mjd1001

If I'm not mistaken, those great chances from defensive giveaways are factored into the high danger chances allowed.

To me its not unexpected at all. zero is neutral obviously...3 teams at at zero. Of who is left...14 are positive, 15 are negative. That is about as close to even as I would expect.

They have been playing well lately, in the past 2 weeks, there have been multiple games they looked like the best line for the Sabres on the ice. Malenstyn has been interesting for me this season. He's not making a huge impact on the team playing the 4th line and getting less than 10 minutes per game even strenght ice time. I thought he started the season "OK", then had a stretch where he played really, REALLY bad, and now he is actually playing his role very well.

I'll take Ellis with those numbers that are heavily influenced by one Really bad game but a bunch of good games... Rather than somebody else who has similar numbers but it's nothing but a bunch of mediocrity. When evaluating a goaltender, I would much rather look at what percentage of their games are they even or positive on the goals allowed versus expected goals allowed... Rather than raw numbers averaged together.

In the last 4 periods the Sabres: -have 20 high danger scoring chances to the opponents 9 -have 4.59 expected goals vs the opponents 2.48 -have 1 goal to the opponents 7

Going by the numbers, this may be a good reason why Byram isn't as good as people say. Its not just the actual goals you mentioned, its 'expected goals' which represents the quality of shots you are getting vs getting: In terms of XG% this year... Timmins numbers are lower when playing with Bryam than with everyone else. Dahlin is lower with Bryam than with everyone else. Kesserling is lower with Byram than with everyone else. Power IS better with Bryam, but its a very small sample size (only about 53 total minute together) If Bryam is so good..or even good at all, he should be 'bringing up' the performance, and numbers of most of the guys he plays with, not the other way around.

And...the team you play tomorrow is on a 7 game win streak, has 19 of the last 20 points, and just took down Colorado. Things are not looking up...

Moving Connor Timmins doesn't turn this team around though. Even without him and his worst games, this team isn't much different. The failures this year are about Dahlin morphing into a turnover machine (at least it seems like it), Byram getting top minutes but not being close enough to deserve them, Tuch's forchecking and backchecking disappearing to the point he is a liability without the puck, average-to-below average goaltending, McLeod taking a major step back (in terms of HIS play without the puck), a lot of injuires...and other things. Timmins to me is WAY down the list of problems this team has.

the thing is, if they did lose 10 games in a row, I still don't think Pegula would clean house. He might make a move or two, but I don't think there is a chance of a 'house cleaning' until the offseason, and even then I'm not sure it will be/would be 100% of what is needed.

Does this team have an 8 game winning streak in it? Right now its looking like .590 points percentage will get you to the last playoff spot. To get there, the Sabres need to win the next 8 in a row. Beat Minnesota, Then Winnipeg. They Philly, then Winnipeg again. Next beat Calgary, then Edmonton, then Vancouver, and finally Seattle. Do all of those things, without a loss, you just MIGHT be in that last playoff spot.

Lyon was a bit rusty because he didn't play that much. That UPL's fault for taking up all the starts recently.

UPL would have stopped that one

Bogosian, is he still playing? let alone without a visor?

The guy lately I can't get a feel for is Timmins. At times he looks good. A he can penlatly kill, he has a decent shot, he can move pretty well, he plays like he could be a good 2nd pair guy. But the other times he makes plays like he's a rookie, or just is invisible. You don't ever seem to get a quality "3rd pair" guy play out of Timmins. He's either '2nd pair quality good' or 'should be in the pressbox' bad to me.

The only thing disturbing about that was, OBVIOUSLY Tage really still felt something about that hit...he shouldn't have had to be the first to address it.