dudacek

If Portillo is walking, I would have offered him a contract already. UPL/Comrie Levi/??? is firming up as the expected depth chart next year. Personally, I’m comfortable enough with Levi to have a Suchanek/Portillo type 4th in the depth chart, but Adams may prefer someone more like Subban. If Portillo is signing, I doubt Suchanek wants to be behind 3 young goalies.

Do you send down a guy who is on a 7-1 run playing against tough teams as your number one goalie? Of course not. If forced to make the call, I waive my 14th forward — the pending UFA who has played just one game in the last 6 weeks and has no goals and 4 assists in his past 14. But I'm with Inky. I expect they will use IR, or (the threat of?) an Anderson retirement to their advantage. Whatever happens, it's not going to affect a player who's going to be here next year, or our chances in the playoff race.

Rosen had 2/4/6/+7 in 7 games (replays clearly showed he deflected in a 3rd goal, but it appears once IIHF awards a goal it doesn’t change its mind). He was tied for 2nd among Swedish forwards in points and +/- Östlund put up 1/3/4/0 in 7. He got a ton of ice time as a middle six 2-way centre. Kulich was 7/2/9/+10 in 7. He led Czech forwards in goals, points and +/-, was 2nd in the entire tournament for goals and was named (along with Berard and Cooley) to the final all-star team.

Is it really a special hell? Or is it just a way to improve? What if he just makes sure Samuelsson and Dahlin stay healthy? After all, they are 16-5-2 when that’s the case, no matter how bad people say Bryson and Casey are playing.

I think we need to see improvement from at least 2 of these 6: Krebs, Jost, Mitts, VO, Quinn and Peterka. You can accept two or three of them playing at a 3rd-line level, but not all of them. (Despite the fact we can apparently win with all of them) Cozens is the only player we’ve got who has thrived under 2nd line usage. Okposo and Girgensons have been good in bottom six usage. Krebs and Jost have looked good with them, less so away from them.

Anderson has put up his numbers playing once a week against weaker teams. He will get action if one of the others falters, but the plan was pretty clear and the future may have arrived.

The plan seems to have always been Anderson as a mentor and someone to hold the fort while we transition to next year’s Comrie/UPL battery. Unless Comrie outplays UPL enough to grab 2/3s of the starts, meaning UPL goes down to get playing time, I suspect you’re right. Remember, we’re only a few months from adding Levi into the picture. Im sure Anderson signed being fully aware of the plan.

Sabres Live with Duffer and Marty daily. Maintenance Day with Yerdon and Lysowski every Monday is usually worthwhile.

Jeff Marek had an interesting observation on our goalies. Starts since Comrie went down UPL: @was, @Bos, @Veg @Col, @Pit, @tor, Det, SJ, Cbs, Col, TB, Stl Anderson: @Det, @ari @Ott, @Mon, LA, Pit, NJ Donnie has deployed Upie like a full-fledged #1: a majority of the games and virtually all the tough ones.

This raises an interesting question: Who would you rather have on your 3rd line? A guy who plays like a 2nd liner half the time and is replacement level the other half? (not arguing Casey is this guy) Or a guy who is consistently neutral?

Is there anyone around here doing that? I don’t think even @GASabresIUFAN sees top 6 potential there now. The debates are 2: Is/can this guy be a useful NHL player? Do I want this guy on my team?

A few have said it, but I can’t disagree with you more on this. He had 4 points last night. Not one of them was a freebie. Not one of them happens if an average player was on the ice in his place. He did that, including the winning goal, in Washington, against an engaged Alex Ovechkin. He’s had 8 games of 3 or more points, including 3 hat-tricks and 2 6-point games. His goals are almost never tap-ins or lucky bounces. He has taken over more games this year than any player outside McDavid.

I think our points are more in line than you may realize. I was partly talking about fan expectations in my post, but moreso I was talking about player expectations. Casey is undergoing a process where he first realized he wasn’t going to be an NHL player training like he did in juniors, then realizing he wasn’t going to be a star playing like he did in juniors. As @Taro T has done a good job explaining, he has adjusted his approach. He just has more to learn and more adjustments to make. He’s only played 231 NHL games. The next step - the one that is underway this year - is realizing that he isn’t going to be a star, period, and figuring out how he is just going to be a useful player. I brought Jost into the equation because he comes from a similar place as Casey, and is a year ahead of him on that curve. I can guarantee Avs fans were making similar posts to yours about Jost two years ago.

Player 1 is 24, was a top 10 pick and makes $2.5 million He’s scored 9 points and been a -4 in the past 17 games mostly on the 3rd line. Player 2 is 24, was a top 10 pick and makes $2.0 million He’s scored 7 points and been a +/-0 in the past 17 games mostly on the 3rd line. We like Tyson Jost because he seems to have realized that while he’s not going to be the top 6 player he had hoped to become, he is good enough to play in the NHL and can contribute in a specific role. We don’t like Casey Mittelstadt because we are judging him in the context of being the top 6 player he had hoped to become. He is good enough to be an NHL player, but is still figuring out his role. Expectations are certainly at play here and need to be readjusted.

The stuff above about Granato’s belief in Casey is bang on, IMO. He believes in his talent and his work ethic and is determined that if he perseveres the payoff will come. He’s using the same template that paid off for Cozens and Thompson and Tuch and Dahlin. To me, the difference is Casey just isn’t as good at hockey as the other 4.

@Taro T this needs to be in here:

He had a pretty good game last night. He got flak on the Milano goal, but that was more about Mule making a bad pinch and Dahlin not rotating out behind him quickly enough. He and Jost had some of that Krebs line puckhound buzz going on on the forecheck. Consistency is the main issue, so a game or two isn't going to sway many takes.

This isn't a direct answer, but over the first three months of this season, he has been the NHL's 2nd-best player after McDavid. He is having a better season this year than Mathews did last year when he won the Hart.

@nfreeman was wondering the last time a Sabre has ever been on a hot streak like this. I'm wondering if it's ever happened? Tage has 29 goals in has last 29 games. You'd think Mogilny in '93 must have done something like this. Maybe Gare or Martin did in the '70s? Remember a Sabre has scored 40 only 25 times in a full season. Only 4 guys have ever scored 45.

At the urging of @SDS Tage has 46 games left He needs to score just 2 goals to tie Danny Briere's best Sabre season. To score 6 to tie Eichel's best 7 and Drury's 11 Andreychuk 13 Vanek 14 Perreault 22 Martin 26 Gare He's scoring 5 goals every six games this year over a sample size of nearly half a season. Bear in mind, that sample size includes his worst cold streak in a year (1 goal in 7 games in October) He's scoring 2 goals every three games over the past 82. Never mind how he's scoring the goals: 4 highlight-reel points to win in overtime, one-upping Ovie in his own barn, no less? Barring catastrophe he's having an all-time Sabre season. It's a privilege to watch.

Four of these 2022/23 stat lines belong to Sidney Crosby, Auston Matthews, Jack Eichel and Mitch Marner. 1.17 points/game +14 1.16 points/game -2 1.16 points/game +19 1.13 points/game 0 1.07 points/game +17 Which one of them belongs to Alex Tuch? Only 2 Sabre RWs have ever topped 90 points over a full season. Tuch is within striking distance of 100 and Rene Robert’s status as having the second most productive season by a RW in Buffalo Sabres history.

Sabres on a 9/2/1 run over the past month. That’s the NHL’s 4th best record over that stretch, which includes road wins over 2 of the teams (Bos, Was) ahead of them. They are 11th in defence over that stretch, allowing 2.75 goals per game, and easily 1st in offence, scoring 4.42 goals per game, a full goal per game more than all but 6 other teams. Tage leads the NHL with 15 goals over the 12 games he’s played during that span, and is 2nd with 23 points. Tuch also in the NHL top 10 with 7 goals and 19 points in that stretch. Are you having any fun yet?

From what I’ve seen of Kulich, he’s never going to be a a face puncher, a distributor or a guy who carries the puck on his string. But his skill set lends itself to pretty much any other role, at centre or at wing, anywhere in the lineup. It will be very interesting to see what role he carves out for himself because he can go in a number of directions.

In the games i watch, there seems to be a decided de-emphasis on big bodies getting to the front of the net while players pound away from the outside looking for screens, rebounds and deflections. Goals seem to be more the result of movement creating holes that are then exploited by players darting into them. Goalie get beat by making them move laterally. It's never an either/or thing, but under current trends, successful defence seems more about pressuring the puck and anticipating passing lanes than clearing the crease and tying up your man.

Basically, for 30 minutes a game, you’d have: Dahlin/Mule Chychrun/Power dominating ES possession. Another 20 shifts a night will be special teams. And another 20 shifts a night will be one of the big 4 with Boosh or Joki, leaving 10 shifts a game where you ice Boosh and Joki in low-risk situations, where they should be more than capable. Basically, you’d run: Dahlin 24 Power 22 Chychrun 21 Samuelsson 21 Jokiharju 15 Lyubushkin 12 Or something similar as your base deployment. And each guy in the lineup would be more than capable of stepping into the shoes of the guy above him in the case of injury.