GASabresIUFAN

Really, then why are their 32 goalies from 32 different teams that have started 10 or more games for their teams this season? Lyon with 24th on that list is GAA.

Are you saying the 17th best goalie in the NHL, a league with 32 teams, is above average? The interesting math. What about the other 35+ games Lyon won’t play? Ellis is 40th in save % in goalies with 3 or more starts and UPL is 52nd. Remember Lyon has never played more than 44 games in an NHL season. I get that you’re happy with Lyon YTD. All Sabres fans are happy that he has been better than the parade of terrible since Ullmark left town, but at 3+ goals a game this still isn’t playoff caliber goaltending. He is giving us exactly what he gave Det two years ago. That team nearly made the playoffs, but only because they scored 278 goals (3.4 goals for per game). The Sabres are averaging 2.8. Scoring 2.8 and allowing 3+ is not a recipe for success.

We clearly aren’t watching the same team. The Sabres, as a team, have a .888 save % despite having the best PK in the NHL. League average is .891. They have the 4th worst record in the NHL (worst in the East), 4th worst differential at -13. They are 6 games below actual 500 with only 18 games played. While the defense still isn’t great, the goaltending has been the problem. The Sabres are in middle of the NHL in high danger chances against at 164, but lead the NHL in HDGA at 25. The same for general scoring chances. They are middle of pack in SCA, but 4th worst in scoring chances goals against at 38. As I said before, Lyon has been decent and his numbers are nearly identical to his numbers two years ago when he played 44 games for Detroit. However, Ellis and UPL haven’t been good. I understand blaming the D. They deserve it for their terrible play for the last 5 years (thx Adams), but Timmins has helped as has an improved Samuelsson. They still aren’t good. Power is awful defensively and Kesselring, when healthy, hasn’t been good. Dahlin’s situation also hasn’t helped. Despite this, the defense is actually slightly better and stats bear this out. Not good, just better. We all want the team to be good and would be happy with better, but to get good we need real goaltenders and we don’t have any. As I said before, I still have some hope for Ellis and Levi, who both had vastly superior to UPL AHL numbers. The only way to find this out is to play them. IMHO this season is already toast from a playoff perspective. As much as I appreciate Lyon’s effort so far, we need to evaluate Ellis and Levi in the NHL to see if there is something there. Time to trade/waive/dump/catapult UPL and see what Ellis can do over a bigger sample size. I’d then trade Lyon at the deadline and bring up Levi. If they both stink, oh well! The next GM will have to find a real goalie for the 26/27 season, and he’d also get a better draft pick in 2026.

I know exactly what our goaltending is or isn’t. If you have read my posts over the years I have been extremely critical of our defense as well as our goaltending and talked about how our bad defense hurts our goaltending. Remember I have been calling for years for capable defensive D for this team. Instead we got guys like Stillman, Clifton and others. That said we have years of track record on Lyon and UPL. Neither is a top flight goaltender. UPL has had one good pro season between the NHL and AHL and in limited play this season, he looks exactly as he has most of his career; bad. Lyon has played well decently this season, but it’s not playoff caliber goaltending. I’m not exactly sure why you are fighting me on this, it’s pretty clear neither Lyon or UPL pass the eye test and the stats corroborate this.

I never said he was. I said the only chance (the key word here is "chance") we get elite goaltending is one of Levi or Ellis step up and give us elite goaltending. So far that hasn't happened and may never happen. What we know is that UPL and Lyon are what they are and are never going to give us elite goaltending.

I’d like to see Jesse Pegula and her husband take over the Sabres. That might be all the change at the top we need

They were done by Canadian Thanksgiving

I wrote this 2 months ago and nearly all of it has come to pass. The 9th item - offense regression - has sadly become the poster for this season. Kulich and Benson are out for who knows for how long. Norris didn’t even last one game. Zucker is also injured. Quinn isn’t progressing and McLeod has regressed (also as predicted, but not as bad as I feared. Only Doan has impressed. Also Tuch and Tage haven’t stepped up as leaders when necessary. The goaltending is still bad and the defense, especially now with Dahlin out indefinitely, is as bad as ever. Kesselring hasn’t been good, although Timmins has been ok. The PP still sucks. Add all this together and this team is already competing for the top overall draft pick. Terry fire Adams and start again

I’m not surprised by the outcome, who is at this point? However, when the game was still in doubt and we had a late PP, was anyone else hoping Ruff would throw caution to the wind and pull the goalie? If they score a shortie, who cares, but imho the odds of scoring 6 on 4 are significantly higher than 5 on 4 or 6 on 5 in the last 90 seconds. This team needs to try everything to succeed, why not pull the goalie?

I’m not really surprised Kesselring is struggling some in his new role. His partner most of last season was defense first seasoned vet Ian Cole. I also wrote that he was a third pairing guy worthy of 17 minutes a night and that the best part of his game was offense as evidenced by his 29 pts last year. I think he is good player and a solid D in general but we were trying to get a partner for Power who needs an Ian Cole not a Kesselring.

Wow, sorry, not sorry I missed it.

How about we trade Tuch, get some assets and then re-signing him in the offseason We then trade Power, the 1st we get for Tuch and get a good goalie and top 6 center and a good defensive D, but Adams needs to go first.

I sometimes find it hard to keep food down when watching this team.

So your saying that they are mostly dead. Honestly we are at the point where we need to look for loose change.

isn't the team already playoff dead?