Doohickie

You, sir, are a master of the craft.

Oddly, it seems that the Sabres lead the league in games missed due to injuries from blocked shots.

I remember losing lots and lots of games. I remember an occasional game when the opponents peppered the Sabres with shots, most of which were not high danger chances.

Good. Let's explosively shart all over them.

Is that one of the 89.3% of all statistics that are made up on the spot? We beat Edmonton & Calgary on the early west coast swing.

Another TNT game. Just ***** win.

The other variable to mention is injuries especially with respect to other teams. We don't know who's going to suddenly drop out of the race. On the other hand I think the Sabres will continue to "figure it out" and steadily improve. They've got scoring lines that are clicking, the foundation of a solid "fourth line" in Okie and Gus and whoever you put between them. If the third line either figures it out or Donny swaps out players and settles on something that works, the entire forward corps will be fleshed out. The defense has two solid pairings and a meh pairing. As long as the meh pairing doesn't hurt us too much the D is okay. Goaltending could go either way. UPL will either get it or reveal himself to be a career AHLer. Comrie could come back from injury with improved perspective. Or not. As much as I'd like to see them make the playoffs it may take another season for these issues to resolve. But Moneypuck still has them as a slightly better than even chance to make the playoffs. They don't have a rooting interest, they're just looking at the numbers.

20-month-old sheepdog named Casper fights off and kills 8 coyotes that attacked his flock https://www.cbsnews.com/news/casper-sheepdog-kills-8-coyotes-that-attacked-his-flock-farmer-georgia/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab6a&linkId=19241788

This forum is an excellent sounding board for evaluating ideas that float through my brain.

Yes, I know, taking Cozens away from JJ and Quinn might be a bad move, but on the other hand, Cozens is emerging as a leader and I think he might pull Mitts and VO along behind him and not allow them to be lazy.

At this point in the season it may not even be possible. That was my point. It's not like Vezina-quality goalies are sitting on shelves waiting to be acquired.

Let's get Krebs' head screwed on straight, then put him on the line with JJ and Quinn (they played well together at AHL level), put the speedy/impatient Cozens between Mitts and VO and show them what skating is, and let Jost do his thing on Okie/Gus line.

This is my read. Or at least: I think Okie and Gus play a straightforward, north-south game. Krebsy is too much east-west. By playing with those two guys, they want him to learn to advance the puck without getting too fancy (my take). On the other line I think they want Jost's persistence and defensive responsibility to rub off on Mitts & VO. Jost is by no means a great player, but he's not afraid to act and does a good job of cleaning up his own mistakes. VO may always be a floater but Casey in particular could take a lesson from Jost.

What are you smoking? That line is actually pretty good at defending. Sure, order some from Amazon, it will arrive in 3-5 days. It's that easy, right?

Nope. I've anointed them and several others have too. Don't worry about us falling off the bandwagon, we've done it before.

Yes they did, but it's not major. My recollection was that a lot of people, some tongue-in-cheek, some serious, hailed Casey as a savior of sorts. I was on that train a while, as I am apt to jump on these hype trains. That said... I never thought he'd be a $10 million per year player. Now someone pass me @PerreaultForever's crack pipe.

Indeed. I think the thing that sets them apart from other lines, especially with younger players, is they are, all three of them, defensively very good. I think it was Quinn that said in yesterday's postgame that they generate offense from sound defense. They actively participate in the defense, but also remember how out-of-joint all of the forward lines looked when we had our defensive injuries. You need sound defensive pairings and solid forward support to defend properly and quickly transition to offense. The Cozens line is a poster child for that. In general I do like that the Sabres often have a guy that will pull out of the defensive zone and streak down toward the opposing blue line when the Sabres get firm control in the defensive zone, and that the defenders know to look for the long bomb aerial outlet pass. I think that's generated a lot of offensive chances for the team. What sets the Cozens line apart is they are all so speedy that those long passes can quickly turn into 2- and 3-man rushes.

Joki is a solid 4D. As long as he doesn't have to fight over his weight class, he does fine. But we all saw when the injuries hit that when asked to elevate his game, he didn't have it in him. Still, I think if he's not asked to play above 4D level he'll be fine going forward. Ideally the Sabres will bring in defensemen that will push him down to a 3rd pairing which would make him even more valuable to the team.

We'll have to wait and see. They have some things to work on, but they're already putting up points *and* suppressing chances against. I'd like them be able to spend more extended times in the offensive zone instead of simply producing rush chances then falling back on defense. But overall they are really burning it up out there and chances are they will only improve.

Sure there will be slumps but the overall trajectory of this line is still, and will continue to be, very positive. There is a chemistry and a synergy between these three players that seems to be bootstrapping this line steadily upward.

Tage line: Three virtuosos who can complement each other's solos. Cozens line: A monolithic unit, perfectly in sync at all times. Our top two lines each produced 3 goals last night. But they are very different to play against. The Tage line is just hard to get the puck away from once they get it. Even once they lose the puck their recovery is pretty strong. Cozens line is more about speed and passing. I can see with just a modest boost out of the bottom 6 and decent goaltending that the Sabres could be a handful for any team. I know coming into the season there was some debate over whether Dylan or Mittsy would have a breakout season. We have that answer: Cozens is the pivot on what could soon rival The Perfection Line.

That preview tho 👀