Taro T

As stated earlier, expecting that they'll rotate the 3rd A throughout the D. The only non-kid that was here last year was Miller & none of the vets that were brought in are exactly top 4 material on any but a few teams.

Per Puckpedia they are 1 over the cap (presumably Borgen as they've 9 active D). Guessing they activated the last of the 4 players and then waived somebody after the 2PM waiver "deadline" so they actually are in compliance but don't know for sure what's going on with them. Players don't get credit for being on the active roster until 5PM (except when teams have morning/afternoon games) so moves do occasionally happen after the league's transaction processing deadline. Would seem we'll find out what's going on this afternoon. IF Borgen got waived after the transaction deadline AND the Sabres place a claim on him would likely keep them from being able to play him tomorrow night as he wouldn't officially become a Sabre until tomorrow afternoon and he'd still need to get across the country.

It doesn't count as a save when the puck rolls off the skater's stick harmlessly into the corner. But, baby steps.

Worked out great for the Canadian STHers. They got to defer their tix & can buy cheap seats on the 2ndary market this year if there are any games they actually want to go to.

Wonder if Borgen will get sent down as Oleskiak and IIRC 3 of the F's out on COVID protocols were cleared today and traveled late to Vegas and are dressed for the game. Which appears to answer @apuszczalowski's Q about how the COVID IR is working. Apparently when a guy is symptom free and tests negative they can get back in the lineup.

Looking forward to hearing Bucci call a game. But right now the crowd noise is drowning out the announcers. ESPN does not have their A audio crew working this game. Nor, apparently even their B-team.

#2C anyone? Just like old times. 😉

Very impressed w/ ESPN's presentation so far. It doesn't hurt to have people like Steve Levy & Linda Cohn who actually like hockey in studio for the broadcast & also grab some HNiC talent like Ferraro & Weekes. Sean McDonough is no Gary Thorne but he isn't friggin' Keny Albert nor the shell of Doc Emerich either thankfully. Hopefully they can keep it up tonight & the rest of the season. Not looking forward to what TNT will do; they've got a tough act to follow & haven't been up to the task in past forays into football, baseball, nor left turn leaguing.

Won't comment on Eakin; have said it all repeatedly. Am glad that Hagg - Miller was separated. Interesting that Bryson gets the ice time over Butcher. Am fine w/ Cozens getting 4C duty. When he's ready, he can bump higher. Will be interesting to see how long the Thompson at 2C experiment lasts. Adams sure didn't do Granato any favors this off-season, did he?

No data. Haven't seen whether players in COVID protocols can be removed from the IR prior to the typical 7 day minimum stay. Would assume they'll be gone the full week if they've tested positive but honestly don't know what the league's protocols are this year.

When any of their currently IR'd players are ready to play, a rostered player will need to be waived, IR'd, or traded for a player that won't be rostered in order to make room to activate them. They currently have the max of 23 players on the active roster w/ about 6 more on IR.

Soooo, getting back to Bills - Chefs, somehow the Chefs at home in a night game were the underdog in that one?

Nope. They IR'd Olesiak so they kept 9 D. Borgen is still a Kracker.

It is far more likely that the 3rd A will rotate through the D until an actual leader emerges. The only returning guys other than Miller are all kids. None of the new vets is above a 3rd liner on any but a handful of rosters. Could also see the 3rd A going to Anderson as the official reason why the 3rd A rotates. Says a heck of a lot that there are only 2 guys on the roster that management deemed to be leaders today & neither is close to a 1st liner on more teams than a retired railworker could count on 1 hand.

Especially when not 1 single line will be deployed in the form predicted.

If this year is going to be historically bad, expect we will know in the 1st 5-10 games. But if the team is going to be merely bad, doubt we know just where they slot into until 20-25 games have been played. The high energy, consistent pressure game that Granato is promoting is very difficult to sustain over 82 games. That the roster is ridiculously young will help sustain it, but one can only do so much. Heck, go back and look at the 1st couple of games of the Krueger era; except for not having forwards cheat up to over stress the north south game, they played exactly as Granato espouses & looked very good doing so. But it wasn't sustainable. Expect we won't fully know what we've got until sometime close to Thanksgiving. When the rush of youthful exuberance meets up with the reality of an 82 game slog. Having nearly all of February off will help w/ the stretch, but it would've been better to have January essentially off instead IMHO.

For whatever it's worth, Sabres website doesn't have Fitzgerald on the roster today, so it appears he's back on the farm again.

Regardless of why Adams brought him in/ left him available to Granato, that GRANATO appears to be ready to give him another crack at playing important minutes on an important line is EXTREMELY disconcerting. Been told for months that Granato is the right guy for this team moving forward. That decision runs contrary to that opinion. That he agrees Girgensons is better as a checking line LW than a C is good. And realize the team really does lack C's, but put Asplund or Ruotsalainen on that line instead & get the role filled by committee in that case. My 2cents.

To the bolded: not as a Sabre in any substantive way.

Why does seemingly every coach post Ruff have a need to play a Sobotka? If those top 4 are the lines they run with on Thursday, ...

Brash, energetic, hitting his stride, etc. Really surprised you needed help w/ that because if you're as old as you come across here you'd almost definitely know it well & if you're too young for it you probably have heard of this new fangled thing called "google." 😉

It actually sounds like this might have been part of that investigation as IIHC some of the e-mails were to a former Washington executive apparently. But interesting how this whole thing leaked in about 2 days & there's been pretty much crickets on the Snyder investigation.

Will take your word for it. Shefter made them sound pretty bad.

Gruden out as Raiders HC per Shefter on MNF HT show. Guess their ST Coach has the inside track to be the interim HC. Zay Jones & Nathan Peterman can NOT be happy about this development as really doubt anyone else in the league believes they belong in the league.