Luukkonen officially on a heater

Luukkonen officially on a heater

At the very least the Sabers win a game that they definitely couldn’t have lost we’ll recap it and look ahead coming up here in the locked on Sabers Podcast you’re locked on Sabers your daily podcast on the Buffalo Sabers part of the locked on podcast Network your team every Day and thanks for making locked on Sabers your first listen every day we are free and available wherever you get your podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel make every moment more right now new customers get 150 in bonus bets

Guaranteed when you place a $5 bet visit fanduel.com lockon to get started sneaky Joe D bosi back here on the show apologize to everybody was very sick last weekend to the point where I could not talk for more than five seconds without coughing uh I think we’re almost all the way back

I should be able to get through Today’s Show without uh without an attack here so back in business and you know we avoided some Fury and Flames but I still got a little bit of that residing from a couple of losses while away over the past week but the most recent result for

The sabes is a 3 nothing shutout win over the San Jose Sharks here on Martin Luther King day on Monday afternoon at KeyBank Center we’ll recap it we’ll look ahead at what’s to come we’ll take a sail across the Atlantic there is an a another you know goal by Sam Reinhardt

And the Panthers are hot there are other things happening right above the Sabers and the standings that are worth looking at as well because they’re not dead they’re not out of it they still are one run away from being right in the thick of things but they continue to

Look like a team incapable of putting said run together so we’ll get to that and I’ll have my sneaky stars of the game uh coming up in the second segment of today’s show uh one at least sneaky the other maybe a little bit more obvious that’s coming up join sub

Tex.com loock ons saers if you want to become a sorty and jump in on our group chat that we have throughout the games uh one comment that I picked out from the end of this game against the San Jose Sharks after a phenomenal game by Casey midat uh one listener asked I

Wonder if we don’t start climbing in the standings should we try to deal middle stat at the deadline and I did a show on this a couple of weeks ago and we’ll definitely revisit this topic uh at some point but middle stat seems like an obvious you just keep it going and you

Sign him he leads the team in points with 38 in 44 games he is on a 71 Point Pace but I don’t think it’s as simple as you just pay him and sign him maybe it’s kind of up to the player but middlest stat has some leverage here he can tell

The Sabres after the year that I’m only going to sign a one-year deal with you and you’re GNA walk me to unrestricted free agency so he has that right other players have taken that uh approach in the past to me it’s up to the Sabers do they feel heading into the trade

Deadline if they’re not in it that they feel confident that he’s going to sign because if the answer is no then yeah the time is to sell High max out on his value because there’s definitely no time that Casey midad will ever be worth more

Than he is right now but the scary thing about that is Middle stats been their most trustworthy forward all year let alone their most trustworthy Center as Tage Thompson’s regressed and as Dylan cousins has super regressed middle stat has risen and stepped up and how confident would the Sabres be just going

With cousins and Thompson as the one two not having middle stat there to ride in uh so that is a topic that we’ll definitely cover more so coming up here on the show as we head to the trade deadline but looking at the last couple of results quickly before we get to

Sabers and sharks okay they lost to Seattle they beat Ottawa they lost to Vancouver so here we are on this home stand that I said going in 12 possible points you got to get nine you got to get at least nine and eight okay eight is we’re not you know

Firing anybody over eight so that is still in play they still can get to eight points they would have to win though their remaining two games which would be a three-game win streak something they have not done all year and a lot of fans don’t have a lot of

Faith I guess that this team could put that together right now real quick on the last couple of games the win against Ottawa great win five to3 you scored a bunch of goals Tage Thompson had a Tage game for the first time long time uh two

Goals on the night was the game’s number one star I just mentioned can you trust Tage and and cousins uh those two two three goals and one assist between the two of them in the Ottawa game they outshot Ottawa in the game yeah they needed a little bit of breaks from a bad

Goenda to win a game like that then Vancouver very frustrating game Al saers played well again outshot Vancouver they had a boatload of chances this was a fun game by the way way even though it was one- nothing tons of chippiness Dalene gets elbowed in the face and it didn’t

Get a five-minute major by JT Miller which to me was unbelievable Eric Johnson did a good job stepping up for him uh all the Savers really power Owen power you know what credit to Owen power for jumping in and and stepping up standing up for Rasmus dalen here’s why

Yes he’s six foot6 but we know he’s not filled out yet we know he’s still a teenager and we know that’s not his thing he’s not a physical player at all but he stepped up now the next step is put on some weight hit the weight room

So that eventually you can actually win a battle like that as a as a guy that’s three inches taller than the guy you’re fighting there but overall what happened in the Vancouver game they got goaled Lucan in was great 22 of 23 saves they got goaled Thatcher Demco this is why I

Was obsessed with I probably annoyed you last season for how many times I talked about the Sabers acquiring Thatcher Demco and that was only on rumors that Demco was available but let me tell you something there will be hell to pay if I find out that thater Demco was ever

Available in the sabers past I will bring pitchforks to that Arena because I loved that idea and that guy is such a good goenda candidate back again this year uh 26 safe shut out against the Sabers Demco just goaled the sabers so that’s how they lost that game now San

Jose another bad team and a team that the Sabers should beat 10 times out of 10 they did the job how do they do the job I’ll get you my sneaky stars of the game we’ll go through some of the stats and then we’ll take a sale across the

Atlantic coming up here on the locked on Savers podcast we are presented by FanDuel Sportsbook the NFL regular season is wrapping up but there’s still time to get in on the action with FanDuel America’s number one sports book right now new customers get 150 in bonus

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Subscribe to the first ever National Sports 247 streaming Channel Sabers three sharks nothing what the sabes did in this game was they out played a bad team which you know they should do they outshot San Jose 35 to 28 in this game uh if you look at the shot attempts at

Five on five in this game 56 for Buffalo 52 for San Jose so not too far off scoring chances 25 for Buffalo 20 for San Jose to me what this game looked like like was a game that got moved up in terms of the time 12:00 and the

Sharks maybe were running on a little bit of adrenaline because they got in late last night and a quick turnaround I don’t know kind of feels like all right hot start you know they they just woke up maybe but they’re they’re all on edge because they don’t know when they’re

Going to get there the Sabres meanwhile maybe were preparing for a one o’clock game or a later game that gets moved to 12 o’clock Sabers didn’t have their feet to start the game what however it happened whatever narrative you want to attach to it the Sabers didn’t have

Their legs in the first 20 minutes of the game and the Sharks did the Sharks actually terms of shot attempts 20 in the first period 14 for buffalo in Period one but after that Sabers got their legs under them and they were the better team from period two on and I

Thought it showed uh a lot a lot from all different lines I thought really the only line that didn’t play well in my eyes was the Dylan cousins Jack Quinn and JJ petaline I thought they were a little bit rough at five on five on the night but overall I thought the Krebs

Line was great I thought the middle stat line was really good um and I thought the Thompson line was creating chances as well Don Granado new line combinations if you look at you know who who were the most common line mates in this game you had Casey midd stap with

Jordan Greenway and Eric Robinson okay uh you had uh excuse me that’s the wrong one middle set with Greenway and aoso thank you there uh that’s that’s the correct line you had Tage Thompson with Alex tuck and Zack Benson actually received the most uh minutes and there were some

Mixups you know at one point you did have Middle setat with Robinson and Greenway you had aoso with Krebs and gearson you had Robinson with Krebs and gearson what grenado said about all that juggling was he was exploring different combinations to get what he called a

Worker on each line instead of going two all skill lines two work lines he wanted one worker on each line and I guess Benson would qualify as the worker for the Top Line you had uh I guess Greenway would qualify no aoso maybe would qualify that as the for the middle stat

Line um you know what whatever had happened he wanted one energy guy uh one Digger worker on each line and maybe that’s a trend that we see from Don Granado coming up so you know there’s a lot of jumbling going on in fact if you look at it the Sabers used 11 different

Line combinations in this game 11 different line combinations really was more like 10 middlestead B and Greenway only played 10 seconds together on one shift but 10 real line combination changes uh is is a lot from Don Granado my sneaky stars of this game let’s look

At it so one of them not sneaky at all very obvious uh who the number one star of this game was the most important player ukap Lucan absolutely deserved uh absolutely deserved his shutout on the night he made a bunch of great saves tracking pucks I thought tracking pucks

He was unbelievable the Sharks uh with William Eckland on one of on a power play in the second period Eckland skates to the middle the puck is in the air and he bats it out of the out of the air and got a lot on it like a baseball swing

And Lucan in moving side to side tracks this puck in the air and then tracks the shot and makes the save pounces on the rebound with no opportunity lost and right then and there you knew that this guy was locked in for the night he made

A great save pretty soon after where he missed on a poke check tow dragged by the shark forward to the backand and Lucan in got to the side uh he was moving really well I thought tracking though was his number one trait in this game absolutely deserve the 28 save shut

Out and I had a lot of comments from a bunch of listeners a bunch of sorties on our uh text line that said lucan’s got to play again on Wednesday night and I’m I’m here for that I’m here for that that would be another start for Lucan in fact

That would make h four straight starts and five of the last six if they go back to him against Wednesday but hey you play the hot hand and this guy’s allowed one goal in his last 60 Minutes of action so I would go back to Lucan on Wednesday too he was definitely the

Number one star easy number two Casey midd stat three-point night extends his lead on for the team he’s the team leader in points 38 now on the year in 44 games a goal and two assists for Middle stat the goal was a little lucky because the puck kind of dribbled

Through kabo cochan in the goenda to get to his spot in the first place you know it’s a drop pass for makoso and he charges the middle stat takes up that space and he goes tow draged to the middle of the feet of the defenseman and that’s how he

Gets the shot through it had Pace it was just a little bit low so a good job by middle stat um for sure and he did have to get a little bit of luck and then the two assists one of course is an empty Netter but the other one was a nice pass

Dalene to me is going to get the third sneaky star of the game uh the sneakiest of them because it wasn’t like a Dalene game he didn’t have these highlight re plays but he did have an assist on the night and highest among all saber defenseman is 79.5% expected goals four percentage

When Rasmus Dalene was on the ice the Sabers shot attempts 23 for them 12 for the sharks so almost almost doubled them up scoring chances while Dalene was on the ice 12 for Buffalo three for San Jose when he was out there San Jose just didn’t have the puck and he was

Controlling the play throughout and I thought played really well uh a little bit of a bounceback game for him he made that comment the other night about being hesitant to jump into rushes he wasn’t doing a lot of that and I hope that this will instill some confidence in him to

Get back into jumping in the rushes because if dalen’s not doing that if he’s not playing aggressive if he’s not playing offensive you’re taking away a huge part of his value so I’m going UPL middle stat and delene for my sneaky stars of the game as the Sabers beat the

San Jose Sharks by a three to nothing score all right time out here when we come back we will take a little bit of a look we’ll take a saale across the Atlantic division um which definitely is getting a little bit more difficult to see the Sabers carving out a spot and

One former saber that is just on Fire Plus outside the Atlantic another former saber that you know would give you a quick injury update it might not be too good for one important former saber on his team that’s all coming up here in the locked on Sabers podcast we are

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Locked on Sabers podcast thanks for making us your first listen every day okay sale across the Atlantic division let’s look at what’s happening around the Sabers that’s another win so all right they’re playing decently well six wins in their last 10 they they’re they’re keeping Pace but that’s not

Going to do it they got to make up ground they can’t just keep Pace or else they’ll never uh they’ll never even get close to making the playoffs obviously so what we are looking at right now is seven points between the sabes and the lightning Who currently occupy that

Final Wild Card position also seven points between the Sabers and the Red Wings who have the first Wild Card position so two Atlantic teams in the two wild card spots both have won a couple recently Detroit winning in overtime last night Tampa now is on a three game winning streak they’re

Starting to find their form after some big struggles middle of the year so you got the top three and guess what I just do as much as Toronto is struggling Toronto’s lost six of their last 10 they’ve lost back-to-back games they are not as good as they normally are this

Toronto team like they’ve got warts I still think they have too much talent to fall out so Boston is number one the Panthers finally lost today they had a nine game winning streak going they are cruising Boston Florida Toronto less confident with Toronto but still I think

Those teams are locked in so what you then have are a bunch of teams including some Metro teams fighting for two wild card spots how did the Sabers stack up against the Red Wings and how did they Stack Up Against the lightning I still think the Red Wings are a little bit

Fraudulent and could fall down at any point in time so that spot I do think is available Tampa I also think is available but I’m less sure about that because the way they’ve looked recently they look like their old selves I don’t know that they can make that last though

That’s that’s where my doubt comes in because of their age because of their lack of depth that they have compared to past Seasons I think Tampa’s spot could be available as well we all know though that’s not the whole picture there are right now now five teams between the

Sabes and those two teams in spots and they got to jump over them they are currently Four Points behind Washington Five Points behind New Jersey Six Points behind the Islanders and the Penguins they got a Leap Frog over all four of those Metro teams and then get one of

Their uh Atlantic Rivals then they find their way into a playoff spot so they’re going to need a win streak and they’re gonna need a bunch of these teams to fall behind but the good news is why have their Sabers only seven points out despite the fact they don’t

Have a single win streak on the year despite the fact that they’re on Pace for like 80 points seven points I mean seven points is a lot but why isn’t it like 15 because there have been a lot of years where it has been at this point in

The year the conference is down it was down last year and it’s down again this year and Detroit Tampa Pittsburgh the Islanders the Devils falling down out of nowhere all of these teams have allowed the Sabers to be one win streak away from being back in it and at some point

Though that Luck’s going to run out somebody out of this six team group somebody’s going to go on a run I don’t know who it is I think I would guess it’s going to be New Jersey if you ask me but somebody’s going to go on a run

And really if two teams go on a run then you’re dead uh you got to hope that two teams don’t so time’s running out but the way it looks right now the lightning and the Red Wings they they won a couple of games recently they’re they’re

Keeping the Sabers at Bay at this point in time uh the good news is the Islanders the capitals they’re falling down and the four-point gap on Washington and the six-point Gap that the Sabres have on the Islanders those were a lot bigger uh in recent weeks so

That is starting to uh come down a little bit now one individual player to update you on in the Atlantic division former saber Sam Reinhardt seven game goal streak scores again on Monday he has he has 32 goals on the year 32 he is one behind Austin

Matthews for the league lead he is squarely in the rocket Rashard race and Sam Reinhardt winning the rocket Rashard would be wild he was never really known as a goal scorer right like even in his best days with the Sabers and even in Florida you know he’s a good goal scorer

But he’s a smart player and that makes him an elite playmaker at times when he’s at its best I think you think of him as a playmaker Maybe Maybe I’m Wrong in that he’s a well-rounded offensive player uh net front shot pass you know smarts but this year it’s just it’s it’s

Listen it’s unsustainable we know he’s not he might get 50 goals this year in fact he probably is GNA get 50 goals this year and by the way what’s funny sa playing the Panthers in the second to last game of the year that’d be too funny if Sam reard scores his 50th goal

Against his former team but anyways we know this isn’t him he’s at a 27% shot percentage his career average is 15 so we know it’s going to come down at some point we know this is unsustainable but it is absolutely a career season he’s two off his career

High he’s already six goals above his high with the Buffalo Sabers it is it’s you know guys have seasons like this Jonathan chichu for the Sharks scored 50 goals once uh uh Chris krider a couple years ago someone who’s been more of like a high 20g goal guy scored 50 goals

For the Sabers I hope Tage Thompson isn’t a guy like that but Thompson right now looks like that as well 47 last year reinhardt’s having that year and it’s in his contract year so he’s going to get paid big time so that’s one former saber to update you on

Another on a completely opposite note Jack eel is injured in Vegas now I know we don’t do the we don’t do the hate Jack eel reports anymore we had a lot of fun for a year and a half there of looking at the despair of the golden knights when they missed the playoffs

And eel wasn’t playing well he won the cup he wins forever you can’t make fun of him anymore but and this isn’t making fun of him eichel is injured we don’t know if it’s a neck injury but here’s what Elliot fredman said on 32 thoughts that makes me think it could be

Neck quote people are nervous I guess that’s the best way to put it I don’t like to overstate anything I don’t know but I think nervous is the right word until you know for sure that it this isn’t a bad thing people are nervous that was Elliot Freedman on Jack eel’s

Injury he was placed on IR yesterday without anybody like what the injury was in fact I still think to this moment nobody knows so worth keeping an eye on it because he had that neck surgery that had never been done before on an NHL player uh other NHL players have had that surgery

Since so it’s not like it’s new and Innovative anymore uh multiple players have had it but it is worth you know talking about when it comes to um you know him being injured if it’s the neck could that derail his career we’ll see uh I wouldn’t jump obviously as freedan says

I’m not jumping to that conclusion yet but it’s something to keep an eye on uh if you’re still interested in uh these former Sabers all right that’s going to do it for us today here in the locked on Sabers podcast next up for the Sabers Wednesday night 7:30 TNT game against

The Chicago Blackhawks another game that is a must-win Connor Bard uh actually before I say this is he back from injury I don’t actually know he is no no never mind he is yeah he’s been out six to eight week injury uh so never mind it was about glad I checked I was

About to say Bard’s first trip to Buffalo uh broken jaw he will absolutely not play for the against the Sabres on Wednesday night but anyways we’ll preview the game we’ll look at Chicago’s lineup a team the sabber should beat and here’s the hoping they can get this win streak rolling thanks everybody for

Listening here on the locked on Sabers podcast making us your first listen every day now go make your next listen locked on sport today here for your 247 covering the top stories of every League NFL playoffs going on right now don’t miss it is Mike McCarthy going get fired

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Sabres fans were sent home happy on Monday afternoon, thanks to a UPL shutout against the San Jose Sharks. Sneaky Joe talks Luukkonen’s elite play as of late, Casey Mittelstadt’s great game, and a sneaky good game from Rasmus Dahlin.

Plus, where we’re at in this homestand, the standings, and a former Sabre is lighting the league on fire.

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