Mango

Gretzky is tough to bet against. Not to mention putting a guy like Roy, or Barasso, or Fuhr in net. Against who? Levi and Knies? Ill take Gretzky/Roy.

I always call him Tagey through my TV. It feels like the proper hockey nickname.

At one point in the 3rd Cozens got off the ice early with the puck in the corner of the offensive zone. JJP, Tomers, Quinn had a great 60 seconds or so out there. As our top 6 forwards mature there are going to be a lot of options for line combinations. Mitts has driven me nuts the first half of the year. Shout out to him, phenomenal game.

Are you asking me to get hard… This is a family board Spoon.

Great shift from Mitts here. The terrible things I screamed at my TV/him to start the season. One man show on that shift.

What I mean by that we have a string of bad games under our belt. One step at a time. Lets just start playing good hockey first. If we can do that, the rest will fall into place as it should.

Playoffs....no playoffs, whatever at this point. If we can get consistent efforts like we had against NYR and Edmonton I will enter the offseason happy with the progression of this team this year. Doesn't hurt that I think if we do happen to get those performances for the next few weeks we can squeak by NYI. There is just enough race track left.

God...I hope the Sabres find a way to win this one if for no other reason than to avoid 6 days of text messages from my uncle about how dumb I am for believing in this team.

Good call on why he was on the Thompson line. It was a bit of a head scratcher because Quinn has been pretty good there. It’s clear Greenway has no idea where to be with those guys. It felt like there were a dozen times he was on top of either Skinner or Tage and they had nowhere to pass the puck. He looks slow and clunky to me. Right now I like KO a lot better. But he’s old and on his way out.

This went down a rabbit whole I don’t want to go anywhere near at the moment. Being afraid that Granato might max himself out with this roster is wildly different than saying the org is effed and moving in the wrong direction. You might be right. But it’s waaay too early for that.

I am a fan of the work Donnie has done here with the kids. Baring a full collapse doesn’t he last 17 games I welcome him back with open arms. But this is part of my frustration. Adjustments. We seem to only breakout through the center. When teams clog the lanes we just bash our head into the wall and won’t go near the boards. We almost refuse to dump and chase against a strong forecheck. And to your point about Tomers, a bit, it feels like we are allergic to working the puck from low to high in the offensive zone. I have some mild fear that Granato built some talent but the team is one trick pony’s under him.

We are tied for wins from last year. So I actually expect them to beat that by some margin come April. I think the judgement starts to circle around Donnie/Adams next year. The 2023-24 version of Tomers, Tuch, Skinner, Cozens, Dahlin, Peterka, Quinn, Dahlin, Boosh, Powers, Stillman, Muel, should be good enough to put us in the Rangers, Lightening, Penguins range. We shouldn’t be fighting for the 8th seed in 365 days with a competent system and offseason moves.

The Darcy GM tree is becoming a thing.

If the Sabres finish the season playing hockey like tonight I’ll be happy with the overall season and our direction going forward.

That certainly wasn’t clear to me. But I’m not the smartest guy in most rooms. I might have mouthed off about this comment earlier. Sorry. Internet ramblings and all.

At scale, I get the feeling at defeat. But to post that this is getting “unwatchable” after that game is insane. Thy was very watchable hockey. Go pout about the last two weeks in a different thread. That’s fair.

Tonight wasn’t an implosion. That was a good top level hockey game.

I thought that call could have gone either way. Which to me means you just don’t call it in that situation.

VO should have 2, maybe 3 goals. Jesus. Greenway and VO have been on the ice in situations that normally would have been Tuch with scoring 2-3 scoring opps that I’m confident Tuch would have put in the back of the net.

Unsure who Joker got wrapped up with but he was staring through his soul. Also Quinn needs to get that shot off quicker.

I don’t totally understand Greenway on the Thompson line. Quinn is playing well there. Cozens line has been better with some vet presence too.

This! As a fan I can go into the offseason drinking the Adams/Donnie koolaide. Stay the course. Don’t upset the locker room mid season. Let some of these guys try and figure it out live and make the moves in the offseason. Etc. But if we hold this 1-5 rate through the last 18 or whatever games I’ll have a hard time not getting angry at the org. To start the season I thought we were capable of making the post season. We can miss the playoffs. We can be streaky. But the wheels cannot fall off.

Points aside, we have equal wins to last season with 18 left. As long as the ship isn’t sunk we should be able to see measured improvement. If we don’t though….I’ll likely start to sharpen my pitchfork

Right. I get all that. I was here for it, I certainly know the expectations hoisted upon Eichel. But I don't think the Sabres ruined Eichel. Eichel is having a "Hall of Very Good Career", but he isn't "the guy" and likely never will be. He isn't a generational player. And even in his new home on a great team, his one millionth NHL coach is saying he isn't living up to the hype. He is an awesome piece to have, but he is a standard deviation behind real generational players like Ovi, McDavid, Crosby, etc. Eichel was totally fair to want to leave here. That period is/was a disaster. But the organization was equally as just to not want him in the building.

Who? Eichel? Ha!