mjd1001

He doesn't function well on the powerplay though, that isn't his game. He gets plenty of PP time, but even in his 30 goal year, he had only 5 PP goals. Every other year of his career, he has only had 1 or 2 for the entire season.

https://bsky.app/profile/joeyerdon.bsky.social/post/3layvankm322k It appears Jordan Greenway vanished from the ice surface. He was out there earlier… https://bsky.app/profile/billhoppe.bsky.social/post/3layvtblmyc2c Sabres stretchin’. Jordan Greenway left the session. https://bsky.app/profile/llysowski.bsky.social/post/3layvcv46oc2s Jordan Greenway left the ice in the middle of practice. We'll ask Lindy Ruff about it afterwards.

I thought I heard lower body the other day also....not on an official report, but someone said 'lower body' during the game when he got hurt

Agree. Levi needs to play. But right now its clear UPL is the better goaltender at the moment. As you said you can move Levi up and down...but even take that out of it, Its not like Levi has been much better than Reimer in the small sample size this year. Reimer save% in his 2 games .864. Levi .870. Both awful in a small sample size, but I would say both are likely to be somewhat better with more work. I've had a couple people disagree with me on this, but Levi to me does not look good at all this year. On the goals he has allowed, he has kicked out some big time rebounds, he isn't tracking the puck well (he sometimes goes to the wrong side of the net when the puck is behind the net, it happened last night), and he is letting bad goals in. I know these are NHL shooters, but when you see the shooter, the shot is not screened, you have time to set for the shot AND there is no one trailing or on the other side to worry about, you need to make those saves. He didn't do that last night on the 2nd goal and he's allowed some softies in during other games. He needs more work. -He needs experience working with Pro D-men and knowing how to communicate with them and understanding what they will do. -He needs experience tracking the play from the net, learning how to follow the puck and anticipate where it might go. -He needs experience knowing what angles to take or how much to come out of the net to challenge guys with pro level shots That is game-level experience you can't really get in practice or learn by watching film. He isn't doing that on the bench, he CAN be doing that in Rochester. If he can go to Rochester, play another 30-50 pro games this year, he will be a much better goalie for it. Going back to the 80's on that one, I was a little kid. I barely remember but I was thinking more of the Barrasso/Cloutier combo later in the 80's. I didn't look up the numbers, but I throught those 2 did somewhat of a 50-30 split (on average) over the course of a few years.

Agreed. Those 3 guys are potentially very good/great puck movers, which is an under-rated aspect of defensive zone play. When the puck is in your own zone, get to the puck quickly (skating), control the puck (hands) make carry the puck out of the zone (Skating) or make a good break-out pass (passing).....well needless to say getting the puck out of your zone effectively is good defense in itself. They all have that ability, I am thinking/hoping they will get better with the above and make less mistakes with continued experience.

I'm happy overall with the Defensive unit. Clifton and Bryston or Samuelsson (or someone else) can be my 3rd pair getting 13-15 minutes even strength ice time per game. If one or 2 of them could kill penalties, even the better. Dahlin, Power, and Byrum are fine/really good in the top 4. Now just get one more guy to fill in. I don't care who plays with who, I dont' care if you move them around. I think they are close to having a quality NHL defensive core.

They are a positive in goal differential. In the past 3 years, 88% of teams in the east that had a positive goal differential by the end of the season made the playoffs. They are top 10 in the league in goals. Goaltending has been an issue, but UPL seems like he is starting to come around. The next week+ games are very winnable, If this team plays how they should and Tage comes back, things should be fine.

I forgot about Johnson. He was up and down, but he did have some good games last year. I wonder how well he is playing in Rochester? You have 'depth' here right now, but if Johnson is playing well, I wouldn't mind seeing him up here. Maybe more as a replacement for Jokiharju than Samuelsson though, in terms of style.

I have come to accept that Cozens is not going to be a consistent 30+ goal guy. When you look back at his stats over his career, he has wild swings, and I mean WILD swings in his shooting percentage. Yes, all goal scorers are hot and cold, but they may fluctuate a few percentage points year to year or month to month within a year. Cozens will go from 15% for one month, then he'll shoot 3-4% for 2 full months, before being back up to above 10%. I think when you accept that is who he is, it becomes easier to deal with. Personally I'm pretty sure we are going to see stretches of him this year where people will think and say "he's back!" and "he is well worth his contract!", only to be followed by a month or two, or maybe a future full season where he gives off vibes like he did for the first month. He has no consistency at all to his game. The hope is he gets 'hot' when the Sabres are entering the playoffs.

Anything that is an improvement from the production they have been giving you will be welcome obviously. For me, a good team should expect 50 goals at least from your 2nd line....60 is what you really aim for. That group is far from that still unless they really light things up.

The officials I dont think are anti-Buffalo. I just think they are so bad sometime, and when you make so many mistakes odd say that some games those mistakes will go against one team more than the other.

I'll ask what I keep on asking.... Watch the replay of the 2nd goal from begind the net? How can you say an NHL goalie should NOT make that save? If one of your D-men is taken out with a good pick play, and there is no trailer so you can focus on the shooter, that save must be made.

Yeah, its frustrating but I'm not sure the parade of posts complaining about defensive positioning. That was a multi-deflection that the defense couldn't react to. This game to me is on the offense (27 shots they should have more than 2 goals) and the goaltending. (Levi should have had one save, and had a decent chance a 2nd)

After reading some posts about how neither of the goals were Levi's fault, I really disagree. The first one was somewhat of a screen, but he is a small goalie. He needs to read the play better he needs to challenge the shooter more. On the 2nd goal that was for sure on him. He came out more than I thought, but he was set, he was focused on the shooter, he saw the shot the entire way, He was just beat cleanly. When you see the replay from behind the net, yeah, its hard not to say he shouldn't have had that one. For the person who keeps disagreeing with me, I challenge you to watch the replay of that goal and tell me why he shouldn't have made the save? The defense could be better, but when you look at the replay of the last goal he allowed, no way I don't want an NHL goalie to not make that save.

totally disagree on the last one. It was from a prime scoring area, but Levi wasn't screened AND he had time to get set and was facing the shooter. There wasn't a trailer coming in on the far side, no reason for him to not come out farther to take away the shot. He needs to read the ice and notice that. He's a smaller goalie, you are going to get picked unless you take away the angles better and come out. He didn't do that when there was no reason not to without a trailer. he needs to be better. When you see the shot, AND you are set and not moving and facing the shooter, I really, really want that save made.

Well, Tage had goals in 4 games in a row until he got hurt. Not only are you missing that production, but he was doing it (in theory) against the best the opposing teams had to offer. You lose his production and now the rest of the team has harder matchups.

Levi really needs to go down to Rochester to get some work in. Reimer really didn't play well and was waived by Anaheim, but his numbers in his 2 games are about the same as what Levi is giving you.

That was a good shot from a prime area, but Levi had a chance to see that one and get set up. Tough save, but when he sees it and is set and not moving, I need that save. To me thats more on the goalie than the D, even though I want Dahlin to step up toward the shooter a bit.

One win and things are looking better again, just get it done tonight. I needed to post something in this thread to bring it back to the top so I can find it. One loss against Montreal and the hate and complaining in the rest of the forum is back to being almost as bad as ever.

Ruff said in an interview either yesterday or this morning that the team has to stop having losses turn into losing streaks. They haven't done that yet. First loss turned into a 3 game losing streak. Next loss after that turned into 2 in a row. Next loss after that was another 3 game losing streak. When you have a loss, find a way to not make it turn into a streak. Hopefully that starts tonight.

Oh, I'll be interested to watch and I wouldn't be surprised if they win or score a handful of goals. Just, it just doesn't look right.

Obviously, he is no where close to a 2nd line winger at this point. (I'm thinking your post might be sarcasm?) Put aside his defensive liabilities for a moment (I think you can work around them if he brings something else to the table) and just look at his production: -In his last 12 games for the Sabres last year, he had 0 goals and 1 assist. -In his last 36 games for the Sabres last year (his downturn in production started or accelerated near the end of January) he had a total of 6 goals and 4 assists -Including this year with Edmonton, since that time this past January, over those 52 games he has 9 goals and 7 assists (14 goal and 11 assist pace per 82, and some of that time he did have playing with McDavid and/or Draisaitl). He's shooting 7.3% over that time (about 35% lower than his career average) I think he's shot offensively. So he is a defensive liability already, you can only justify him having a spot on your team if he nets 25-30+ for you. I don't think you are getting close to that. His effective NHL career might be coming to a close rapidly.

I don't see those lines sticking together for the entire game unless the Sabres carry and maintain a 1-3 goal lead for the whole game. I'm not sure which would be BETTER lines, but those just don't look right.

First of all, the injuries are an issue. We can't get by that. But beyond that, he HAS played well in the past in his own end, what has changed since then? I think he has the ability, is it a mental thing? If he did it before, you would think he can do it again (hopefully) and if that is the case, the contract isn't a huge problem. The other positive about him, I think he is good, a VERY good penalty killer overall. His size/reach allows him to cover a lot of ground down low without moving too much. He just needs to learn when to try to move someone out of the front of the net, and needs to continue to get strong enough to do so. Is he able to do all of the above? I don't know. I think he can, but again, you can't get beyond him always being injured it seems. With the Sabres having Power, Dahlin, and possibly Byrum long term eating up a ton of minutes, Samuelsson doesn't have to be anything more than a 14-15 minute per game 3rd pairing guy. If he gives you 3-4 of those minutes per game killing penalties, AND he can just get CLOSE to the form he had a couple years ago for the even strength 10-12 minutes per game, then again, he's not a problem. There are a lot of "ifs" up there though..

A quick web search says Samsung has it. I know at one point they did, they they dropped it, maybe the picked it back up? I have no love for Cable companies, especially spectrum. But their 'choice' package is the only reason I came back to them, with the ability to get MSG and the Sabres games.