K-9

Clague is a one man disaster.

No game in 10 days, no practice in a week? Not exactly a formula for success tonight. Never wanted to be more wrong about anything though.

He’d be a third pairing D on the Sabres. It’s not like he’d be the piece that puts us over the top. While it would be nice to have him, his loss doesn’t fill me with a sense of regret, either.

You can thank the CBA which strictly forbade any team activity of any kind on Dec. 24, 25, and 26. The Sabres’ only available option was to organize as a team on Tuesday morning, transport everything to Rochester, and attempt a flight to Columbus from there. This after not playing for more than a week. The logistics were against them the entire time.

He’s holding up pretty well in the A. Not exactly a gentle league.

There is a time to trade young assets for proven veteran talent and a time not to. Look no further than GMTM for an example of the time not to. The time to do it is when adding those good veteran players puts you over the top and turns you into a perennial contender. And that doesn’t happen until you have a young, solid core of good players to add them to. I submit that the Sabres are nearly there given what we have seen so far this season. Sometime soon we are gonna be thanking KA for being patient, stockpiling assets, and doing it the right way.

Hopeless. We are DOOMED!!!

I have a hunch there will be a lot of blazing going on at home today.

Somewhere, @pi2000is smiling and nodding his head in approval.

No, he is serviceable at best. Same goes for Bryson, Fitz, Pilut and and other AHL level D man we’ve been forced to play.

Cozens threatened to retire if forced to play with Mitts and VO on the same line.

I don’t care if Cozens gets more ice time, he is now saddled with two worse players. I view that as a negative for him. And we are talking past each other, so never mind.

It’s called sarcasm.

Risto would kick Reaves’s ass.

I’m not saying his TOI is gonna drop at all. I’m saying that by playing with Mitts and VO, Cozens is playing with two lesser players than Quinn and Peterka. And those two lesser players have shown they are a disaster when paired together to boot.

I’m surprised because the Devils were the best team I’ve seen in person this year when they beat us earlier.

Playing with Mitts and VO is such a worse opportunity for Cozens as opposed to playing with Quinn and JJP, so yeah, it’s a demotion from where I’m standing.

The NHL Game Center stats show we were outshot 17-1 vs. Colorado and 23-5 vs. Vegas in those third periods, for a total of 40-6 in both games. I’ve seen different numbers posted in this thread. Are you guys getting stats from a different source? Are the NHL game stats not reliable? Thanks.

He’s what we hoped many players would be, not just Eichel, who probably came the closest.

That’s a demotion for Cozens more than it is a promotion for Jost. It has become increasingly hard to watch Mitts and VO on the same line.

Richard award or not, just seeing Tage mentioned with McDavid is a testament to how far he’s come and what a scoring threat he is in this league. Can’t remember the last time we had a player like that. Early 90s?

That’s one helluva good question. Anderson is our number two, regardless, so he stays. Oopie needs to play, whether here or in the A and we need a definitive answer on Comrie. It’s a dilemma to be sure, but I gotta lean towards your take and send Oopie back to the A and keep playing regularly, perhaps even experiencing putting a team on his back to the playoffs and beyond.

I understand it’s common for desperate teams to push hard and I can respect playing a more defensive game to protect a lead, but is it common to be outshot 40-6 like we were in the third periods vs. Colorado and Vegas? There is sitting back and then there is being utterly dominated. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s common to have three AHL defensemen in the mix trying to protect leads against good teams, either.

Didn't mean to imply that you were. It's all good. I just don't wanna engage in a discussion on what's intuitive or not when it comes to anything Sabres. For crissakes, this is the Sabres and nothing about them being successful is intuitive in the least.

As long as the winning streaks are longer than the losing streaks... We are at four in a row and counting. Be nice to get a little cushion to pad the occasional loss or two. What we can't have is another 8 game losing streak or anything that comes close, obviously.