Taro T

So, Johnson goes into the lineup and Bryson remains that guy that is there should someone's pregame meal start coming back on him.

Would really like to see them give Krebs another look with Thompson and Norris. IF he can be effective there (and he very well might not be able to do so) then Benson can become McLeod's winger, Zucker can become Kulich's winger, and Quinn becomes Danforth's problem (or Danforth gets Doan and there is the makings of a very good "energy" line; Quinn is still Kulich's problem in that situation, but Zucker is experienced and can help probably more than Doan would with all 3 still learning the NHL as is the current projection). Before TC, was expecting Quinn to bounce back to where he was prior to the injuries. But after the PS, no longer am expecting it. Still hope for it; it really adds a ton of flexibility to what they can do if he could be what his contract shows they expect he can do; but just don't see it.

Basically, it's a redux of Bertuzzi-Moore. Hagel got a 1 game suspension in the playoffs last year for a late hit on Barkov. Greer decided the suspension wasn't enough punishment for having injured Barkov, and attempted to mete out extra punishment on Hagel. The Bolts took exception to that, and came prepared to explain how that response would receive a response as well. Pretty sure this is how Hatfields-McCoys started, too.

Before the calendar flipped into October, thought the rumors that the Sabres would carry 3 goalies even should UPL be healthy could be true. But Georgiev has since shown that he simply isn't good enough to be in the NHL anymore except on an emergency basis. Expect that Bryson has been pencilled in as the pressbox D-man since he was re-signed and haven't seen anything to change that opinion. Expect that with Kesselring out, Johnson gets in the lineup on opening night. Won't even hazard a guess as to what's going to happen with the last 2-3 F's.

One thing that, IMHO, gets overlooked in Pegula's actions regarding the Sabres (or more accurately, non-actions, post-Covid) is the heart attack/stroke that Kim suffered. Personally, expect that affected his outlook tremendously. Covid showed him that his illiquid assests could lose tremendous value literally almost overnight given the wrong circumstances. And Kim's health showed him, in a bad way, that you never know what tomorrow's going to bring. I wonder just how much of his unwillingness to spend wastefully (for lack of a better word) on coaches and FO staff that are no longer working for him is due to holding out the hope that some medical team is going to have a breakthrough in brain recovery and the treatment they develop is going to cost way beyond what any of us here wasting time on a Sunday reading and posting to a message board dedicated to an irrelevant team in a semi-obscure sport when the weather is absolutely glorious in WNY could afford to come up with. It would make sense that he's concerned about cashflow when it's possible (not likely, but possible) that a ton of cash could bring back the version of his wife that he fell in love with and made so many plans with. Just throwing out a potential reason why his perspective on how he wants to run things might've changed. But IF that is the reason things have changed, don't know how we ever get past February 2 as it all seems to be a feedback loop. Maybe everything coaching-wise starts over next year as there are no contracts to buy out? Maybe Leone has such a special season in Ra-cha-cha he supplants Appert as heir-apparent? There must be a way to get to February 3; just not seeing that path right now.

Aka the Judas cow. There tends to be 1 cow that leads the rest of the herd and that would be the one that gets the bell. Thing is, when it's time to go to the slaughter house, that cow is still in the lead.

Sorry for missing the draft. Had something come up last minute that had to be dealt with. But will not be an absentee owner. Good luck all.

Norris looked very good. Thought he and Thompson weren't meshing particularly well in the 1st game, but they worked better together after that. Wasn't sold on having Norris play with Tage, but if they have a playmaker with them that guy is going to get a lot of assists. Benson makes a ton of sense there, but even Krebs looked good there (going against mostly AHLers, admittedly). Have said elsewhere, if Krebs can work there, would like to see Benson play with McLeod and Tuch so the Sabres could have a borderline elite 2 way line (similar to what the Drury line gave them back in the day). His faceoff wins alone, should he stay healthy, should be enough to vault the PP up to top 22. He's good in his own end and gets to places where he can get good shots off. He's pretty much as billed. The big question is, as nearly everyone else has mentioned, can he stay healthy. If he can, this is Adams 1st true "win" of a trade.

Tuch shoots; Kulich scores.

Wouldn't mind seeing him there with Norris and Thompson a bit more. He's an intriguing player to put there. When the Sabres got him, he was supposed to be a playmaker and he flashed it a very slight bit. Gut feel is he isn't good enough to be in that role; Benson is and will be better there. But, he was instrumental in 2 goals (granted, against the Baby Pens). IF his forechecking and playmaking could mesh with the 2 goal scorers; that would free Benson up to end up on a different line. They could then bump Zucker down to the line with Kulich and Quinn (or whoever forces Quinn down / out of the lineup) leaving Benson, McLeod, Tuch to be a reprise of the Drury line (a line that can score and all 3 are defensively responsible at a minimum if not down right shut down. Again, not sure Krebs could work well enough on that top line to free a better player up to slide down the lineup. But IF he could; well, the rest of the F's look a lot better.

You're never going to make Whimpy into Popeye. But you can teach a guy how to at least not embarrass himself and eventually even become passable at that skill.

So, giving him a real coach here, rather than a Wilford, would've been a good thing.

Was Power this bad at the defensive side of playing D as a youth and in college? Serious question. Wondering how much having an actual coach in his formative NHL years might've helped his development.

Yes. True. But, sadly, hope is not a plan.

Is the reason he can't say Hell-ANE-ee-us, the same as why Barbara Walters called her cohost Haa-wee Weas-an-er? Eh, pwobabwy not.

Greenway being out at this point is a 'meh.' Was hoping at this point, UPL being out to be a 'meh,' but until somebody else actually steps up it isn't. And the key off-season addition being out is definitely not a 'meh.' Does anybody know when the last time the Sabres entered a season pretty much healthy? (And even if they were technically healthy last year, which they probably weren't; Dahlin was definitely at 80% or less in Europe. That counts as not healthy even if he didn't miss time.

Aren't 2 of those from the B-squad? Also, the 1st PP goal came about 20 seconds after the 1st shortie they gave up. So, essentially, they're net 3-17.

He KINDA says the right things, but from watching how the only significant difference so far between last year's PP and this year's is that Norris wins draws and Cozens and Tage didn't, it looks the same and it's pretty clear that though he kinda knows the right things to say, he doesn't really understand WHY they're the right things. He says he wants "predictability and structure" which on their surface are good things to have. It's good for guys to know that their teammates are going to do certain things or move to certain places when they get the puck in a certain place so that they can move the puck to them quickly. But the predictability is of them dropping the puck back and having Thompson stay glued to his face off dot. They aren't getting predictible (to themselves) on how a guy will break to the net if the play moves this way and might back away to the boards while somebody else sneaks down low so that when the guy with the puck sends it to the guy who's now at the boards, he can send it below the goalline and the original puck carrier who made that 1st pass breaks into the slot looking for a 1 or 2 touch pass for a 1 timer while the goalie is changing his view from below the goal line to back up high. And if the defender is cheating farther out that 1st guy will break towards the net looking for either a 1 timer or a give and go to the 1st guy who also is moving towards the net but on the opposite side forcing the goalie to move if they do run the give and go. THAT's the sort of predictability they need. Not, Power will skate the puck up ice as slow as he possibly can and then throw a 120' pass back to Benson or Quinn between the faceoff dots. But, but, Dahlin didn't drop pass the puck and he scored on an end-to-end play. Doesn't this mean they don't ALWAYS do the drop pass? Yes, yes it does mean they don't always use the 120' (and yes, that's SLIGHTLY hyperbolic, but not by much) drop pass; but Dahlin was foregoing it himself some last year as well when he saw the defenders cheating the drop pass. THAT being successful isn't on coaching, it's on having one of the 3 best D in the league on the roster and letting HIM be unpredictable. He also was excited about getting a PP with one of the 3 best D in the league, and one of the 5 best shooters in the league, along with a guy who's better than average at net front into the middle of the pack. Oh, goody, goody, gumdrops; with some of the best talent in the league on the PP WE'VE COACHED THEM UP TO MIDDLE OF THE PACK! That is so ridiculously pathetic it isn't even humorous. And the PP being awful IMHO goes a long way towards the PK being awful (which goes a long way towards the PP being awful; it's an amplifier) because the PP gets stationary and the PK is stationary (and the PK being stationary is to a large degree good; but they have to understand when and where to attack and they don't do that well at all) so neither figures out how to bring dynacism to the unit. Hey, we need to outwork the PK. No Schlitz, Sherlock. The day you actually let TWO PPers try to win a board battle rather than just watching 1 try to win it; will be a wonderful day in this city and they probably should have a parade for it; because it'll mean you've actually finally twigged onto how to do something rather than just give it lip service. The day they actually have 2 or 3 guys in motion while they control the puck; not just when they're entering the zone or right off the faceoff, will also be a banner day; because again, it'll mean you've actually finally twigged onto how to do something rather than just give it lip service. The fact that he's asking the analytics guys how to do this, though it should be encouraging, likely will backfire because he'll probably understand it about as well as Patrick Roy understood the analytics guys telling him that puck possession was a true key metric to winning games so he'd start having his players move the puck around the zone like it was a Sabres PP and then he wondered why they were at the bottom of the league standings (but we possess the puck); well possession without shots doesn't translate into wins. It't the teams actually shooting and then getting the puck back and winning the possession battles that are winning the games because they're getting rebound chances which are chaotic. We want structure says Appert. Yes, but that structure must be used to generate chaos that you can capitalize on. You've been bottom of the league on PP using your structure. Really not expecting much from the PP overall. Do expect them, simply because of how much talent they can deploy on it for it to get into a groove for a month or so. But don't expect it to last the full year (or even significant portions of it) and do expect overall it to be a problem again. Hoping that take is wrong and even an old RPI guy can learn new tricks; but won't have money on it.

Oh yeah, it all feeds on itself. But even going back to that 91 point season that seems a lifetime ago even though it was only 3 years ago, they weren't good on the cycle. They scored on rushes and for about 6-7 weeks they also scored when Tage dropped bombs on the PP. But that got figured out by other teams and so down the stretch they were back to just scoring on the rush. They didn't do a good job on the cycle even in that season that Granato had them focusing primarily on offense figuring he'd teach them defense later. Well, when looking back on it, it wasn't just D he didn't teach them; he didn't teach them much offensively either, and the same guys that were here back then (except Ellis who's still a coach, just not on the bench) are still here trying to finally figure out how to teach them to play defense and how to work a functional cycle. Do realize that for whatever reason ownership doesn't want to punt the failed coaches (at least not unless a golden child is available to replace any of them; and how a golden child is defined is anyones guess) but how much money is getting thrown away in lost ticket sales, lost merchandise sales, lost concession sales, and lost playoff revenue. That has to dwarf whatever these guys still have left to earn this last year of their deals. And agree, they've been very bad against the rush in the past; and if the last non-ENG of last night is any indication, they're still going to be bad against it. EDIT: Sorry @dudacek, didn't mean to go negative in the Hopium thread.

For those that are gluttons for punishment, Friday's rematch game will be on MSG local, so it should be on ESPN+ for the out of towners.

Ftfy. 😉

Juuuuussssst like Appert drew it up. 🙄

Q not directed at you, BUT when it is so obvious he's bad at his job, WHY was there ONLY ONE choice to replace him? He (and not just he) should've been canned on locker clean out day and then they would've HAD to make moves. Another game where they're winning 5v5 but losing STs and losing the game overall because of it. Seen this movie before, it pretty much always ends with the hero losing the girl and having to put his dog down. But maybe this time it'll be different.

Soooo, based on the moves this off-season, the reason last year was dog doo doo was because of the S&C coach. Let's look at where we are with 1 PS game to play 8 days prior to the start of the RS. 1 broken goalie 4 broken D-men 1 (or is it 2, no data on why Benson didn't play today) broken F. CLEARLY last year was on the S&C coach. 😒 STs had absolutely nothing to do with it; very glad they kept Wilford and Appert; one of these years that'll work; just not sure any of us will still be alive when that does work.

Yeah, Bryson didn't play it overly well, but he had his man tied up. (After being in no man's land for the initial shot.) His guy gets his stick on it to keep it from going into the corner, but he couldn't do anything else with it. It was the other Pen getting there before a F could get back that finished it. And if Georgiev moves back across the crease at all, he might be able to keep it out of the net. A case could be made that after that 1st shot was taken, Bryson shouldn't have still been going for that man at the side of the net who took the initial shot; but once he started scrambling, that was likely his best option. The other D was caught on the other side of the net because the rebound could've gone that way and it would've been a tap in; but the F's didn't help much there either. And, no, Bryson shouldn't have been so high before that final shot sequence started (would have to watch it again to see why he was up there; MAYBE it made sense for him to have been higher in the diamond), but once that began he didn't play it horribly. No ####### clue. Ditto for Appert. @PromoTheRobot, still think the PP is looking good this preseason?