Sam and Vesey play super well together

wow Sabres D are limping into the regular season. Is Scandella so bad he can't crack a lineup with Montour, Bogosian, Hunwick and Pilut out?

Scandella is terrible. Gilmour looks a lot better than him.

I like that you gave mittelstadt wingers that can help him. They might not score, but hes at least got a fighting chance with them. Not sure if scandella is in the press box, its a lot of money and i think its a tough call for a coach to sit a vet thats getting paid. Not that i disagree with gilmour mind you. I hope johansson can handle some d zone time, all of our starts wont be in the offensive zone, and neither skinner nor vesey is gonna be confused with jere lehtonen.

Im pretty sure everyone was praising Johansson's 2 way game

I thought he was a "center" that mostly played wing, but i figured he would get a look. Id be thrilled if he was a solid 2 way center. Thats the difference between another 8oa and actually being in the wild card race. I hope.

he is a "center" but that doesnt mean he cant be good in the dzone

First of all, very reasonable post.
I like that left handed players are on the left and right on the right (other than Vesey, but if he is playing the off wing, he may produce better with a RHC, just a thought sort of better to not have 3 left handed shots on the same line).
I am very impressed with Gilmour's speed. I said this many times in the past month, when Betterall took over the team it had 3 NHL defensemen Ristolainen, McCabe and Bogosian (who was always hurt). Now it may have as many as 10 (Jokiharju, Miller, Montour, Gilmour, Nelson, Pilut and of course Dahlin).
Remember when the team had no secondary scoring, that we needed to sign Derek Grant and we all know how that worked out. Outside of the top line of last year, this team has 8 forwards who one could reasonably expect to score 15 to 20 goals this year, Sheary, Johansson, Vesey, Mittelstadt, Rodrigues, Okposo, Olofsson, Thompson (this may be a reach, but he does look a lot better than last year).
I do not want to predict where Olofsson will play. He appears to be one of the better defensive forwards, returning to the defensive zone sooner than the other forwards. So he could conceivably play anywhere in the top 3 lines.


He actually is playing OK, Gilmour is playing better.

Well not terrible, just not as good as the other LHD we have.

I agree, difficult decisions, do we sit $15,000,000 (Bogosian, Okposo and Scandella) or play them to demonstrate that they can contribute and maybe a GM would be willing to obtain them in a trade. BTW Okposo was one of the most noticeable players on the ice Wednesday. Skating hard and creating chances. Scandella still has a very hard shot that may interest teams who want a LHD who can fire the puck.

Hunwick was always on ir or healthy scratch , Bogo is 4th or 5th RHD when healthy rn. Pilut may go back to the A after he gets heathly, theirs no need to rush him. As everyone said Gilmour has impressed, they have Dahlin and McCabe, Scandella will be their 7th probably (or Gilmour) then they have Jokiharju and Borgen who are young but have NHL experience.