How bad is it for the Buffalo Sabres as they sit in last place?

How bad is it for the Buffalo Sabres as they sit in last place?

I left, went to Florida, came back, and the Sabres are in last place, and everybody’s injured. All right, let’s dive in on what’s going wrong with the Buffalo Sabres, and the Lockdown Sabres podcast. [Music] You’re locked on Sabres, your daily podcast on the Buffalo Sabres, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. What is up everybody and welcome in to this Monday edition of the Locked On Sabers podcast. Thanks for making us your first listen every day. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, now your number one sports podcast network. You can check out Locked On Sabers wherever you get your podcast. You can watch the show on YouTube if you would like to become a part of our Locked On Sabres text club to get injury updates, stuff that’s going on at practice, line accommodations. You can check all that out over on our text club. Joins subtext.com/lockdonsabers is the place to sign up for that if you would like. And let’s get right into it. Sneaky Joe Debbiosi here on a Monday. Today’s episode of Lockdown Sabers presented by FanDuel. Download the FanDuel app right now by visiting FanDuel.com and win $300 bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins. Today we’re going to get into all the players that are currently missing, all the news. It’s not really even injury news. It’s illness news. It’s Dalene going back over to Europe, which I know is a couple of days old now. Um, it’s a couple of losses since we’ve done a show with you and we’ve got a road trip coming up this week and it’s going to be tough as the Sabres currently sit in dead last in the Eastern Conference. Now, everything is still pretty packed together, but you suddenly look and you could frame this however you want, whether it is overtime losses, are they overtime losses, are they losses, whatever. Sabres have lost six of their last seven games and that’s a problem clearly. So, who’s going to step up for this team? We’ll try to give you an answer to that here on the Locked On Sabres podcast. We will go through the standings as well because around Buffalo, there’s a lot of surprise teams. The top three of the Atlantic division are three teams I would have never predicted. At least there’s one I would have never predicted being up there, but we’ll get into that a little bit later on on today’s show. Um, I went to Miami for the Bills Dolphins game and uh, by the way, that was not so fun either because the Bills got destroyed by a division opponent they never get destroyed by. You can check out locked on Bills Joe Marino’s coverage of that from Sunday night and into Monday. But, uh, while I was there, the Sabres played the Blues, the Sabres played the Hurricanes. It was funny. I was out on Saturday night. They played Carolina. And I wondered like, any chance there’s a lot of Buffalo fans here? I mean, the whole strip in Fort Lauderdale is Bills fans. Any shot one of these places has got the Saber game on? No. Okay, fine. I’ll watch I’ll watch it on my phone. Uh, that’s fine. Um, nobody had the Saber game on except when I went to a casino on Thursday night against St. Louis and they’re the have their sports book there at the uh at the Hard Rock Casino. The game was on there, but um obviously they were for other reasons. So, you know, we watched a little bit of that game back after the fact. I hate watching games back when you know they’re going to lose because they’re just a lot tougher to watch. But went through them and wasn’t particularly impressed with either game. It was kind of amazing to me. They clawed their way back against Carolina. By the way, that’s a place they have still not won since the 201516 season. The Sabres have now won in Carolina since Jack Eel was a rookie. And that streak continues um beyond this past Saturday night with a six-3 loss to Carolina. Again though, I was a little bit surprised that they even pulled that game to within four to three with just a couple of minutes to go and then Carolina gets the two empty netters. Tage scores, Tuck scores, Power scores. You had some of your best players that were available stepping up. They’re like the only three best players that are available for the Buffalo Sabres though right now. So, at the moment, it’s a record of five, six, and four. 14 points. Four points out of a playoff spot. dead last in the Eastern Conference um with 14 points. Only Columbus has the same. And we’ll get into how the standings look in a little bit. But it’s hard for me to be overly mad about the last two results. And that is maybe the most frustrating part of this season right now is you want to feel like going in, if I told you on November 10th, so a month into the season, give or take, it’s actually a month and one day into the season, that the Buffalo Sabres would be in dead last in the Eastern Conference. Then I know what I would have thought back in October, and I know what you probably would have thought too. It’s okay. Kevin Adams has to go. This this needs to end. If it’s not working within a month, fire the general manager. And at that point, even maybe I’m okay with a new GM, Yarmmo, Kalinan, whoever, bringing in his own head coach and maybe you move off of Lindy Ruff. The most frustrating part is you can’t even really direct your anger in any particular direction. You could you could a little bit with certain individuals, but it’s hard to when they’re just losing everybody. And it’s, you know, the it’s these crazy stories. Of course, the Dalene news of his fiance having her heart stop on vacation in France over the summer and she has to have a heart transplant. So maybe his mind’s not 100% on the game. I don’t want to speak for him. And he’s back though in Europe and he needed to take time away from the team. Understandable. Go get your personal life, you know, in best order you can. Be with your fiance. That’s understandable. No qualms about that. How could you? It’d be ridiculous to have any qualms about that. Family comes first. Jason Zucker has a severe viral illness that is keeping him out of the lineup and is going to continue to keep him out of the lineup. What are you supposed to do about that? That’s one of your best wingers. Honestly, he’s like one of your important middle six wingers. He’s your power play frontman on your number one unit. He’s just out of the lineup, right? Like what are you supposed to do about that? Yuri Koulik, according to Lindy Ruff today. They’re going to see how he does in the next three to four weeks. He is having blood clot issues, which is something you see in the NHL once in a while. All the travel. Remember Steven Stampos I think had this a couple of years ago. Other guys have had it too. Basketball has had it. Chris Bosch had to retire in the NBA because of this. Um so it it’s now this blood clots with Koulique. It’s your number one center with Josh Norris being out and he’s just away from the team right now. And that’s again those three are on top of all the regular injuries that this team currently has. So now I’m looking at a skeleton squad. We’re a month into the year and the second line is basically the Amirs. Like I cross my fingers that the young kids can come up and score for them, which is a place that they’ve done that that’s a place they’ve been by choice in the past. And finally, they’re trying not to be that team and they are being forced back into it because of these. It’s like the hockey gods are just saying like, “Nope, nope, you’re not breaking the drought. Uh, you thought your team was pretty good. Oh, look, everyone’s projecting you to be a playoff bubble team. Nah, we’re going to take out half your lineup by the beginning of the year. So now, again, skeleton squad, Ryan Mloud’s your number one center. I mean, we got to get to that and how the lineup currently looks going into this road trip. But it’s tough. It’s really going to be tough to overcome. So, when they get outplayed by a Blues team that is at the bottom of the standings and they don’t score a goal, I c I can’t be too too mad. think when I see that they get pretty much dominated until the third period by a far superior Carolina team in a place they never win even when they’re healthy. I mean, what am I what are you supposed to do? Um, you can’t really blame anybody. You just have to hope that they can pull through this as best they can. Play 500 hockey, get some points until your guys come back and then maybe you are still afloat enough to push back into the race by the time I it would be great if Diene comes back at some point, but that’s a tough one to predict. Koulique maybe within the next month. Zucker hopefully within a couple of weeks. Norris, I mean, that guy could play 10 games for you the rest of the year. Maybe that would feel like a win. Um, I just I don’t know what else to do about their team right now. Just got to go with the take you got to take the lumps as they’re coming and you got to hope this team can find a way to string wins together without a lot of their important players. So, let’s get into that when we return. is what the lineup is going to look like as the Sabres are going into a three-game road trip against a couple of pretty darn good teams and a team that is at the top of the standings uh or excuse me had been at the top of the standings in the east but they’re falling a little bit in Detroit. Two other tough teams out in the west with Utah and Colorado. We’ll get to what it’s going to look like going into that trip and how much we should really expect the Sabres to get. That’s when we come back here on the Lockdown Sabers podcast. Today’s episode of the Lockdown Sabers podcast is presented by Indeed. You just realized that your business needed to hire somebody like yesterday. Well, how can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed’s all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post seen on other sites. Indeed sponsored jobs puts your post at the top of the page and helps you reach the right candidates faster. If you’ve been in that spot where you need the right hire yesterday, pressureures on, every day without the right person is a setback. That’s exactly when Indeed sponsored jobs comes in handy. They make sure that your post is seen by the right candidates right now. Now you can speed up your hiring process with the $75 sponsored job credit. Just go to indeed.com/lockedon right now. Support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Welcome back, Sneaky Jody Debiasi back here on the Locked On Savers podcast. Uh, thanks for making us your first listen every day. We are number one podcast network. Locked on. Uh, please do uh bring introduce that news to you. We are the number one sports podcast network and um we continue to bring all your Buffalo Sabres coverage even as the team is just getting picked off one by one by one. Wednesday at Utah, Thursday at Colorado, Saturday at Detroit. That is currently what we are staring at. And here is what the lines looked like at practice this morning. Again, you’re missing Zucker. You’re missing Koulique. You’re missing Dalene. You’re missing Josh Norris. Um, who else am I missing here? You’re missing Zack Benson. Excuse me. Zack Benson is the other one that is currently out. Lindy said there is a chance that he plays during this trip. We’ll see. Remember Justin Danforth? Forgot about him. Maybe he’s obviously out and has been out for uh for a long long term here. When you’re looking at what the lines now look like. Ryan Mloud is their number one center. And I like Ryan Mloud. It’s not really a role that really he should be asked to play. Um, I guess like again it’s like what are you really supposed to do? It’s really tough. I guess in a vacuum I would and the Sabres have done this like in the last couple of games they’ve been mixing stuff in and out. I would just put Tage Thompson at number one center and leave him there but they’ve been flirting with that and putting him back on the wing. Well, at the moment he looks like he might be back in the wing. So Thompson on the wing, Mloud at center, Tuck on the right. I mean, really what you’re trying to do there is you’re trying to put your three most reliable veteran forwards all together and just cross your fingers. You have one line at least that’s going to dominate the opponent while they’re out there and then the other three lines can just band together and pray that you don’t get smoked while you’re out there together. That is what these lines kind of read like to me is Mloud, Tuck, Thompson. More often than not, that line should outplay the line they’re playing. Mloud even not being playing a little bit above his pay grade. He’s a good player. And the fact that he is surrounded by Tage and Tuck, I think makes it a little bit easier for him to go up into that role. The second line is what I said earlier like let me hope the Amirs can come up and fix this because Noah Oselin at number two center. Isac Roseanne and Jack Quinn I and this is actually even with I think Oscelin and Roseanne looking good. I’ve kind of liked both of them. Um they have not been perfect. They are definitely capable of being pushed around a little bit. Those two look small when they’re out there and not by height. It’s just the frame of both of them. Ocelin makes sense because he’s still so young. Rosanne though has just always been that way and he’s a little bit older for a prospect and he’s still that way. So Quinn’s had a nice season. I I’m kind of hopeful that that line can give them some offense and a little bit here and there that line has been capable of giving them some offense. I mean Quinn Quinn is been a little bit of a surprise to me this year. I think he’s looked very strong. Of course hasn’t been perfect. He had that turnover the other night um on the power play where he completely gave it up and he couldn’t get back and it was a goal right in the back of your own net because of him. So it has not been perfect. You still get plays like that. Oscelin Roseanne and Quinn give me a goal every other night from that line. That’d be that would be fantastic. Maybe a two goals every three nights would be a great great result. But it’s tough because I don’t really know what to expect from Oscelin. He’s been the most impressive to me of those three. Um, I’ve really liked his game. He is such a smooth skater. He sees the ice really well. I think his first couple of games in the NHL last year, he did a good job of kind of, and Lindy’s even talked about this, learning the defensive game and being responsible so that you can get minutes when you get called up here. And now that he’s kind of employed that baseline of being good in his own end and being someone that Lindy can trust, now you start to bring in some more of the creativity, take some more chances offensively, use some more of your speed, and I think you’re seeing a better and better player every game that he plays. So, I would continue to give him decent minutes. Roseanne, we’ll see. I don’t know. You got a couple of nice games so far this year. It’s been better than I thought um that it would be, but still not somebody that I’m really excited to see being in their top six at the moment. And then the bottom six is just like, give me all the physicality, all the defense, and let me be as hard to play against as possible with a Kak Don Greenway line and then a Krebs Dunn Malenstein line. The third line, I mean, listen, I don’t think Kak could really be this, but I could be surprised about him. Done, especially in Greenway to a little bit of a lesser extent. It’s like, all right, maybe I can get a little bit of offense from that line, but that line’s job is to be solid in their own end and be physical. And then Krabs, Malenstein, and Dunn, who’s actually actually looked good as a fourth line. Like, I kind of go one through four in these lines. Like, I’m not really hating a lot of it. I’ve liked Oscelin. I’ve liked Quinn this year. I’ve liked Roseanne even at times. Um, I’ve liked Don, obviously. How could you not like Don? I’ve liked honestly Malenstein this year. I’ve like done this year. Some of these guys in the bottom six even like I’m good with that. But once it’s kind of all together, it’s too many unknown commodities to rely upon. So while sure, look at them all individually and go, I’m liking what I’m getting from this guy and I’m liking what I’m getting from this guy. They’re still not players that you are reliably counting on night to night to night. The reason you feel like you’re impressed with Beck Melenstein this year is because if he plays really well once every five games, that’s that’s achieving his expectation. So, you feel good about that. The reason you might feel good about like I might feel good about Noah Oelen right now is he’s basically making his NHL debut still. So, at his age, as a prospect, you know, giving you anything over the first dozen games of his career is going to feel like he’s achieving or even going beyond his expectation. That’s why it feels good. But when it all kind of gets added together, it’s not a strong lineup. Clearly, it’s not a strong I mean, these are how many of these guys would not be in the lineup if they were fully healthy because, you know, they were fully healthy. Benson’s in the lineup. Zucker’s in the lineup. Norris is in the lineup. in the lineup and at the beginning of the year it was Danforth. So let’s say it’s four or five who comes out Dunn Kak uh Roseanne and Osceland and then maybe even one more Malenstein Krebs like it’s a lot of guys that aren’t even playing that poorly that you would just automatically take out of the lineup if everybody got healthy. And then by the way really quickly on the blue line um no Dene I mean he’s the most irreplaceable player they have so we’ll see. Can Owen Power do the job as best he can? I think he’s about to be playing a lot of minutes for this team. He’s going to be playing power play all situations. This is a big test for him because while I don’t know how confident a lot of fans are that he’s going to be able to do this, um I got my fingers crossed that he will. And it’s funny because he really wasn’t playing a ton of minutes. I mean, in the in the few games before Dene left for Europe, it was 22 minutes, 19 minutes, 19 minutes, 18 minutes for Owen Power. I mean, and he plays 22 minutes last, you know, Saturday against Carolina. He’s going to be asked to play 24, 25, 26 minutes, I think, on a nightly basis because he’s got to fill the Dene role. He’s got to be the guy who controls the pace, that is their best player on their back end, that is setting things up defensively, offensively even. Like, I think a lot of it’s got to come from power. So, lot on his plate going forward here. He’s got to step up. Like, there’s just no if ends and buts. He has to step up for them. When we come back, we’ll take a quick look at the standings and some of these surprise teams that are jumping in front of the Sabres. It’s basically everybody at this point, but we’ll get to that when we come back here on the Lockdown Sabres podcast. Today’s episode of Lockdown Sabres is presented by FanDuel. The NBA is back. NHL is back. NFL uh baseball of course just ended, but college basketball, there’s no better place to get on all the action than FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. So, even if you miss the start of a game, you want to ride the hot hand, FanDuel is live bets on everything from who will score next to fourth quarter comebacks. Plus, you can even combine live bets into a same game parlay. You get a shot at a bigger payout that way. Keeps every game more exciting, especially when your team’s making a late push of my Sabres bet of the night for tomorrow against Utah. And we’re still doing really well on the season so far. Um, get ready for some emotional hedges, though. You could do it that way. If you aren’t so confident in your team, just want to feel happy one way or another, you might want to bet on your favorite team to either lose or to maybe just not lose by two uh is something you could do on the puck line. And then you’re feeling you’re feeling good one way or another. Right now, FanDuel’s giving new customers $300 in bonus bets when you your first $5 bet wins. So, head to fanduel.com, sign up, play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. All right, back here on the Lockdown Sabres podcast. Three games this week all on the road at Utah 9:00 Wednesday, at Colorado Thursday 9:00, and then at Detroit Saturday at 7 before a 4-ame home stand. Sabres not been on the road much this year. They’ve been home for the majority of their games. Um, that Carolina game on Saturday was only their fifth road game of the year. Believe it or not, we’re more than a month into the season and that was only their fifth road game. Um, Utah’s a strong team, Colorado’s a strong team, Detroit, I do not think, is a strong team, but they had a good start to the year. And then it’s Edmonton at home next Monday. So, couple of things that we already know about that road trip, by the way, other than all those injuries we just went through. Colton Ellis is going to get a game. So, definitely going to be Wednesday or Thursday. I mean, one of those back-to-back nights. I kind of feel like Lucinin is going to be the guy that gets the nod in the other. It’s probably one, two, three, though. It probably goes. I mean, if Lucinan gets the Utah game and then Ellis gets the Colorado game, then Lion gets the Detroit game. That would make sense, too, because Lion playing against his former team in the Red Wings on Saturday. That would be my prediction as to what we see. I think we see one game by each of the three goalenders, and it will be Ellis’s obviously first start since October 22nd, his only start of the year. And I’m excited to get a look at him again. So, what’s happening around Buffalo right now? Like you might be asking like, “All right, all these guys are out and they’re trying to survive. They’re getting games to overtime and they’re getting a point that way, but they’re not really winning. So, all right, they’re in last, but they are only four points out of a playoff spot.” And we’ve watched this team long enough. They’ve been further than four points out of a playoff spot this long far into the year. So, it’s not dead yet, but you feel like they might be on the on the verge of getting to that point because so many guys are missing. Well, what’s happening around them? The the weird thing about the East right now is the teams that are stepping up are the teams that you might not expect are going to have staying power. I do not believe the Boston Bruins. I know they are the Boston Bruins and every year I almost every year I’ve come on this show, so I’ve been doing it in 2019 and said before the season, this is the year that Boston’s demise happens. This is the year. But this season and at the end of last year, I mean last year that was correct. We know that roster is not this good. They have won six games in a row. That is not going to hold. They are going to fall back. The roster is not good enough to maintain that. So the Bruins are a team that will drop and they’re at 20 points. They are six points ahead of you right now. They are in the second spot in the Atlantic division. The other two teams up in the top three, Montreal is eight points ahead of Buffalo with 22 and Ottawa is five points ahead at 19. Those two, I think you should expect, are going to be finishing above you. They’re good teams. They’re young. They are taking steps from last year to this year. I’m not expecting Montreal and Ottawa to dip too much. Boston is the team that I would. Metro, Carolina, New Jersey, that’s going to hold. wild card teams. Tampa, they finally started figuring it out. We kind of figured they would after not starting well. Philly, that’s almost Boston for me. The Flyers so far this year, and they have looked impressive. Mitch Goff, of course, has been a big key for them going into his second year and he’s been good for them. Um, when you’re looking or Ziggris, excuse me, Zris, the guy they brought in, he’s he’s leading them in points. I know why I read read Mikov. Mishkov’s been a little bit more up and down. Zegress has been huge for them by low trade. He’s been a pointing game player. The goalending combined with the the thinness of the roster. Philly is almost Boston for me. I think it’s more possible that the Flyers do have a year here and they are a team that squeaks in, but they’re a team I’d want to bet against right now. They’re at 18 points. The Red Wings are at 18 points. They’re a team I’d want to bet against. So, you look at these teams that are in spots and you go, “All right, I can catch Detroit. I Flyers are not that good. Boston’s not that good.” Maybe you disagree with me about Ottawa and Montreal. I think Ottawa and Montreal are legit good, but you might not. Carolina, nobody should disagree about, but the teams that are not in spots are the ones that maybe you should be fearful of. Florida. Now, they have injuries and Matthew Kachchuck comes back at some point, but they’re right now only one point ahead of Buffalo. They’re third last in the East. Washington playoff team last year. Rangers constant playoff team before last year. Toronto’s a team that’s made the playoffs every single year. Like, you have these perennial playoff teams that are the teams that are immediately above you. So, who should I bet on grabbing those playoff spots when a Boston falls, when a Philly falls? Pittsburgh, too. It’s It’s probably not the Sabres. It’s probably those teams. It’s probably Florida. It’s Washington. It’s the Rangers. It’s Toronto. So, we’ll see. If they were healthy, I would tell you, oh yeah, they could be as good as any of those teams. But it’s just so tough to think to be optimistic about the Sabres getting to the same places that all those teams are currently at when you’re missing half your lineup and especially when you’re missing your best player. I mean, with Dene out and not knowing when he’s going to come back, I just do not think they could survive an entire season without him. He’s too important. Um, he plays too many minutes. He plays too many situations. He’s the captain. I just I cannot imagine if he missed two months. I can’t imagine them making the playoffs without him. And there’s obviously no telling of when he’ll actually be back. So, we’ll see. Maybe they’ll surprise everybody. Maybe P Power Power would be the one that would surprise everybody on that. All right, it’s going to do it for us today here on Locked on Sabres. We will get into Utah a little bit on our next show. We’ll uh continue to track all the injuries that are ongoing here. Zucker, Koulique are probably the two that were Benson, those are the three that we’re waiting on um to rejoin the lineup at some point here soon. That’ll do it for us today here on Locked on Sabres. You want to check out more hockey talk? Locked on NHL game night available wherever you listen to your podcast and on YouTube. Check out Lockdown Fantasy Hockey as well. And we will talk to you tomorrow. You’re on the Lockdown Sabres podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.

The Buffalo Sabres have won just one game in their last seven and sit in last place in the Eastern Conference. On top of that Rasmus Dahlin has left for Europe due to a personal reason, Jason Zucker has a severe illness, and Jiri Kulich is dealing with blood clots on top of all the other injured players. How are the Sabres going to dig out of this whole?

Sneaky Joe points to the likes of Noah Ostlund, Isak Rosen, and Owen Power as players that have to perform or the Sabres are doomed for another lost season. Plus, is it fair to criticize Kevyn Adams so far this year with all the players that are missing? And Joe takes a look at the teams above the Sabres in the standings, and why some like the Boston Bruins are unlikely to continue at the pace they’re currently on.

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