Taro T

Still plan on having 3 for Union.

Yeah, Adams needs to go. But Forton needs to be clearing out his desk the same day. Doesn't Pegula have some sort of tie to Jerry? He'll be a mole in the new guy's operation and end up with too loud a voice. Until Forton is gone, personally don't expect things will ever truly change. Yes, Adams is bad at his job and needs to go, but Forton seems to be the cancer that's going to metastasize throughout the organization. IF he survives the next purge, and personally expect he will someone be one of the survivors, would almost rather have him be the GM and take the pain that comes with him demonstrating the Peter Principle than have him merely having one of the loudest voices in the room and having Pegula's ear. Because, they're always going to do boneheaded things as long as he has input. Yes, he identified McAvoy, but he was unable to convince anyone else. Since then, he hasn't seemed to be as good at picking them, but he has found his voice in the room, unfortunately.

Except, IN Buffalo, the Sabres usually play well and often beat the Eulers; and they play like trash against Calgary there too. So expectations were met EXACTLY as should've been expected. And out west, the pattern is reversed, Both the Eulers and Flames play to their normal levels and the Sabres end up expected to go 1-1 again, but the way you expected this week to go.

Power and Bryson make no sense. BUT you aren't breaking up Samuelsson-Dahlin, Byram-Power doesn't work, and Bryson-Byram would be a disaster waiting to happen. Byram-Timmons looked very good against the Eulers and Bryson-Power wasn't bad against them either. But then again, as somebody had mentioned in the Euler GDT, Bryson is actually an NHL D-man when he's playing against a fast team that doesn't play a heavy game. So, there was a logic (personally disagree with it, but there was a way to justify Bryson on Monday) to having him in there. That Byram-Timmons deficated the bed in the 3rd period made the thought process to come up with Bryson-Power even worse. They needed to have a more defensively responsible guy in the lineup instead of Bryson playing vs a heavy team like Calgary because those are the teams Bryson has issues with and Power needs a defensively responsible guy to partner with and really Byram does too. Metsa and Jones aren't that guy. If Johnson, or even if Novikov got his 1st taste of the NHL, the team probably doesn't give up the 2nd goal nor the one Rosen is getting blamed for. And they could've flipped Timmons and Johnson/Novikov to Power and Byram after the clock struck midnight on the Byram and Timmons pairing.

Why are, of all teams in the NHL, the Calgary Flames reigning supreme in the Sabres barn? They usually win IN Calgary, but they look like trash against them in Buffalo. The exact opposite of their provincial neighbor Eulers. Why, for as good as he played the rest of the game, did Samuelsson take the puck away from Ellis only to give it to the Flame? Why did the NHL overrule the refs on a call that it took the Calgary coaches more than their entire timeout's time to decide to challenge? And why is Seth Appert still devising the Sabres power play? IF there was ANY possibility the Sabres MIGHT score on one, they wouldn't have risked the challenge and possibly having the score tied less than 2 minutes later. But the Sabres PP is hot trash and doesn't scare anyone. Why, after looking good together for 5 periods did Byram and Timmons decide to look like the pair that was playing in Detroit before Kesselring broke? They were horrible in the 3rd. Why, do we have Quinn, Rosen, and Bryson out on the ice at the same time? Why did Tuch look so disinterested out there? Why did Doan try to pass when in the slot and then get the puck back along the boards near the blue line and decide to shoot from there? Sooooo many questions, so few answers. ???????????????????

Bills are playing Saturday after going tomorrow night? Wow, the NFL schedule really is getting nuts. 😉

How's Sabres-Bills-Sabres for it? Any better?

Thanks for the heads up. 🍺

There is a WORLD of difference between "no one lov(ing) it" and "(p)eople hated the waiver pickup of Ellis!" Do you HONESTLY not see that? And THAT contention that "(p)eople hated (it)" is untrue at worst and flat out hyperbolic at best. And actually, there were about 3 people that were really happy about the deal. So, even the "no one loved it" is a bit hyperbolic too. Yes, again people were primarily in the "he has to be better than Georgiev" camp (which turned out to be true unsurprisingly) and "guess this means that UPL might be out for a fairly long time" (which wasn't quite as correct, though it did take a couple of weeks for him to be ready again). And, while SOME used it to dump on Adams, wouldn't even say "MOST (emphasis mine) just used it to dump on Adams." Personally would say that overall the attitude on it was "don't know if it'll work, but it might, and it gets Georgiev out of the picture and lets them follow their plan for Levi of keeping him on the farm this year unless something absolutely catastrophic happens, so cool." And even a few of those "dump on Adams" posts were of the "he should be making way more waiver claims than he does because you never know when you'll find a diamond in the rough and they have a really hard time bringing in guys on the fringes that end up exceeding expectations and actually sticking" nature and not of the "wtf did he claim THIS guy" nature.

Not on the 1st 2 pages of the thread announcing he'd been claimed. Didn't bother to reread all 6 pages again, but don't recall any sort of preponderance of posts to that effect. Your memory of that day seems to be coming through a filter. People did complain about the 3 headed goalie monster again later on, but there was no overwhelming concensus that Ellis should be the odd man out. Actually, if there was what could be considered a concensus, would say that UPL being the odd man out was where that was heading. So, again, disagree with the contention that "(p)eople hated the waiver pickup of Ellis!" That simply wasn't the case.

But, except for 1 year, in the post tank era if we don't talk about them in November we don't get to talk about them at all, at least in terms of making them THIS season. 😉

Personally expected Lyon tonight with Ellis Friday and Lyon on Saturday unless he'd screwed the pooch tonight. BUT by going with Ellis tonight, he can come back with Lyon on Friday for the out of conference game and then back to Ellis on Saturday for the in-conference game. They also have 2 days off before the next set of 3 games, so they can run Ellis-Lyon-Ellis once again. So, there is a logic to it, especially if they believe Ellis is playing the best of the 3 right now.

To the 1st bolded. Almost everybody's reaction to the signing was "well, we know nothing at all about him, but he has to be better than Georgiev" and "guess this means UPL is going to be out a while." Most people said they thought the guy might turn out to be good but really didn't know. There were several "goalies are voodoo" posts. About 2 people said it was a horrible pickup, so yes, "people" hated it, but the naysayers were in the VAST minority on this one. And about 3 people really liked the pick. An opinion that was also in the minority. Which brings us to the 2nd bolded ...

Don't know that it's his energy so much as giving up really bad goals at really inopportune times that drags the team down. Or more accurately, the expectation of his teammates due to past history that he's "due" for a bad goal; so they find themselves trying to keep avoid all shots against (which will never happen) so they end up giving up even better chances against than they'd give up if they were playing the way they were supposed to and end up giving up even more goals and the cycle just feeds on itself. If you don't trust the goalie, you don't play the way you should. And if you don't play the way you should, you'll lose a lot of games you could've won.

Personally, expect he will look a BIT better on another roster. Both he and the Sabres seem to be at the point that everyone needs him to get a fresh start and the change of scenery combined with somebody really WANTING him will give him a bit of a bounce. But also am ok with that. Just personally don't see him ever fully getting out of his own head regardless of where he's at. If he ever does, look out, he could be truly elite; but that's a huge if and really doubt that'd ever happen while he's a Sabre. Heck, it isn't likely he'd do it elsewhere either, but it's not 100% out of the question. And even if he does get out of his own head, doubt it'd be totally trajectory changing like when Roloson switched from a stand up/ reaction goalie to a butterflier. Expect it'd more likely be catching lightning in a bottle for a season or 2 and then he'd go back to being what he is. An extremely frustrating goalie that lives up to expectations in only drabs and drips. Hope for his sake he figures out how to figure it out, but not expecting that.