Samson's Flow

Yeah. Selling off a lot of prospects is a good way to either win a trade going away or be remembered in infamy years later after you got fired as GM. There is a wiiide range of outcomes on a deal like that.

They said it, but immediately de-committed given the possibility of being held to it. Specifically cited the PA Christmas Card scenario.

I am surprised how the 10 game winning streak has embedded the bad habit of thinking you only need a solid ~20 minute effort to win games. Even in the Kings game, they only turned it on late and were able to squeak out a win against an inferior opponent. I need to see some consistent effort if we want more wins from the boys in Blue & Gold.

Bravo!

I have heard enough of these types of grapevine stories to believe a trend, which has satisfied my curiosity on the ROR trade front.

Thanks Taro! Top 10 defense scoring surely means bottom 10 scoring from the remaining forwards. This is the area where a slight improvement at the deadline could really make a big difference in the team performance IMO.

That looks... fun?

By that definition I am not surprised by that figure. I suspect that much of our 'secondary scoring' by that definition is disproportionately from our defense, making our remaining forwards far below league average. Our defense has been a bright spot, and that should be a differentiator but all that benefit is killed by our bottom 9 forward lines.

I'd be surprised if any NHL player received that in the last 20 years, let alone a Sabres player. Gone are the days of the pugilists.

I think the flamboyant GDT is fine in the first post, but the title itself should be fairly standard so it makes it easier to search and is consistent each game. I know I use SS to let me know when there is a game and game time, and a few of yours I either missed the time (NS time v. EST) or had to interpret who the opponent was in the title. Just some helpful pointers from a friendly (cyber) face.

I mean it is almost 9am. Long gone are the tank years when the GDT would be started out of necessity a few hours before game time.

I don't have a horse in this argument, but I just want to say that @Randall Flagg should at least be getting a multiplier on the post count for some of these responses. He'd be up in Dark territory by pure word count. (This is a compliment by the way - right or wrong more folks here should be willing to defend their position with such comprehensiveness)

I for one am not a superstitious man, so you starting the GDT every game does not worry me at all. But it seems enough of the posters here believe in the bad juju that you have to respect the temporary hiatus.

The rest of us are working off regular strength coffee and he has that super Bosnian brew keeping him on high alert. I mean it does kinda add to the story...

You have an hour head start on us EST time zoners, so patience grasshopper. Also in your phrasing above I read "GDT" not as game discussion but as gawd damn. I chuckled. ?

They know the days aren't the same every year right?

You can see how much better the top line has been with Jeff Skinner added. Tarasenko is a step above Skinner. We could always use more top-end talent.

This team is going to go as far as our Power Play and Secondary scoring takes us. Right now both of these areas are struggling greatly and has contributed to losing a lot of games recently. While neither one was a strong point tonight, it is amazing how a few goals from the fourth line (Zemgus and Larsson) made all the difference, as it seems with the way the first line is going we can count on them for nearly 2 goals a game. I still don't see any danger at all from the Casey and Sobotka lines, which is really hurting our chances of consistent success. There seems like there should be enough talent in the middle 6 that some combination should be able to provide a goal a game/every other game, but it just isn't working right now. The Power Play was bad last night as well, but still managed to score two goals (Eichel snipe and the Skinner OT winner). Again we have seen the PP be explosive last year with basically the same personnel, so they just need to get it together and start shooting more. If Dahlin can get his shot going from the right slot it will prevent teams from camping on Jack and provide more space.

Counterpoint - Houston is a top 5 television market that is not filled by the NHL and the Phoenix experiment isn't working great. Bettman probably feels that Las Vegas worked so well that any market will work for the NHL as confidence is high right now. I agree it probably won't work, but I can see the allure.

On the Dahlin opportunity? I thought so. But it's the NHL where you can 360 swing your stick and no penalty is called

Some of the Kings players are embarrassingly slow. Jack just blew by one as casually as a Canalside skate

That was one of the strangest goalie/dman plays I've seen in the NHL. Everyone on the Sabres just kind of stood there while the pick was clearly free

Could that possibly coincide with the Seattle addition since Arizona gets moved to the central then right?

Miller out 6 weeks with an injury

My first choice is always the company provided stress ball. That's the nice first warning object. After that it's the coffee mug or the stapler...