While the last week and a half has been pretty rough on the Sabres, Tuesday night’s win over New Jersey was a nice respite. We close the show with some thoughts on the win but only on the heels of some tougher talking points on Buffalo’s injury luck and Ralph Krueger’s coaching decisions.
The Instigator Podcast is supported by Manscaped. You can get 20% off and free shipping by using the code 2ITB at www.manscaped.com.
The Sabres are back and while it’s only been one game but the team, and the fanbase, are up to their old tricks. Given the leadup to the season opener, and the game’s result, what better time than to do another mailbag?
We’ve got jersey numbers, the Jeff Skinner conundrum, coaching and more. Continue reading
After 300 days the Sabres will be back on the ice this week, kicking off the 2020-21 season. Their lengthy layoff was punctuated by the same sort of turmoil that has followed them in recent years as Jason Botterill was given a vote of confidence before being fired shortly thereafter.
A large chunk of hockey staff were handed their walking papers along with the entire Rochester coaching staff. With additional bad press surrounding ownership due to layoffs on the business side of the organization, they landed on Kevyn Adams as their next GM.
Adams’ first offseason was a bit of a roller coaster. The acquisitions of Taylor Hall and Eric Staal were big wins but questions linger over the selection of Jack Quinn at eighth overall and the decision to let Dominik Kahun walk. Meanwhile, the jury is out on the Cody Eakin and Tobias Rieder signings. It seems the offseason was a success for Adams with a few expected hiccups.
Now, on the eve of the season, the Sabres face a tough division and yet another uphill battle to ending their playoff drought. While the East Division may not be as tough as initially thought, the Sabres are hardly a shoo-in for the postseason. But the NHL has produced its fair share of darkhorse playoff qualifiers and with just a few sly moves (and a bit of luck) the Sabres might find themselves in the postseason for the first time since 2011. So what are the boom or bust factors for the Sabres in 2020-21? Continue reading
As the Sabres prepare to hit the ice for the first time in nearly a calendar year, there is reason for some hope with Buffalo’s outlook for the 2020-21 season. The additions of Eric Staal and Taylor Hall creates the opportunity for the Sabres to ice a more formidable lineup and we discuss how the lines are shaping up and if they are putting the Sabres on a path to success for the year. We also touch on the difficult aspects of the East Division and some of the areas the Sabres may be able to exploit. We also give some love to the Bills as their playoff run shapes up before diving in on Jeff Skinner’s potential usage as the season begins.
The Instigator Podcast is supported by Manscaped. You can get 20% off and free shipping by using the code 2ITB at www.manscaped.com.
It’s been a while since the last mailbag ran, so I’ve taken a few extra questions for this edition to make up for lost time. This edition of the mailbag will hit on draft questions, goalie gear, movie recommendations and trade targets.
Hopefully I won’t be as lazy moving forward and there will be more mailbags to come in the weeks to follow. Continue reading
Should Jeff Skinner be reunited with Jack Eichel? Is it imperative for Sam Reinhart to play away from Eichel? Is it odd that after seeing two coaches shuffle Buffalo’s lines “too much”, Ralph Krueger has been hesitant to alter his top unit? We tackle a number of topics related to Skinner’s goal scoring struggles, and how the Sabres might best optimize the top six in a way that would get Skinner back on track and determine if Reinhart can indeed drive his own line.
The first three games of the 2019-20 season are in the books and the Sabres have impressed early on thanks to a pair of wins over Pittsburgh and New Jersey. We run through some of the key factors to Buffalo’s 2-0-1 start, including just what’s working with Ralph Krueger’s system and the players who have impressed thus far. We also offer up a loose prediction for how we think things could unfold if these first few games are an indication of what’s to come.
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Another season of Sabres hockey is underway and the 2ITB Mailbag is back for another run. This will be a weekly (sometimes) edition that runs down questions on the Sabres, Bills and just about anything else you can come up with.
I’m also going to use this as a quasi-season preview since I haven’t done one quite yet and it’s worth trying a different approach when it comes to a season preview. Especially when it’s written during the first game of the year and every other season preview is days or weeks old.
This is the first season in quite a while that I didn’t look forward to with some level of optimism. That’s softened a bit after Thursday’s performance, but it was still hard to really get up for the opening of the season with so many of the same faces on this roster. Not only are players like Sobotka, Scandella and Girgensons still around, but they’re all playing prominent roles. Add in the new coach giving them all sorts of love in the press and any frustration from the end of last year comes roaring back.
Sobotka got tons of credit for his play in the preseason, but I saw a lot of the same from last year. A black hole when the puck goes near him and very few positive traits. How he wound up in Buffalo’s top six is beyond me and I can only hope Krueger finds a new spot for him in short order.
It’s nice that Thursday went as well as it did, because that will help stoke the flames of optimism. The Mittelstadt line looked excellent and despite being an island of misfit toys, the Girgensons, Larsson and Okposo line was efficient as well. If there’s one spot on the roster I’m optimistic about, it’s the blueline. And that unit was quite good on Thursday. So, let’s see if they can string some wins together and prove everyone who was doubting their roster decisions wrong.
Now, on to the questions. Continue reading
The Sabres are about to get down to playing some honest to god, regular season hockey games this week. Before they jump in to games that count for something, they need to make a few decisions on their roster.
Preseason hockey is tough to take too much information from given the irregular rosters on a game-to-game basis. One night you could see an NHL-heavy roster and on another night you might only see three or four NHL regulars in the lineup. With that being the case, it can even be hard to be impressed by individual performances since the level of competition they can come against can vary so much.
There’s also the Preseason Pledge to consider. You can’t get too high or too low on a player or the team given the volatility of the roster during the preseason. But that can go out the window when Vladimir Sobotka skates on the second line and the coach says a lot of really nice things about him.
On the eve of the regular season opening, there seems to be more concern and annoyance than excitement across Sabres nation. Jason Botterill went out and acquired a handful of players who could really help this team turn a corner this year. Only, he forgot to get rid of anyone from last year’s group. This preseason was thought to be the one where we’d finally see some dead weight stripped off the roster. The likes of Sobotka, Zemgus Girgensons and Marco Scandella have been the most popular candidates in that regard. But with the season almost upon us, that’s looking more and more dire.
I, for one, seriously expected Sobotka to spend the final year of his contract in Europe. I’m glad I attached the caveat to my opinion that we couldn’t take solace in it happening until Botterill filed the paperwork. Given the state of the roster, Sobtoka seems to be safe. It’s disappointing for a number of reasons, primarily because Sobotka is bad at hockey. The silver lining here is that it appears that Sobotka is simply keeping Conor Sheary’s seat warm on the second line. He may just be the extra forward, meaning he’ll spend plenty of time in the pressbox this season.
Still, the fact that he’ll be an option to dress on a nightly basis is extremely disappointing.
I suppose there’s still a chance that we get surprised by the noon waiver notifications. But I’m not expecting any fireworks from the Sabres. That’s not to say they shouldn’t make some noise with their roster decisions. While about two-thirds of the roster was set before camp opened, I think there have been a few eye-opening performances the should have affected Botterill and Ralph Krueger’s thinking on the final 23-man roster. Continue reading
The Sabres kicked off training camp on Thursday of last week which doesn’t make this much of a preview since camp is nearly seven days deep.
Even though I’m tardy with this post, I still wanted to put a few thoughts together on the players the Sabres have in camp, particularly after seeing the first group take on the Penguins at Penn State.
Buffalo sent a veteran-heavy roster to Happy Valley and needed overtime despite tripling the Penguins in shot and bottling a 4-1 advantage against a roster that was much lighter on NHL talent. The result really couldn’t matter any less given how lopsided the rosters and the possession was, but there were a few high points to take away from the evening.
Conor Sheary did a few things that should give you confidence he can occupy Jack Eichel’s right wing, Henri Jokiharju and John Gilmour showed off their wheels and each netted a goal to boot. Eichel, Rasmus Dahlin and Jeff Skinner can probably hang out in a suite and eat popcorn for the rest of preseason while Ralph Krueger and Jason Botterill figure out the roster.
In light of Monday’s preseason tilt and the fact that I’m nearly a week late in offering a camp “preview”, I thought I’d try something a little different in terms of this post. I’ll highlight a few players and positions that stand out to me while trying to avoid some of the more traditional training camp storylines. Continue reading
