full time "A"'s back & could very well see Pysyk back, too. They're all in leadership roles & don't block anybody but 4th liners & 3rd pairing guys. As for the rest, maybe Jankowski is back in a similar role to what he had this year (except on a 2 way, rather than AHL deal) if he xan't get any better offers & Bjork is back unless somebody really likes the cut of his jib as he's under contract next year. Hopefully someone does, but if not, hope he likes Garbage Plates & Barbeque.

He was definitely originally injured on that Gallagher play. We presumed it was wrist, but he came back later during a stoppage & tested his skating but never returned. As it was always described as an Upper Body injury, presumed it was in fact the wrist. When he went out injured again and this time got surgery, Granato intimated it was the same general injury as the original one. So, again several of us presumed it was wrist again. Am now, based upon his skating 2 nights ago, assuming it was an abdominal hernia (aka a sports hernia) that kept him out. If so, he'll likely seem a little slow for a couple of weeks & then look more like himself after that, though probably not 100% until next season. Durn HIIPA Laws keeping us from knowing for certain as am pretty sure at least 1 poster here knows what the injury actually was/is.

Well, Bettman won't run things forever. After that, who knows what the revised policy towards franchise relocations becomes. Buffalo in the NHL seems a no-brainer. But since when have the half wits running the league been known to get no-brainer correct?

Quite possible that's the case. Would be very good to get something for Eakin and have him gone. Proverbial win/win. And Jankowski has performed well in a 4th line role to date. Would be interesting to know what Granato's thoughts are on a potential Girgensons - Jankowski - Okposo line. Considering, that 4th line IS the shut down line for now, curious if Granato trusts Jankowski in that role. Guessing he doesn't, but Don seems to trust everybody in every role (at least in a year when wins are gravy & not expected), so maybe he does trust him. Also, curious about next year's lineup. Does Asplund slide down into that 4C role opening up a spot for Peterka in the top 9 or does that 4C get filled by a journeyman? "No blocking" would seem to give Asplund a leg up there but maybe they let Peterka brew another year (at least until injuries open a slot for him and R2 Rou2) and keep Rasmus in the middle 6. It being Hinostroza's spot for ST when he's available again & Quinn's after that makes sense.

It really does look that way doesn't it. Which would give the Sabres 3 offensive lines & 1 true checking line w/ the Cozens line able (at least on paper) to play a solid 2 way game as well.

It can't be too long before the Alabama O-Line coach is announced as the Donkey's new OC, right? Obviously.

Agree to a point. Players need to avoid goalie contact at all times per the rules, so goalies shouldn't be allowed free shots on players. Agree that he deserved a suspension. IMHO, 2 games was right, so they came close. Really not a fan of the outcome dictating the degree of punishment. Also, will be really interesting to see what the NHL does the next time a goalie drops a shoulder into a player heading for the back boards. The positions of the players relative to the boards is why it was suspendable IMHO. The goalie initiating contact should ALWAYS be a penalty except in that rare instance where each are both racing towards & playing the puck. Initiating contact when there is a high probability of the skater checking himself hard into the boards should carry greater weight & consistently greater weight. Really doubt the NHL has the cahones to make this call consistently. Unfortunately.

Interesting how Eakin has earned his way back into Granato's good graces. He got scratched a fair amount last year after the coaching change. Would really like to know the back story behind it, because am not seeing the reasoning for it on the ice. Am expecting that he was told what things he needed to do to stay in the lineup & has performed/ accomplished them and that the coach is honoring his part of the bargain. But, again, am not seeing what that is on the ice. And, like most here, am willing to see Bjork punted into the sun at this point. How long before Quinn is back? Late February/March, right? Will also be interested to see which guy is lining up on his off-hand side when Samuelsson & Bryson pair up. Kind of hoping it's Samuelsson. If he were to flip sides successfully, it makes a lot of (well, a few) things open up once Power gets here.

Should Adams weaponize his cap space? Absolutely. Expect he will to a minor degree but am hoping to see him use up to $6MM (if the additional return is worth it) this current season & next season to bring in more legit assets. Would be OK w/ $2-3MM of that extending 1 additional year but nothing beyond that. Preferences are: 1 as a 3rd party retaining salary this year; 2 bringing in a vet w/ at most 1 additional year on his deal for a legit prospect; and 3 bringing in a vet w/ at most 1 additional year on his deal for at least a 2nd round pick & preferably a 1st.

Really think last night's debacle was a combination of a low talent team with a goalie that everybody, including them, knows isn't capable of performing at this level consistently getting robbed early, followed by missing a wide open net, followed by a couple of bad goals that were breakdowns that the goalie didn't come close to even bailing them out (if the game were filmed in the old 4:3 format, not sure he'd've been in the frame on either 😉 ) that just simply didn't have the energy to get back into it. They knew they should've been up 2-0, but all played like Mittelstadt wasn't the only one coming back from abdominal hernia surgery after they saw that not only couldn't they buy a break but the "usual" Dell was between the pipes too. Expect they'll be better against AZ, but unless Anderson is between the pipes in Denver & playing like he did in October, might skip the Avs game. THAT could be uuuugggly.