DarthEbriate

Fortunato played in Jacksonville last season and my guess is that's where he'd be slated to start this season. For the Amerks side, it looks like Pilut, Bartkowski, Priskie, Strand, Eliot, and Berzolla either out or undetermined from last season's lineup. 6 out. Johnson (Ryan), Novikov, Jandric, Metsa, Savoie, and now Fortunato in. 6 in. With Bryson or Clague getting waived. It's basically a push on the defensive depth thus far.

What an excellent, excellent player. As a hockey fan, I will miss his play. As a Sabrespacer... good riddance! And take Krejci immediately with you! And may the Bruins look upon this week similar to the week the Sabres lost Briere and Drury and fell from relevancy. Let there be dark days of black and gold ahead.

Come off the bench to become a folk hero, with people dressing as ABBA in the stands, and leading the Sabres to a surprise championship. And scoring the game-winning assist on the powerplay by faking the one-timer and shot-passing it to the crease for the easy redirect?

I like his Russian Four PP2 for the prospects tourney.

A long time.

Sabres back on puckdoku today. That's some good 1999 throwback right there. But I failed overall because I could've sworn McEachern played for the Kings in addition to the Sens.

I dig Kozak's game and he got better as the season progressed and into the playoffs. He definitely should get a taste of the NHL in 2024-25 to see if he can hack it if he his progress continues. There might be an entirely new 4th line that season (and the need for cheap contracts). This season? Nope (barring a horrid barrage of injuries). His best fit for the NHL and his best benefit to the Sabres in the short term might be a Peca- or Weber- orchestrated trade to NYR or STL, or as a sweetener elsewhere. Otherwise, let him grow and find out what you've got in 2 years. This year, let him battle for 3C in Rochester and PK1 time and get to legal drinking age in the states.

The Concept of Barnaby was very important to the Pens.

He won't have to. Quinn will be back in the lineup when the playoffs start. If VO slots in for Quinn with JJP/Cozens or on a Mitts-Greenway line, he'll be a finisher. I'd expect him to have 12-18 goals by the time Quinn is back in the lineup. Probably on PP2. Defensively, the key for VO is having a little more oomph and aggession to battle, another year of growth from his various kid centers in their own zone (Cozens, Thompson, Krebs), and not being on the ice at the same time as Bryson ever again.

Barnes for Barnaby and Wilson for Warrener (and the pick that became Miller but that was years from becoming anything). Getting Barnes and Warrener for a 4th liner and a 3rd pairing D was fantastic for that '99 run.

He was a pupil of mine Tuuka and Essensa before he turned to evil (and Calgary).

7/12 - Today's puckdoku.com features the Sabres. Leveraging @Zamboni's thread title. I've got Chris Butler, the big-helmet version of Cory Conacher, and Maxim's magical season (whoa on the last one! That was too close.)

To me, a top 10 player at their position in the league is someone I'm not worried about icing in either zone with 0:50 remaining and either up or trailing by 1 and having a good feeling about tying it or keeping my net empty. It's like a top-10 QB in the NFL... you're down by 3 and just got the ball on your 25 yard line and you've got 1 time out and 0:50 on the clock. A top-10 QB you feel good about tying the game and possibly winning in regulation. Other QBs need to get really lucky or you're just praying it isn't a game sealing INT or strip sack. Tage is on my Center Council, but I don't yet grant him the rank of Master. Tage has has only 2 NHL seasons at center (after 4 seasons on the wing). His potential is sky high. He can still take his sound defensive positioning and elevate it into suffocating defense where his reach is deflecting everything, forcing poorer shot angles, and his strength is dominating puck battles to get the puck out of the D-zone. Offensively, yes, he's very, very good. I think he can be a lock in the top 10 by the end of the 2023-24 postseason if he keeps progressing.

Someone took the Immaculate Grid concept from MLB and built an NHL version called puckdoku. puckdoku.com My Sabres line for today's game was Heinze-Satan-Myers. Everybody picked Myers.

Overall a good showing by all involved. @Flashsabre just beat me to calling out that they did scratch an entire Team Hasek as a reward for extended postseasons. That led to a lot of kids getting tons of touches and also looking pretty gassed at times. All these guys would've looked like puck possession studs out there today: Kozak, Kulich, Rosen, Savoie (the Matthew pronunciation), Weissbach, Komarov, and Metsa. Leinonen has now missed both Dev Camps with injury so it's difficult to get excited about him. Ratzlaff looked very good after overplaying the first shot of the tourney. But we didn't get to see a Levi v. Portillo Event like last year to get the excitement going.

But I exited the game without saving so I knew what combination of 27 trades were required to turn VO and UPL and a couple 1sts into Hellebuyck and Bedard.

I'd rather send Levi down to Rochester and roll with UPL and Comrie again than to acquire Gibson for 4 years of continued downward spiral until a buyout. I agree that the best goalie is going to get shelled on very bad teams, but to bring it local: Ullmark had the best numbers on a couple bad Sabres squads. You could see he was the best option even if the occasional Houser came along and had a great game. With Gibson it's constant. The last time he led his team in sv% was 2016-17 (7 seasons ago!) when they were a very good 1st place team with a very sturdy d-corps. Ryan Miller wasn't even on the Ducks yet. And technically, Gibson wasn't the leader that season because our very own Dustin Tokarski had a 5-save appearance and ended the season with 1.00sv% and 0.0 GAA in 10 minutes of game time.

Yeah... I think you're right. It's a good signing for the Amerks. His $475k AHL guarantee should get him to clear waivers at the beginning of the season, but like Fitz last year, if a team has some injuries and knows they're playoff bound, he won't likely clear later in the season.

Gah, no so good news.

I'd have to do some research to check it out, but I also recall the first 2/3 of the season he was obstinate sticking with the starter. But then Granato did start pulling the goalie when necessary as well as taking timeouts. I don't know the game, but he took a timeout and the Sabres responded well by settling down and scoring a goal (they ultimately lost the game anyway). If Granato continues his own progress early this season... maybe they do scratch back to win a game (or get a point or two) in the couple games the starter doesn't have it.

The guy I hope does really well this week is Leinonen. For his and all ours sake.

Granato learned how to take timeouts and how to pull his goalie as the season wore on. I'm not sure you could ever quantify getting points in the standing back by swapping your goalie earlier. Usually you get shelled for 3 before you even consider a goalie change. Even with the Sabres potent offense, you're not going to win every game in which you give up 3 or 4 goals.

I think VO could very easily be a Sabre through February and get moved to a Western team needing scoring for a playoff push at the deadline (as Quinn will be back). And in the meantime, you simply rely on Greenway and Clifton being in the lineup, plus everyone's general increase in defensive acumen by being older and more aware of it.

There's still a good chance they trade UPL. But he showed some poise last season, particularly early. He stayed vertical instead of leaning forward. With better defensive structure around him, he might benefit quite well from simply being big and being consistent in his positioning. He doesn't need to steal games like Levi will, but he just can't blow the games where the offense is doing just fine. I think they waive Comrie and roll with the kids. If UPL can just be good-backup level and hit .900+ for 34 games, that's probably enough for Levi to handle the rest of the season. But if the Sabres do roll these 2 kids... I think they'll fade down the stretch, rather than ramp it up as the season progresses. Edit: Which means you're looking to pick up the veteran goalie to make a playoff run.

The team will play better defense as a unit this season. Greenway in the lineup for Olofsson (unless VO remains to cover for Quinn and PP time) and swapping Bryson's games out for Clifton. With everyone else gaining a year of knowledge, cohesion, and the realization that offense-only will only get you through January. But yes... there's no Craig Anderson security blanket. If UPL doesn't take a good step forward and Levi gets injured for any amount of time... we're picking top 12 again. And that will feel like a failure (even if 2024-25 is a meteoric NJD 22-23 rise).