Doohicksie

This would be a good one:

Would he even play on this roster? He might slot over Bryson.

I will miss this one. Made plans to visit my son and his lovely wife Saturday; didn't realize at the time the Sabres had an afternoon game.

I mean woof. He looked every bit like a rookie d-man. Consider that when he came to the Sabres, he was at the end of a playoff run at the college level. Everything was working and natural and it carried over. Yesterday was the beginning of his season and it will take a little longer to get up to NHL speed for him, I think, than most veterans of the league.

Definitely takes some getting used to. After a while it will become something our brains actively ignore but right now the novelty of the ads is very distracting. I know, I know....

You sound like a friend of mine. Here's a picture of him (foreground) in his office.

It was up in all its glory early (right after the game, for an hour or two)

Okay so he's not for everybody. What I like about the guy is that he's kind of a gauge of how non-Sabres fans feel about what's happening in Buffalo (he lives in the Vancouver market and likes the Canucks; secondary teams are Dallas and Boston). And the Sabres are playing three rookies in prominent roles. It will take a while for them to adjust, and for the whole team to get their timing down.

He doesn't watch every game. He watches as much as he can and then watches stretches of games on replay or the highlights. Plus on busy nights his wife helps out. It's his fulltime job at this point. He does go through the stats as well, and he did talk about the tribute.

I heard that. It's why I made that remark. #GranatoShill

The Hockey Guy's take (cued up to the Buffalo-Ottawa game):

Did I miss it or is Seven Nations Army not on the list?

Appropriate username. And... no.

Ullmark was not a regular NHLer in 15-16. He played more for the Amerks.

I had to watch the replay several times before I could decipher what happened.... bang bang! Yes. They have lots to clean up but the structure was there underneath.

You can see the player and coach postgame interviews at the Sabres page on NHL.com. Sadly it appears they've taken down Peterka's postgame interview with the F-bomb.

Out of the games I've seen so far this year, I actually the the Sabres broadcast ads were the best. In Edmonton they were flickering and lagging which was extremely distracting. In general when they change they just change instantly. The Sabres ads actually transition with animation which seems less attention grabbing actually (at least to me). My prediction is that as the season goes on, most teams will get their virtual ads worked out better but that also we, as fans, will learn to ignore them kind of like the little virtual ads on the games people play on their phones.

I felt like it was a game of momentum shifts. The Sens pushed the play early which is what you saw. There were times when the Sabres controlled play. Both teams actively worked to steal the momentum from each other. In the early 2nd period the Sabres carried the play, resulting in JJ's and Dahlin's goals. The Sens pushed back but in the end Anderson was the difference maker. When they got to the mid third period Ottawa tried to open things up but left themselves vulnerable to counterattack which the Sabres tried to exploit but they didn't score until the Sens finally pulled their goalie. It was a game that gave Granato a lot of video to go over with the guys and they will undoubtedly learn from it. The effort was there.

This is the first game of the season. They will be better. Sheesh.

Completely worked over? Eh. Okay, they allowed a goal. VO also opportunistically canceled out that line's poor +/- ratings at the end of the game. The point I was making is Tage's line contained the damage from the Stützle line so that other lines could have a chance to excel against weaker competition. I'm not going to condemn any line this early in the season. Let Donny review the video with them, let them skate a few games together and get used to full speed NHL play again... then we can evaluate.

I can remember watching Boosh when the Sabres played the Leafs last season and he stood out as the best defensive Dman for TO. That's precisely what the Sabres needed. Hagg was never a solid NHLer; he's a tweener. Hagg's currently on the Red Wings bottom pairing which is his ceiling.

Yeah... @dudacek got it.

What those charts tell me is that Tage's line was busy with the Stützle line. And that meets my eye test; they seemed to be pre-occupied with Ottawa's best line. But that freed up Cozens' line against softer competition. This is how you want the team to work.