matter2003

Norris type defenders have simply become the defenseman who scores the most points now. They should just call it the best offensive defenseman award now, not best defenseman.

I think you mean Frolik

Uhh, I don't think so. Lehner has posted far better raw numbers than Ullmark has. Even his first 2 years here, he had save percentages of .924 and .920 and GAA's of 2.47 and 2.68 on REALLY bad tank teams which are both better than Ullmark's numbers this year. The last 2 seasons he also posted .930 and .922 save percentages, which are both far better than Ullmark. The only place Ullmark is an upgrade to Lehner is in shootouts, where for whatever reason Lehner is the worst goalie in NHL History

With Ullmark likely being out for a while, I wanted to reflect on who he reminds you of as a potential goalie of the future. Personally, I don't think he is going to be a number 1 goalie in the NHL, I think he will be a quality backup that can give you 25-30 games a year and play well enough to give your team a chance to win if the starter goes down for any length of time. Looking at similarity scores for Ullmark on the Hockey Reference site, his top similarity scores are 2 ex-Sabre goalies: Marty Biron and Darren Puppa. As soon as I saw Biron, that is who I thought of with him. Biron came on as a young player and played really well for about 15 games in his first year when Miller was hurt and the Sabres were going on their runs...Ullmark came up early and played really well also, even though the Sabres were tanking and he didn't get a lot of W's, he was a respectable 8-10-2 in his first season. That being said, with both players, that might have been the high-water mark for their careers. They both kind of drifted and never really established themselves as legit #1 goalies in the NHL, but quality backups. I think that is what Ullmark is ultimately destined for. He lets in too many bad goals at bad times to be a number 1. What are your thoughts on who Ullmark reminds you of and if he can becomes a #1?

Can this team kill a damn penalty tonight?? JFC...the team was trending positively in this area for a while and back to letting a crap team go 3/3 on the PP. Seriously??

This site is showing him having played 35 games with 28 goals, 31 assists for 59 points this year, on pace for 114 points, well ahead of the 84 he posted there last year in 68 games. https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/286938/dylan-cozens

That really doesn't mean much. Players don't progress linearly as in they must play X number games at this level and Y number of games at this level before they can be in the NHL.

Wow, RK really changing up the lines...

Yeah and the problem is there are at least 3 or 4 teams they will need to leapfrog to get into a playoff position and those teams seemingly are winning almost every night and the Sabres go on good stretches and either stay the same number of points back or sometimes even lose ground. If they can get to 90 points this year I will deem that a fairly successful season. Right now they are on a pace for about 85 so they need to improve slightly to reach that. The roster clearly isn't where they want it to be yet. Hoping Cozens is ready next year and they continue to add pieces via trade for next season.

Hopefully this can give us proper goal or no goal calls when situations arise like earlier in the year when the Sabres appeared to have scored a goal since the goalie's entire glove was in the net with the puck in it but they ruled no goal because they couldn't "see" the puck, even though there is no possible way it could not have been in the net.

Do they admire all the number book takers?

See Bills, Buffalo

Just like the message said.. "And their eyes wil sing a song of great hate" I wonder if the places they stay and where they play look like one great big alleyway

Very valid points...

When will MLB take some responsibility for the players being able to do this for so long with virtually NO oversight and weak drug testing policies? THEY enabled it to happen, presumably because it brought offensive excitement to what was a dead ball era prior and they were loving it until the players got caught and then they pretended they had no knowledge of anything. Please...they KNEW what was going on and they turned a blind eye towards it. But now they want to make the players involved to be pariahs when they were the ones who enabled it? Complete hypocrisy on MLB's part.

Clemens not getting in is a joke. Regardless of if he used at some point, he was dominant even BEFORE that so it didn't even matter. Same with Bonds.

Who is trading for a guy playing like an AHLer with that contract?

Holy secondary scoring all of a sudden...Sabres have been piling up goals and most have not been from Eichel and Reinhart...very interesting

Who would have thought the Sabres might actually be better without Skinner and Olafsson??

Gallant seems to have a way of wearing out his welcome in places...this is the second time he got canned that wasn't necessarily related to performance...something tells me he rubs his bosses the wrong way repeatedly and after a while they only are going to deal with so much of it.

Damn Sabres have a thing for getting opposing coaches fired apparently...

Really? It looked like he was pretty effective when he boxed out his man and slammed home the rebound the other night from 5 feet in front of the net

I see it looks like the Sabres will have $35 million or so next year on the cap but let's not forget they also only have 19 players under contract next year at this time! Yeah they have a lot of RFA's that will be relatively cheap to resign but Olaffsson likely is going to get a bridge deal and Montour might be getting a bridge deal or long term contract as well... That $35 million can be gone pretty quick with the number of players they need to resign/sign and that $6 million Okposo is carrying around is a huge detriment moving forward over the next 3 years.

Don't be so sure of that...Seattle will have the cap space and can buy him out. For the right price they can do it. I mean Toronto moved Clarkson's contract for a guy who had to retire due to injuries, that was the most unmovable contract there was--a guy that would cost a ton of money on the cap that wouldn't even be able to play and they still moved it.

Risto is a physical presence and on top of that has a nasty streak in him, so he is an ideal player to put in front of the net because he is likely giving as much punishment in that spot as he is receiving.