Scott Sabourin

... pretty, pretty good.

Like, when they put like Scotty Sabourin in.

Sabourin, yeah.

[laughs]

Right now, we're talking about guys like Jensen Harkins making the team.

Scott Sabourin staying up.

Obviously, Jeff Veal, part of the plan.

Establish NHL players with experience while O'Reilly, Duke, Lucas McCurry, and Noah Steen back to Syracuse.

And what's more is that he can make mistakes that we know a young player is going to make without potentially costing Tampa late in the game.

You can go down to Syracuse and a guy like Sam O'Reilly can be out there in crunch time.

and sorry syracuse purists but you know if if he makes a big mistake and blows it for syracuse that's a learning experience as opposed to in tampa where you may be punished by you know being healthy scratch the next night so to me i think i i think i'm okay with sam o'reilly uh going down in syracuse Now, look, I think he's certainly more talented or has a little bit more upside than some of these players, you know, like a Jansen Harkins, like Scott Sabourin.

But, you know, I wouldn't interpret this as, you know, Tampa's necessarily saying no. you know jansen harkins is is better than o'reilly i think they're saying harkins makes more sense for the role they need today which is a reliable bottom six center who they can trust is not going to make a lot of mistakes And I still maintain what I said preseason.

But who is on the wings? Brandon Hagel is a lock for the left side.

On the right, maybe Cole Lind or Scott Sabourin.

They need speed to match Florida's Kai Schwent.

What about the fourth line, with Gord and James out, who is anchoring that bottom six unit? Is it Luke Glendening bringing experience, or do they turn to someone like Cooper Soller?

At that Battle of Florida last year, Brawford all in the preseason, I was watching.

Sabourin came off the bench and went straight at Ekblad and forearmed him right into his head.

I'm like, whoa, I didn't think you still did that.

You know what I mean? That was a 70s, 80s, 90s thing.

I think they're going to try and get the youth in there.

Maybe they'll skate Saverin in the beginning a little bit.

But beyond that, again, barring like some five injuries to the forward group, I don't know how much you're using Saverin this season.

I'm going to give him like 17 games.

Even that feels high to me.

is anyone shocked at all? I just, I can't see why this was even a decision that was made.

And on top of that, you got exactly what we all have come to expect from playing Saverin in this lineup.

And that is big penalty minutes and trouble on the ice, right? So while surprising that he even cracked this preseason game, it's more surprising to me that, or it's less surprising to me rather that, you know, we got what we got out of him.

Moving on, looking at the defense a little bit, we saw Crozier in there instead of who we kind of foresaw Dastu as the sixth man-ish.

And I think Ratianen was out there a bit on power play, too.

So they just had more minutes than the other two younger guys at forward who were in the lineup, Zada and Kulabyakin, who played on a line together with Sabourin.

So after the game, I think it was Eric asked John Cooper, like, what is it like for these three players on the geeky O'Reilly and Ratianen line when they're all competing for spots, but they have to play together? Like, what is that dynamic like? And Koopa's like, you know, they don't all play the same position, although Geeky and O'Reilly are both centers, but they kind of play different sorts of games.

So he's like, I'm not sure that they're actually competing for the same spots, which may be a little coach speak, honestly, because there are only so many forward spots and these guys are up for some of those spots.

I'm sure somebody will point it out, but I can't think of it right now.

Yeah,

I mean, like, Saverin did go up and down last year.

He did.

I do not believe that that is going to change.

You need to look no farther than the fact that they signed Jeffrey Vielle and they re-signed Saverin.

And in this corner, Wayne, I mean, you know, the Florida Panthers, Buffalo Sabres.

It may not unfold exactly the same way.

Does that mean re-sign him in the organization or actually put him on the NHL roster? I'm not entirely certain, so I can't comment with any more specificity than that.

But I will say this.

What Sabourin did in the preseason last year went a long way in the locker room.

There's no question.