Jorcus

It only gets difficult when Justin Danforth comes back assuming all others are healthy. Not sure why they signed this Amerk blocker to a 2 year 1.8 AAV contract. If this was Jarmo's doing it's a bad look. Not sure where they intended to slot him into the lineup in the first place. With that contract he is going to be difficult to get rid of this year. I am not worried about losing Dunn but this guy could cost us Kozak.

There is a narrative by many that UPL has only played well in a stretch of 40 or so games under that last year of Granato. Statistically that may be true but some way or somehow the Sabres seem to win games with him in the net. His over all record is 163 starts 75 wins 68 losses and 16 OTL's. Not great but not bad. What caught my eye was the 22-23 season. His rookie stat line was 33 starts 17 wins 11 loses and 4 OTL's. Very respectable stat line, but the underling numbers were not. His goals against average was 3.61 and save percentage was .891. So what was the situation? The season starts out with Eric Comrie and the aging Craig Anderson in the net. What could go wrong? It went bad early. Sabres go on an 8 game slide in November and Comrie gets hurt. UPL comes up from the Amerks and after losing his first game plays pretty well though December and January. Comrie comes back in late January and UPL starts to sputter. The 3 headed goalie monster kicks in and the Sabres go on a losing streak in March that kind of dooms them until Levi shows up and makes it close finishing the season 5 and 2. Obviously the wins in this season were all driven by offense. The question is how did they any games at all with the defense they had. 79 Games from the 20 year old Owen Power. 78 Games from the 22 year old Dahlin who Granato had to defend to the press about his play in the first part of the season. 68 Games from the steady if unspectacular Lybushkin. 60 Games from 23 year old Jokiharju 55 Games from 22 year old Samuelesson. 59 Games from 25 year old Bryson who was -24 The rest were made up with an odd mix of the injured Stilman, Klage, pilut and others. But then there is the forward group lacking 2 way players, Skinner, Olofsson, Cozens, Quinn, Peterka. You had a few like Tuch and Okposo and Girgensons. Obviously it was all about the offense going off and outscoring the crappy defense and not very good goaltending. How did they keep any pucks out of the net with that crew in front of them? What can UPL do with what is on the ice now vs what was on the ice then? I think UPL can come around and fit into this system as long as the offense stays alive.

I am not worried about roster spots. Rotation could be an issue because they never seem to manage it right. Yes the defense is playing well. For the most part they have all season. We just have not been converting chances in a number of games. Last night we did. I was doing a dive into the 22-23 Sabres season and how important scoring was given the crap defense they had on the ice that year. I will do it in another thread.

Scoring 4 or more goals is the key to winning in this edition of the NHL. It may not seem like we needed it because we only gave up one goal but the early lead helps settle everything down and play a structured game. We have only won 2 games when we did not score 4 goals so far this year. Every loss we have we have scored less than 4. Goaltending is so random these days you just don't know who is good or bad. Lets look at the former Sabres goaltenders. Devin Cooley 10-3-2-2 1.88 .930 Eric Comrie 10-5-5-0 3.13 .893 Linus Ullmark 19-9-6-4 3.10 .874 Did Devin Cooley a 28 year old rookie become a great goaltender? Did Ullmark turn into a pumpkin with that 8.25 million dollar salary? We are not going to trade UPL unless we know we have someone way better to replace him with. The answer is outscoring the problem.

This is what happens when you get destroyed by last place teams.

Dahlin is playing nonchalant.

I see Krebs shaved his stash. Maybe that will help him score a goal.

I don't think they are going to move any of them. The January schedule comes into play here. They have back to back weeks with 4 games. They have 15 games in 30 days. I think they expect one of the goaltenders to get hurt which is not unrealistic given how many goalies do end up on IR at some point in the season. I agree the goalies are mediocre. I do think it's up to the offense to score more than they have been to win games. We are not going to win many like we did last night but we got a little bit of luck. We were due.

It certainly felt that way. You could just see the frustration set in. I honestly felt bad for them skating off the ice. There was effort but this lack of goal scoring is killing them more than anything else. Most games you need 4 to win these days. We just are not getting the production we need in spite of the good chances we generate. A few other comments: On the Thompson fight it looked like Greenway asked Thompson if he wanted him to do it and Thompson waived him off. On Byram's goals against. The first one he tried to chip it off the wall but Meier made a good play to steal it from him then it took bounce into the paint. It was a good forcheck that cost the goal. On the third goal the Sabres were changing and Byram was expecting help behind the goal. Power got tangled a bit coming back in the zone but went to Byram's side of the goal leaving no outlet. I can't really blame Byram on that one as he was left alone on an Island. I know Timmons has had a few rough outings but he is way better than Clifton and has been a solid addition to the team. He is a sturdy D man who blocks a ton of shots. I expect he will have better games. I guess we will see if the Sabres can get out of this scoring funk.

You have to sit behind him to see it because he turns behind the net to do it. It just seems to be his way of zoning out. It probably comes form how he would do it riding a bike but standing still he could just drink straight on. Quirks of goaltenders.

I hope UPL drinks beer better than the way he drinks out of his water bottle. It is hysterical how he does it. He holds it about a foot away from his mouth to the side. Opens the side of his mouth then gets about half a squeeze in his mouth and the rest on his neck and chest. He then looks at the bottle perplexed like it's not working right and puts it back in it's holder. It's fun to watch.

As much as they need a goalie the defense was non existent last night. If they had a great goalie they would have only lost 5 to 3 with the way they were playing.

I don't think you can underestimate the McDavid factor. There has to be some cross marketing deals the Oilers take advantage of. Oilers fans travel well. Right up there with Leaf and Rangers fans. They also have some history. History seems to be important to valuation. All 6 of the original 6 teams are in the top 10 in valuation. Building generations of fans helps over time among other things. It's interesting to see how low the 2 time Stanly cup winner Panthers are. Even though they are a great team they either don't have the flashy player to make the highlight recaps or the team history to support the demand for the product. As far as over all team valuations go you would think there would be a point where they would top out but I am not so sure. I recently read a book titled Rock and Roll is here to pay. It was published around 1975-76 and went over the economics of the music industry from early in the century to that time period. What was thought of as a lot of money then seems so quaint right now. A rock and roll band might get 20 grand to play a show at the Aud back then. The point that struck me though was how human economics were evolving. No longer needing every cent for food, clothing, shelter, and transportation the US population slowly began to have money to spend on records, stereos and concerts. The obvious parallel is to sporting events. Tickets that coast 100's to thousands of dollars are now the norm to a portion of the population. The economic cycles will stunt the growth I would think, but the demand is there.

I remember hearing a story on the radio about a guy playing goal in the local hockey league. The other team brought in 2 Sabres as ringers in a game. Both were 3rd or 4th line types I just can't remember the names right now. The goalie thought oh this will be great to see how he would do against NHL players. After a few shoots he said it totally sucked. He never had faced shoots so hard that it hurt to try and stop them if he could.

Rasmus Dahlin is a way better player all around but I think Power is bit better in that one aspect. The zone entries on the power play smooth and more decisive. Any open ice Power is going to roll. His last few games have been especially good in using his feet to exit the zone and carry on through the neutral zone. If he has open ice he is going to take it.