GDT: Flames @ Sabres, Oct. 19, 2023 - 7pm EDT, MSG 📺 WGR 📻

[Taro T]

On 10/19/2023 at 10:34 PM, sabremike said:

Letting Ullmark walk is really going to end up a Whalers trading Ron Francis level ***** up isn't it?

What do you mean "going to end up?"

Take that phrase out, and you nailed it.

[Taro T]

On 10/20/2023 at 12:35 PM, Pimlach said:

He played his worst game and yet he kept us in the game.  I counted 6 huge saves.  If he rests the 5th game he is averaging 80% of the games, or 65 of the 82 - obviously not even close to a sustainable pace. 

Obvious to some anyway.    

The schedule gets more compressed after we get out of October.  (Not as significantly as in past years, it's good to have no Olympic break in the middle of the season and to be back to a full length season now that post-pandemic schedule compression seems to be a thing of the past; but still it does get more compressed.)  Levi won't be getting 4 straight games once we start seeing btb's coming on the schedule and multigame road trips.  But this is a stretch of 5 games in 10 days with only a 1 hour-ish flight each way disrupting the routine.  Without catching the injury, he should've been able to handle that load.  (Any NHL starter should.)

Fully expect that they wouldn't have played Levi all the 1st 4 games of the season had they been 2-1, but 4 games in 8 nights is what he'd be expected to play if they were in the playoffs.  It isn't horribly excessive.  But hopefully, it is putting in crystal clear focus just how bad a decision it was to run with the 3 headed monster without either making an offer to a FA that went back to his old team simply couldn't ignore or trading away some of the precious prospect pool.  They clearly don't trust Comrie nor UPL to win a must win game.  With that being the case, don't know what the answer is at this point.  Nobody is going to just give the Sabres an easy mulligan to fix that error.

But a bright side to this situation is that this team has been through these stretches before without getting their spirit broken.  Adams really did assemble a group that has the character to keep perservering regardless of how ugly things may seem nor how quickly those outside the room are ready to throw in the towel.  Who knows, maybe this is that game that UPL has the horseshoe firmly lodged in his butt.  Win an ugly game tonight and then sneak out a win against a bad Moe-ray-all team that plays the Sabres well and they're back to 0.500 heading into Otterland.

[thewookie1]

18 hours ago, sabremike said:

Obviously their management has been awful which is why they have been one of the top teams in the league for decades.

Wasn't saying they aren't good; just not perfect like you seemed to insinuate.