Taro T

Reasonable views of how they'd be deployed in both scenarios. But we all KNOW that Krebs will be the 4C and not Kozak.

This assessment is quite fair. The killer is, if you swap having 1 really good (like able to be in end of season awards conversations if the team had better coaching and could get into the mix of playoff teams) D-man and lots of Q's at G with having 1 really good G and lots of Q's at D; you'd be describing fairly accurately what the team was back when the current owner bought it excepting for the fact that the FO at that time had gotten the team to at least the semis on 4 occassions in about 16 years which was light years ahead of what their successors have done. So, 13 years have been thrown away to be exactly where they were when they decided to tank for a generational player who'd be available in the draft after the 2nd year of the tank. Kids that weren't alive when the decision to tank was made are now teenagers and there is not one single thing to show for having done so all so many years ago.

Oh, yes, the game reinforces the immaturity of the team and how, once again on this night, the coach made some inexplicable decisions which ended up playing into that immaturity. Which, yes, it can be read into, unfortunately, quite clearly. Meant to be more specific as to how, and how much, adding Norris will affect the trajectory of this squad. Just like we shouldn't be (and nobody around here is/was, not even remotely implying anyone was) assuming that the Sabres will be one of the best teams because of how good they looked against the Jets with Norris in the lineup; not sure that it's fair to expect them to be just as awful on the road as they have been without him. The way how the whole thing snowballed, would say we still don't know how much Norris will improve this roster. (Providing, obviously, if he stays healthy for a significant portion of the season at a minimum.)

Thompson reminds me a lot of a kid that was on my one son's teams very often (was a very good kid with a really nice family, so always grabbed him when he was available when picking our team); he was big and a little lanky like Thompson and had good speed and good hands. He was almost always our best F and he always wanted to play C, but oftentimes played him at W because ALL he thought about and cared about was scoring. He wanted nothing at all to do with coming back deep into our zone and that was one of the C's 1st assignments - take care of our end and you'll get plenty of chances at the other end. Thompson says he doesn't care if he's a C or a W but he definitely typically seems more engaged when he's a C than when he's a W; but he's better in the Sabres zone at W. If he's playing with a guy like Tuch who oftentimes takes the C's responsibilities in his own end, no issue with playing him at C. Maybe if they keep Norris with Tage, they can list Tage as the C but try to get to spots where when they're lining up for FOs it makes sense to have the lefty at the dot rather than the righty. Not fully ready to break up the experiment of Norris with Tage and Benson, but wouldn't give them too long a leash either.

Was wondering how much of the incredible play on Monday had been due to the overall team adrenaline from getting Norris back finally healthy after so long and how much of it was getting a true top 6 skater into the lineup. Hard to read too much into last night's game because of the way how that 2 minute or so streak of horrible decisions and a bit of bad puck luck torpedoed the night. But, though Norris did have a hand in the PP goal (didn't he get the 2nd assist on the Zucker goal?), his line didn't look special even before the wheels fell off and the Appert appears to be stronger than the Norris as the PP didn't do squat after they got that 1 PP goal and it was poor play by Thompson on the PP that started the ball rolling downhill. They moved the puck well on the PP that worked. They did a lot of standing around waiting for Dahlin or Byram to get the puck to Thompson or Norris for a 1 timer outside of that. Again, the Appert is strong with this crew. Tomorrow's game will be a better indication of what they'll really get with Norris in the lineup. Am wondering how long it takes before we see Ruff's revised original plan for how to deploy the lines with Norris in the lineup. (Aka Thompson and Norris each centering their own lines.)

Well, if home wins were 4 points and road wins only 1 point, that might get them pretty darn close. They have to have one of the better home records to go with the league worst road record.

Calgary. (Might even surprise us with the regulation W in Winnipeg too.)

Except he lost control of the puck before it was over the line. Unfortunately, upon review they made the correct call. And that's the risk of dragging the puck in behind yourself; if you lose it, you lose.

Reminds of the old joke. A young couple is thinking of getting married, but the young woman tells her soon to be fiancee that her parents are old fashioned and she wouldn't feel right agreeing to marry him if he didn't ask her father for her hand in marriage. So, the young man agrees to meet her father and ask him for his blessing of his intention to ask her to marry him. After he tells the father how much he loves his daughter and how he'll also be true to her and support her and love her and all that other rigamorole, the old man responds saying how he does see how much the young man loves his daughter and he'd like to give the couple his permission to marry, but first he needs to tell him that there's something he might not know about his daughter and it might temper the young man's enthusiasm to marry her. The young man assures him that there's nothing he could tell him that would make him change his mind about the love of his life but he does ask what this thing he should know about her. The old man says, sadly she has acute angina. The young man breathes a sigh of relief and shoots right back, oh, I already know that sir, and she has great tits too!

But, can we at least not get Boucher calling Phlyer games? He's been making Jack Edwards seem balanced with his takes calling a Bruins game.

Bet'cha that Ellis himself would take the blame for the 2nd goal. Yes, it was deflected, but it was rolling in slow and he was basically where he needed to be. The others, not a whole lot he could've done. You'd like to see him find a way to steal maybe the 4th or the 5th one, but this team is just awful tonight.

Personally, really like him in the Thompson role on the SECOND unit. Hate having him on the 1st unit. And they should be able to run Power (Dahlin), Doan (Zucker), Quinn (Thompson), Byram (Benson/Norris), Tuch (Norris/Benson). Which is a respectable/good personnel grouping for a PP. IF they could finally eliminate doing dumb things. Don't do a drop pass to enter the zone unless it's setting them up to have multiple guys skating with speed when they actually enter the zone. Don't exclusively bump the puck from point to sniper in the FO circle endlessly. DO get a lot of player movement to go with puck movement. DO have more than just 1 guy working towards the net. Do overman loose pucks (having multiple guys open for a pass does you absolutely no good when the other team wins an easily winnablle board battle and forces you to regroup 180' away from where the puck battle occurred. Etc. Etc. As for his play this year; realize breaking his stats from only 24 or so games into even smaller segments leads to all sorts of distortion due to small sample size, BUT he was NOT good in October; he was better in early November but still not "good;" and he actually looks the part since Zucker came back. Would be interested to know if the analytics validate the eye test, or if they've been pretty consistent across this nearly 1/3 of a season that he's played to date. And, as for personal bias in this analysis, was one of the few that expected him to have a bounce back season this year but figured that expectation was totally off-base a month into the season and was ready to give up on him. If not for so many injuries essentially forcing them to keep him in the lineup, expect he might've played his way into a 13th F role; and was still ready to have him come out of the lineup until he started playing with Zucker. So, pretty sure that by now, whatever he's doing on ice is being viewed through more or less bias-free lenses; but maybe there's still that expectation that he'd bounce back that is making the evaluation seem a bit rosier than it should be.

At some point, they'll actually play the game they need to play on the road and get themselves over NHL 0.500. Why not tonight? They normally save their stinker home games for the ones that are sold out/ close to sold out. But they played very well in their last few home games (even though on the scoreboard they were destroyed by Joisey). So, if they can get that monkey off their backs, why not get the road monkey and the can't crack 0.500 monkey off their backs too? They came back from behind to win in their last road game. No better time than the present to get it in your head that you WON'T stick it back up your arse just because you're still flexible enough to do so. 😉 Maybe the Sabres are ready for that next baby step?

There aren't many teams fitting that bill, but there are a few. Filly being 1 of them. Think Briere would do the Sabres a solid?

You make your own luck. (So, yes, the Sabres are unlucky.)