Projecting the 4 Nations Face Off: Finland

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Of the four teams participating in the 4 Nations Face Off, Finland looks to be the weakest of the bunch. While they don’t lack high-end talent, they don’t boast the sort of depth that the Americans or Canadians have in bunches. Their goaltending is also fairly unproven once you get past Juuse Saros. Saros also has the skill to steal games, making the Finns a dangerous opponent. But on paper, this is the weakest of the four groups. 

There’s a lot of room for movement on the Finnish roster and I think all four teams will use their practice time together to shuffle through line permutations before the games begin. So don’t view all of the lines listed in these posts as firm, but a general scope of how I view each roster. From the top group of forwards down, I don’t think any single one of these groupings would be written in ink given where some of the weak points are with the players they can select from. 

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The Instigator Podcast 12.26 – Targeting Mission: Western Conference Edition

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We thought we’d try something different with this week’s episode. Rather than go on about another squandered pair of points, we dive into the Western Conference to come up with players the Sabres could target in a trade. We touch on each team in the West, highlighting players that range from pie-in-the-sky dreams, to valuable fits deeper in the lineup.

Projecting the 4 Nations Face Off: Canada

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Nine years will have passed between puck drop of next year’s 4 Nations Face Off and the last time NHL players participated in a best-on-best international event. 

Like this abbreviated tournament, the last iteration also featured some unusual wrinkles as the field of teams was rounded out by Team Europe and the legendary Team North America U23 outfit. The 4 Nations event will be a little more by the book, with the United States, Canada, Finland and Sweden competing against each other, with an eye on expanded participation in a consistent international calendar in the years to come. 

The promise of NHL players once again representing their countries means that the time honored tradition of roster projection can be practiced once again. Who better to start with than the team that will almost certainly enter as the tournament favorite and whose superstar has been limited to just one international event in his career, that being the 2016 World Cup? 

Projecting any Canadian roster with NHL players comes with the challenge of determining which of their 184 number one centermen will slide to the wing and which will play the pivot. Canada’s goaltending has also been a point of contention in recent years as the lack of a true superstar has left many to point to the crease as the country’s biggest position of weakness entering this competition. 

I do feel the concerns with their goaltending are being slightly overblown. There are enough Canadian goaltenders around the league with starters credentials who should have little trouble playing behind a forward group and blue line that will be this star studded. 

My goal with the Canadian roster was to plug in players whose traits complemented their linemates as best I could. Just about any permutation of a Canadian roster is going to be a formidable unit and I had little trouble cooking up three different variations of their forward lines that would be easy favorites for gold in this tournament. The group I settled on ultimately maximizes the high-end talent the Candians boast in droves, avoiding the urge to be cute by picking a player just for the sake of being different. 

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The Instigator Podcast 12.25 – Slotting Sabres into the 4 Nations Face Off

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With the 4 Nations Face Off on the way, we take a look at how many Sabres are likely to snag a roster spot playing for their respective countries. We also discuss the Morgan Rielly suspension, the latest comments made by Kevyn Adams regarding Casey Mittelstadt and offer a brief update on the current state of the Sabres.

Rep Your Bills Mafia All Year Round with FOCO’s Brand New Bills 40oz. Tumblerz

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The season, as we all know it, is coming to a close this Sunday as the Super Bowl has already arrived but that will not stop us from thinking about the possibilities of where this Buffalo Bills team can go in 2024.  I’m sure every Bills fan has their good luck merchandise, home décor, and gear to rep their Bills Mafia and cheer them on to victory, but we promise there is something even cooler (no pun intended) that you can carry with you everywhere you go to make sure everyone knows you are the Buffalo Bills’ number one fan in-season and during the offseason all year round!

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The Instigator Podcast 12.24 – Going Mittelstadt Mode

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This week is the Mittelstadt episode. In the wake of the deals that shipped out Elias Lindholm and Sean Monahan, questions about Casey Mittelstadt’s availability have cropped up. We dive into the important role Mittelstadt has played for the Sabres this season while also discussing where he fits in to the team’s future along with the difficulty the Sabres will face in replacing him should they move him in a deal.

New NHL Skills Competition Format is a Winner

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The NHL rolled out a revamped Skills Competition at this year’s All Star weekend with events shaped with the assistance of Connor McDavid and feedback from others around the league. 

In a clear-cut case of knowing the answers ahead of time, McDavid cruised to victory in the event, taking home the $1 million prize as Skills Competition champion. 

McDavid’s win probably happens if he wasn’t the one helping creating the guidelines for the night, but his involvement adds a bit of comedy to it all. But it wasn’t McDavid’s win that was the headline, it was an energetic showing from the players chosen to participate in the reimagined event. With five events joining a trio of mainstays, the players (with one notable exception) were engaged in each event and were giving noticeable efforts at times. It was a breath of fresh air into an event that had leaned way too much into hokey events and strayed from showcasing the true talents of the players on the ice. 

The league deserves credit for taking on the challenge of reshaping the event and looking at it with new eyes. The result was an entertaining product that ought to hold its excitement for some time, especially considering there won’t be another All Star Game for two years while the league re-engages with international competition. With that in mind, here are some grades on the Skills Competition events and some notes on where continued improvements can be made. 

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Warpath #2: Crest & Colors

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The second episode of Warpath is devoted to the crest and colors of the Buffalo Sabres. Featuring interviews with Eric Bodamer and Paul Lukas, this episode explores the background of the team’s blue and gold color scheme, the meaning behind the logo along with additional stories and facts about the uniforms the Sabres wore when they first took the ice in 1970.

The Instigator Podcast 12.23 – All Star Week Musings: Levi, Jiricek, West Coast Trip

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The Sabres are off for a week and the All Star Game is here. We have a slightly longer episode this week that tackles the Sabres’ results from their west coast trip, Devon Levi’s return to Rochester during the team’s time off and we spitball about David Jiricek who has openly complained about his situation in Columbus.

A Better Situation is Needed for Devon Levi

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Buffalo’s goaltending situation is a problem of their own making. 

Kevyn Adams was gambling when he left his goaltending stable untouched in the offseason. After 46 games, there isn’t much that’s improved. 

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen has stabilized the position thus far, taking over the starting job with a string of quality play that dates back to the end of December. He’s currently the best chance the team has to salvage anything from this season as his current form makes him Buffalo’s best, and only reliable goaltender. A pessimist may look at his larger body of work and worry that this is just a blip, but Luukkonen has exhibited much more control over his game during this stretch, has done a better job playing bigger in his net and has held the fort even as the team in front of him continues their up-and-down season. 

Beyond Luukkonen is where things get cloudy. There have been rumors of promises made to Devon Levi in the time leading up to his signing and his seven game cameo appeared to justify the franchise’s faith in him as an NHL regular. So far, that faith hasn’t been fully rewarded. 

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