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Welcome to another episode of The Short Shift, one of
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our new, if you missed it last time, new quicker,
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smaller podcasts that we'll try to get out here routinely
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in between our Game recaps in between our normal long-form podcast.
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These are going to be your quick hitters. So this
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is number two of that series this season that we're
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putting together. We are, of course, as I mentioned last podcast,
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brought to you all season by Richmond Vona. And we,
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so at Buffalo, are two primary sponsors on the podcast
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this year. But how this is going to work, in
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case you did miss the last one, is really quick. Quick.
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Around 10 to 12 minutes, we're going to touch on
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one particular topic. Keep it short, keep it sweet, keep
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the hockey talk in your ear, and then we will
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move along on to that. So, tonight's topic we are
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going to hit on and not waste a lot of time.
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Get right into it is the main topic out of
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preseason game number two, and that is the injuries that
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we have on the blue line. So, Matias Samuelsson is
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out with a lower body injury week to week. is
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the report from head coach Lindy Ruff today. And then
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to no surprise, if you watch the game and saw
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the hit, Olin Zellweger is currently in concussion protocol. So
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those are two of your top four defensemen that you
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lost in game, well, second game of the preseason, but
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the first game that you put in at gel players. Uh,
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so less than ideal situation. So let's start with Zellweger.
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Cause I think that's the one that, uh, Look, concussions
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are difficult, right? You know, you can feel good one day,
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bad the next, good, good, good, and then a bad day,
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and you pick that bad day, it sets you all
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the way back to the beginning. They're hard to predict, right?
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But I think sitting here listening to Ruff, if you
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give him a little bit of truth serum, I think
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even if you give Zellweger a little bit of truth serum,
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seems like the vibe you can pick up on is
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he'll probably be ready, barring any setback, He'll probably be
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ready to go next Thursday in the opener in Columbus.
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Maybe he misses a game, maybe two, but I don't
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think it'll be anything significant. Again, as long as we
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don't have any setbacks or anything dragging along here, he
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can get back on the ice, he can get physical activity,
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the concussion symptoms don't come back. I think that we're
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looking good for opening night, but if anything, a game
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or two would not long-term significant. Matias Samuelsson, on the
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other hand, is a different conversation. So that seems like
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the very least that he will not be ready for
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opening night. And now it's a question of how that's
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going to linger into the regular season. Lower body injury.
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If you watch the injury in the game, foot, it seems,
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is what the injury was. So got hit with a
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puck in the foot, went down, played one more shift,
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and then that was it for him for the night.
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So you put two and two together. Some sort of
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foot injury there from blocking that shot. Or passing, I
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don't know. While I don't want Samuelson to miss a
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lot of time, I think that it's important that he
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takes the time that he needs to make sure he's
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as close as possible to 100% when he goes back.
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I don't think this is something we want to see
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him linger. If it takes an additional week of him
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getting close to 100% before he gets back on the ice,
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then so be it. I think that additional week is
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worth waiting and then having this linger and continue throughout
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the entire season because he's forcing it or re-aggravates it
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and it turns into a whole thing. We've seen injured
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Matias Samuelsson play. We don't want to go back to that. So,
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To try to get him as healthy as we can.
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If it's a week longer. Or whatever. Or a couple
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more games longer. Then so be it. I'd rather take
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a little bit of extra time. To make sure that
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he's 100% healthy. But we'll see how this goes here.
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Over the next couple weeks. So what does that mean? Well.
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As Lindy Ref put it today. That means opportunity for others.
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More pressure on Rasmus Dallin. And Owen Power for sure.
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We know how good Dallin is. One of the best
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defensemen in the world. Owen Power finished the playoffs very strong.
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He looked very good in the opening game last night
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against the Blue Jackets. Again, understand it's a roster. But still,
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he picked right back up where he left off in
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the playoffs. Even had a little bit more offensive side
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to his game, which I think is good. He had
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three assists last night. So, you know, you're going to
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have the pressure on those two guys. Lindy Ruff talked
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about the idea of them being a pairing. I don't
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particularly love that idea. One, I think having your two
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best guys be on the ice together, I think really
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eliminates from putting out the best pairings possible on your
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other two pairs. And that's more of the game they
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have to figure out without either of Darlene or Power
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on the ice. I don't really love that idea. And
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I just feel like they were more effective as a
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pair when you're trailing games. So I am going to
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be writing an article about this whole situation and looking
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at the different things about the defense, and some of
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that is going to come with some of the numbers
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behind it, with Darlene and Power, and then even Power
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and Timmons, how they were last season. So we'll get
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into all of that. We'll get into free agent claims,
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which waiver claims, which I don't think is going to
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happen in this instance here, but we'll dive into all
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that a little bit of a deeper. in the form
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of a written content. Like I said, this is just
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kind of your high-level touch base to spurn conversation, to
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keep the conversation going on a day-to-day basis here. Beyond
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Darlene Empower, Louis Crevier is going to get an excellent
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opportunity in practice today. He was the one that was
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playing with Darlene. I would imagine that probably holds in
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your lefty-righty mix there. You know, and I just... We
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talked about when he came over that he played difficult
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minutes for the Blackhawks. That's one of the reasons that,
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you know, I thought that it would make sense for
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him to maybe get the first crack at that top
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four because of that experience playing more difficult minutes. And
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now if he's going to play with Darlene, he's certainly
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going to see those minutes on the top pairs. But,
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you know, we saw... his ability he can do it
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it's not difficult to kind of to get there and
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find you know data or film the shows that he
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can do it so I think in a short-term situation
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you're going to be fine but you know you're going
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to come in from when you started training camp maybe
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on the third pair so now you're going to be
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counted upon when the season starts to play top pair
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minutes with one of the best defensemen in the league
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it's a bit of a promotion and in a week
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and a half so Crabier is going to get thrown
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into the mix right away, right into the jackpot, and
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we'll see how that looks. Zach Metza is going to
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come off the bench again, to be your seventh and
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now being in that top six. He did an excellent
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job when he was doing that last season, when he
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had to step in for injury, so I have no
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reason to believe he won't again. Now, is it going
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to be some sort of crazy streak where he doesn't
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allow a goal over 60 games, something like that? No,
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of course not. But you know, as a seventh defenseman,
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I think you're fine. He's shown the ability to play
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at the NHL level. He's shown the ability to play
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in the playoffs when you need him to. So, you know,
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I'm confident in Metsa and he's going to get that
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opportunity again to show that he can play at this
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level and he can be effective. You know, maybe one
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of the better, you know, seventh defensemen in the league
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in terms of depth you can have. Then the final
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thing that I think We have ourselves organically come here
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due to these injuries and the unforeseen circumstance. We talked
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about a couple podcasts ago that there's not a lot
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of roster battles. Maybe the only ones between Kosak and
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Danforth and Kulik, if you wanted to see who's going
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to be that 12th, 13th forward on this roster. Well,
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now we have an opportunity here to see, well, who's
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going to be the new de facto quote-unquote 7th defenseman.
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Is it going to be Dennis Gilbert? Is it going
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to be Ryan Johnson, who Lindy Ruff had some nice
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things to say about? Komarov was somebody else who was
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thrown into the mix by Lindy Ruff. Now, over these
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next three games, it's on those three players, and you
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can throw Mirka into this if you want, but as
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a seventh defenseman, I think I need them playing games
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and just sitting in the press box. But now you're
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going to be relying on one or two of those
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guys to be into your lineup. So you lose two defensemen,
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so one's got to go in and then one of
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Gilbert or Johnson's going to have to play and then
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you're going to need a seventh defenseman. So really maybe
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it's both of them make the roster and we see
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who's going to be your sixth and who's going to
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be your seventh. Johnson made this team out of camp
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last year, if you don't recall. He had a good
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camp and then didn't last very long and made his
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way back down to the NHL. I was a big
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Ryan Johnson fan for a long time. I was a
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big supporter. Just didn't seem like a lot of it
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that I thought I would came together. There were some
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struggles down at the AHL level. Seems like he's regressed
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to now just being kind of a fine, okay AHL defenseman.
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Maybe this opportunity reignites some life into him. We'll see.
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But it's certainly something that I'm going to pay more
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attention to over these next few preseason games because really
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there's a battle there to see who's going to be
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that sixth defenseman if Zellweger can't go or that seventh
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if Zellweger is okay to step up into the lineup
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on opening night next Thursday. Okay, last thing that we're
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going to start doing here that I want to get
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to before we cut off. At the end of these,
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I'm going to add in one fan question that I
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source on social media. This one today is a hockey
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one about this particular topic. But maybe sometimes it'll be
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non-hockey ones. So when you see me put it out there,
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throw your question in. Again, it doesn't always have to
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be about hockey. It's kind of the mood that I'm
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in and what I'm feeling here. Sometimes it'll be Sabres related.
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Sometimes maybe it's League related. Sometimes it's maybe just about
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anything that I thought was interesting. But like I said,
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this one is topic specific, is Sabres specific. And this
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question comes from Royal Thunder at RoyalThunder91 on Twitter. So
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the question is, and it was a longer one, but
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I kind of took. Just the condensed version. Basically, it
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should we be concerned about organizational depth. In particular, it
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was about defense. So I've seen this go around a
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few times over the last 16, 18, 24 hours about
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the organizational depth. They should have done more because now
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you've got to play Ryan Johnson or Dennis Gilbert or whatever, Komarov.
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For me, you get to your 8th or 9th defenseman,
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look around the league. I don't know. It's going to
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be Dennis Gilbert. It's going to be Ryan Johnson. I
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just think you're asking a lot there. I'm not overly
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concerned about the depth in general. You're going to have
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Gilbert in the AHL and everyone's healthy. You'll have Johnson, Komaroff, Mirka.
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Then you have your younger kids of Gavin McCarthy. You're
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going to have Sturbeck. So you have the depth there.
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If you're getting down to having to play Gavin McCarthy
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or Maxim Sturbeck, your season's probably over because you're down
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five defensemen. There's really no rebounding from that. And that's
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why I don't think they're going to go out and
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get anybody. I think that they're comfortable with what they have.
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I think they trust their depth. I think they believe
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that Zellweger is going to be short term. So Mets
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can step in. He did it last year. Why can't
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he do it again this year? Uh, can step in
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and hold the ship for a month if that's what
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it takes. And then Samuelsson gets back in and fingers crossed,
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everybody stays healthy. And then you're back on your way again.
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You're going to have to deal with injuries throughout a
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84 game season. Unfortunately for the second year in a row,
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unless the Sabres are going to deal with a lot
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of the gate, it's probably going to be no Samuelsson.
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We know there's going to be no Zucker. Um, you
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just kind of got to deal with it. We're seeing
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some injuries around the league too. It's just the way
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it goes. Maybe you get out of the way early,
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so I'm going to deal with it later. Whatever is
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what it is. But to answer the question overall, personally,
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I'm not worried about the depth. Would I like somebody
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better than Dennis Gilbert as your 8 maybe? Sure. But again,
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what are you going to get really? Logan Stanley's not
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going to come here and be your 8th defenseman. You've
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got to get a guy that is okay to play
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in the AHL, but also won't kill you if he
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has to play one, two or three NHL games. Um,
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and that's probably what Gilbert is at this point in
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his career. All right. So I think that's everything I
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wanted to touch on here on this particular topic. Uh,
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Sabres game tomorrow in Detroit. We'll see what kind of
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lineup that we get. Um, we'll see if it's AHL
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NHL mix. I would assume it's probably more focused with
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the AHL heavy. it being in the road, but we'll
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see where Lindy Ruff decides to go. But thank you
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very much for listening to this one. If you are
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not a YouTube subscriber, make sure you go on YouTube
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and subscribe. We are getting much closer to that 1,000
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subscriber mark that we wanted to get before the regular
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season starts. So we're about a week away. So help
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us get to that mark. All right. Well, thank you
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for listening. And we will talk again soon. See ya.
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Welcome to another episode of The Short Shift, one of
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our new, if you missed it last time, new quicker,
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smaller podcasts that we'll try to get out here routinely
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in between our Game recaps in between our normal long-form podcast.
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These are going to be your quick hitters. So this
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is number two of that series this season that we're
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putting together. We are, of course, as I mentioned last podcast,
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brought to you all season by Richmond Vona. And we,
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so at Buffalo, are two primary sponsors on the podcast
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this year. But how this is going to work, in
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case you did miss the last one, is really quick. Quick.
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Around 10 to 12 minutes, we're going to touch on
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one particular topic. Keep it short, keep it sweet, keep
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the hockey talk in your ear, and then we will
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move along on to that. So, tonight's topic we are
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going to hit on and not waste a lot of time.
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Get right into it is the main topic out of
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preseason game number two, and that is the injuries that
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we have on the blue line. So, Matias Samuelsson is
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out with a lower body injury week to week. is
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the report from head coach Lindy Ruff today. And then
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to no surprise, if you watch the game and saw
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the hit, Olin Zellweger is currently in concussion protocol. So
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those are two of your top four defensemen that you
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lost in game, well, second game of the preseason, but
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the first game that you put in at gel players. Uh,
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so less than ideal situation. So let's start with Zellweger.
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Cause I think that's the one that, uh, Look, concussions
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are difficult, right? You know, you can feel good one day,
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bad the next, good, good, good, and then a bad day,
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and you pick that bad day, it sets you all
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the way back to the beginning. They're hard to predict, right?
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But I think sitting here listening to Ruff, if you
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give him a little bit of truth serum, I think
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even if you give Zellweger a little bit of truth serum,
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seems like the vibe you can pick up on is
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he'll probably be ready, barring any setback, He'll probably be
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ready to go next Thursday in the opener in Columbus.
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Maybe he misses a game, maybe two, but I don't
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think it'll be anything significant. Again, as long as we
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don't have any setbacks or anything dragging along here, he
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can get back on the ice, he can get physical activity,
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the concussion symptoms don't come back. I think that we're
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looking good for opening night, but if anything, a game
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or two would not long-term significant. Matias Samuelsson, on the
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other hand, is a different conversation. So that seems like
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the very least that he will not be ready for
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opening night. And now it's a question of how that's
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going to linger into the regular season. Lower body injury.
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If you watch the injury in the game, foot, it seems,
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is what the injury was. So got hit with a
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puck in the foot, went down, played one more shift,
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and then that was it for him for the night.
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So you put two and two together. Some sort of
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foot injury there from blocking that shot. Or passing, I
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don't know. While I don't want Samuelson to miss a
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lot of time, I think that it's important that he
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takes the time that he needs to make sure he's
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as close as possible to 100% when he goes back.
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I don't think this is something we want to see
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him linger. If it takes an additional week of him
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getting close to 100% before he gets back on the ice,
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then so be it. I think that additional week is
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worth waiting and then having this linger and continue throughout
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the entire season because he's forcing it or re-aggravates it
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and it turns into a whole thing. We've seen injured
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Matias Samuelsson play. We don't want to go back to that. So,
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To try to get him as healthy as we can.
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If it's a week longer. Or whatever. Or a couple
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more games longer. Then so be it. I'd rather take
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a little bit of extra time. To make sure that
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he's 100% healthy. But we'll see how this goes here.
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Over the next couple weeks. So what does that mean? Well.
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As Lindy Ref put it today. That means opportunity for others.
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More pressure on Rasmus Dallin. And Owen Power for sure.
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We know how good Dallin is. One of the best
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defensemen in the world. Owen Power finished the playoffs very strong.
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He looked very good in the opening game last night
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against the Blue Jackets. Again, understand it's a roster. But still,
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he picked right back up where he left off in
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the playoffs. Even had a little bit more offensive side
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to his game, which I think is good. He had
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three assists last night. So, you know, you're going to
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have the pressure on those two guys. Lindy Ruff talked
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about the idea of them being a pairing. I don't
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particularly love that idea. One, I think having your two
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best guys be on the ice together, I think really
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eliminates from putting out the best pairings possible on your
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other two pairs. And that's more of the game they
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have to figure out without either of Darlene or Power
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on the ice. I don't really love that idea. And
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I just feel like they were more effective as a
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pair when you're trailing games. So I am going to
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be writing an article about this whole situation and looking
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at the different things about the defense, and some of
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that is going to come with some of the numbers
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behind it, with Darlene and Power, and then even Power
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and Timmons, how they were last season. So we'll get
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into all of that. We'll get into free agent claims,
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which waiver claims, which I don't think is going to
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happen in this instance here, but we'll dive into all
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that a little bit of a deeper. in the form
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of a written content. Like I said, this is just
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kind of your high-level touch base to spurn conversation, to
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keep the conversation going on a day-to-day basis here. Beyond
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Darlene Empower, Louis Crevier is going to get an excellent
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opportunity in practice today. He was the one that was
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playing with Darlene. I would imagine that probably holds in
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your lefty-righty mix there. You know, and I just... We
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talked about when he came over that he played difficult
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minutes for the Blackhawks. That's one of the reasons that,
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you know, I thought that it would make sense for
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him to maybe get the first crack at that top
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four because of that experience playing more difficult minutes. And
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now if he's going to play with Darlene, he's certainly
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going to see those minutes on the top pairs. But,
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you know, we saw... his ability he can do it
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it's not difficult to kind of to get there and
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find you know data or film the shows that he
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can do it so I think in a short-term situation
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you're going to be fine but you know you're going
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to come in from when you started training camp maybe
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on the third pair so now you're going to be
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counted upon when the season starts to play top pair
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minutes with one of the best defensemen in the league
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it's a bit of a promotion and in a week
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and a half so Crabier is going to get thrown
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into the mix right away, right into the jackpot, and
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we'll see how that looks. Zach Metza is going to
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come off the bench again, to be your seventh and
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now being in that top six. He did an excellent
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job when he was doing that last season, when he
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had to step in for injury, so I have no
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reason to believe he won't again. Now, is it going
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to be some sort of crazy streak where he doesn't
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allow a goal over 60 games, something like that? No,
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of course not. But you know, as a seventh defenseman,
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I think you're fine. He's shown the ability to play
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at the NHL level. He's shown the ability to play
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in the playoffs when you need him to. So, you know,
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I'm confident in Metsa and he's going to get that
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opportunity again to show that he can play at this
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level and he can be effective. You know, maybe one
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of the better, you know, seventh defensemen in the league
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in terms of depth you can have. Then the final
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thing that I think We have ourselves organically come here
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due to these injuries and the unforeseen circumstance. We talked
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about a couple podcasts ago that there's not a lot
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of roster battles. Maybe the only ones between Kosak and
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Danforth and Kulik, if you wanted to see who's going
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to be that 12th, 13th forward on this roster. Well,
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now we have an opportunity here to see, well, who's
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going to be the new de facto quote-unquote 7th defenseman.
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Is it going to be Dennis Gilbert? Is it going
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to be Ryan Johnson, who Lindy Ruff had some nice
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things to say about? Komarov was somebody else who was
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thrown into the mix by Lindy Ruff. Now, over these
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next three games, it's on those three players, and you
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can throw Mirka into this if you want, but as
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a seventh defenseman, I think I need them playing games
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and just sitting in the press box. But now you're
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going to be relying on one or two of those
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guys to be into your lineup. So you lose two defensemen,
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so one's got to go in and then one of
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Gilbert or Johnson's going to have to play and then
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you're going to need a seventh defenseman. So really maybe
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it's both of them make the roster and we see
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who's going to be your sixth and who's going to
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be your seventh. Johnson made this team out of camp
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last year, if you don't recall. He had a good
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camp and then didn't last very long and made his
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way back down to the NHL. I was a big
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Ryan Johnson fan for a long time. I was a
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big supporter. Just didn't seem like a lot of it
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that I thought I would came together. There were some
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struggles down at the AHL level. Seems like he's regressed
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to now just being kind of a fine, okay AHL defenseman.
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Maybe this opportunity reignites some life into him. We'll see.
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But it's certainly something that I'm going to pay more
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attention to over these next few preseason games because really
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there's a battle there to see who's going to be
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that sixth defenseman if Zellweger can't go or that seventh
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if Zellweger is okay to step up into the lineup
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on opening night next Thursday. Okay, last thing that we're
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going to start doing here that I want to get
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to before we cut off. At the end of these,
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I'm going to add in one fan question that I
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source on social media. This one today is a hockey
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one about this particular topic. But maybe sometimes it'll be
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non-hockey ones. So when you see me put it out there,
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throw your question in. Again, it doesn't always have to
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be about hockey. It's kind of the mood that I'm
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in and what I'm feeling here. Sometimes it'll be Sabres related.
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Sometimes maybe it's League related. Sometimes it's maybe just about
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anything that I thought was interesting. But like I said,
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this one is topic specific, is Sabres specific. And this
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question comes from Royal Thunder at RoyalThunder91 on Twitter. So
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the question is, and it was a longer one, but
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I kind of took. Just the condensed version. Basically, it
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should we be concerned about organizational depth. In particular, it
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was about defense. So I've seen this go around a
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few times over the last 16, 18, 24 hours about
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the organizational depth. They should have done more because now
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you've got to play Ryan Johnson or Dennis Gilbert or whatever, Komarov.
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For me, you get to your 8th or 9th defenseman,
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look around the league. I don't know. It's going to
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be Dennis Gilbert. It's going to be Ryan Johnson. I
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just think you're asking a lot there. I'm not overly
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concerned about the depth in general. You're going to have
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Gilbert in the AHL and everyone's healthy. You'll have Johnson, Komaroff, Mirka.
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Then you have your younger kids of Gavin McCarthy. You're
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going to have Sturbeck. So you have the depth there.
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If you're getting down to having to play Gavin McCarthy
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or Maxim Sturbeck, your season's probably over because you're down
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five defensemen. There's really no rebounding from that. And that's
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why I don't think they're going to go out and
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get anybody. I think that they're comfortable with what they have.
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I think they trust their depth. I think they believe
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that Zellweger is going to be short term. So Mets
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can step in. He did it last year. Why can't
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he do it again this year? Uh, can step in
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and hold the ship for a month if that's what
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it takes. And then Samuelsson gets back in and fingers crossed,
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everybody stays healthy. And then you're back on your way again.
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You're going to have to deal with injuries throughout a
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84 game season. Unfortunately for the second year in a row,
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unless the Sabres are going to deal with a lot
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of the gate, it's probably going to be no Samuelsson.
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We know there's going to be no Zucker. Um, you
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just kind of got to deal with it. We're seeing
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some injuries around the league too. It's just the way
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it goes. Maybe you get out of the way early,
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so I'm going to deal with it later. Whatever is
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what it is. But to answer the question overall, personally,
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I'm not worried about the depth. Would I like somebody
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better than Dennis Gilbert as your 8 maybe? Sure. But again,
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what are you going to get really? Logan Stanley's not
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going to come here and be your 8th defenseman. You've
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got to get a guy that is okay to play
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in the AHL, but also won't kill you if he
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has to play one, two or three NHL games. Um,
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and that's probably what Gilbert is at this point in
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his career. All right. So I think that's everything I
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wanted to touch on here on this particular topic. Uh,
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Sabres game tomorrow in Detroit. We'll see what kind of
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lineup that we get. Um, we'll see if it's AHL
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NHL mix. I would assume it's probably more focused with
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the AHL heavy. it being in the road, but we'll
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see where Lindy Ruff decides to go. But thank you
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very much for listening to this one. If you are
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not a YouTube subscriber, make sure you go on YouTube
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and subscribe. We are getting much closer to that 1,000
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subscriber mark that we wanted to get before the regular
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season starts. So we're about a week away. So help
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us get to that mark. All right. Well, thank you
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for listening. And we will talk again soon. See ya.
