LTS

Deserved.. that was an action born out of frustration and can't happen in the NHL. It especially cannot happen from the "C" of the team who needs to show much better composure. Overall the Sabres had some good chances but they struggled against Florida's offensive zone possession, especially when Florida was moving the puck. They continually lost their coverage resulting in many additional chances for the Panthers. The Sabres tried to stretch the ice all night and the Panthers camped on their breakouts. No adaptation to having the D skate it out of the zone or bringing the forwards back deep. Florida was better in all facets and their experience and skill showed that they are the top of the conference. Oh well. On to the next one. just need to see Quinn in a suit in the team suite.

Yeah, it might be personal lives, but it doesn't matter. They get paid a salary to produce at their jobs and they are not. Quinn is a joke on the ice and deserves to be in scratched and/or traded. Frankly I'd prefer if him and Cozens were taken out of the line-up. I don't care how potentially good Cozens is right now, he's still not doing anything. He makes really stupid plays and he's lost on the defensive zone. He was lost last year and the year before. You can't have a "second" line that sucks this bad. You just cannot. If the Sabres want to talk about winning, they need to take the steps to win.

I mean.. if the government wanted to label DJI as a Chinese military company and ban their products it seems only right to ban Musk's products from the US given his open discussions with Russia.

Yes. As I said in the second paragraph beginning.. I am not going through and quoting. 🙂 Only my first sentence was to you.

talk about a hold my beer moment.

This is fair, but in reality people should be blaming the franchise. Dahlin can't turn the team around by himself, no player can, period. Fans putting the blame on the skilled players and leaders of a team is really misplaced unless the team had a chance to win in the first place. This team has not had solid chance as we keep saying about the owner and GM building the team over the years. I understand where you are coming from and I have been critical of Dahlin as well, but this team would be immensely worse with him not on the team than it is with him on the team. I'd wager a bet that if the Sabres were looking to trade him there would be 31 franchises looking to make the trade. The entire team has not figured it all out yet, so by extension Dahlin will have struggles. He does make bad plays, every player does. I am sure we could go back in the days of Lidstrom and find some bad plays early on. Of course he did have a much better team at the time than Dahlin does. I'm dismissing a bit of his work this year because he's injured, but he is an all-star defenseman who was tied for the lead in scoring on the Buffalo Sabres last year. No other team had a defenseman leading the team in scoring. Now, you really don't want your defense leading the team, but it demonstrates his importance.

Uhh, for every goal scored there are not 2 assists given. There are up to 2, certainly. I'll carry on more about the skill aspect of things below, using Tage as your example. So, when Tage Thompson slams a PP shot into the net by waiting for a pass, is it his skill that supercedes the pass to him? When Tage slapped a 104mph shot off the goalie and then Zucker buried it was it Zucker's goal scoring skill that superceded Tage's shot? When Dahlin hit Tage in the slot with a nice backhand was it goal scoring ability or a great pass... or, both? Certainly we see a lot of goals scored with individual effort that results in assists that had no more skill than making a simple pass up the ice. However, we also see plenty of goals, like the one's I outlined above where the passing has a very real impact on the goal being scored? One last example, the tic-tac-toe goal.. I could have scored the goal after the two preceeding passes left Detroit completely out of position. I understand where you are coming from, but there are far too many goals scored because of an incredible assist. And EN goals are counted but are not really "goal scorer goals".

Says the person who started with telling others what they were allowed to say. Got it. Of course you had the wrong poster, which, while irrelevant to telling others what they can and cannot say, only makes your original take more off mark.

I'm legitimately puzzled by this take. if a player has an assist, a goal must have been scored. Regardless of secondary or primary, the player receiving an assist had a part to play in a goal being scored. I suppose you could argue in favor of the ability to score unassisted goals but I don't think that trends where you want it to. Relying on players to score goals unassisted would mean either they are making a hell of a defensive play to cause a turnover and then score or they are a solo artist and not using their teammates as much. I don't think either of those translate into a good hockey team. I did a cursory search for ratio of unassisted goals to assisted goals but did not find anything concrete. There are lists of players and the vast majority have assisted goals which makes sense. I would also want to remove EN goals from the list of unassisted goals. Sure, those goals count for points but they really are not indicative of the same skill level as other goals scored during a game. I would want my players to have a ton of assists as it means there is strong puck movement and that movement is leading to goals. Certainly goals are the ultimate result, but how you score them matters to me.

I'm still puzzled by this. I wasn't aware the fans had a thing against Dahlin.

Sure. And if Zucker had not missed his mid-air swat we would have seen one of the best goals ever. I'm not going through and quoting.. but there is a lot of talk about the 10 game streak a few years ago and people tying it to the 3 game streak now. Sure, the 10 game streak ultimately didn't mean much in the end, but at the time I believe we were quite happy with it. Moreover, would you have preferred they did NOT have a 10 game streak at the time? Would you prefer they did not have 3 in a row now? How about just taking it as it comes and enjoying that the team does, in fact, have 3 wins in a row.... can't understand how you can get on people if they have a little bit of excitement about that. Yes, 13 years and all that, but when things turn around they have to turn around slowly. Perhaps these 3 games are the start of a push to the playoffs, perhaps not. But there's one thing that's certain, any other outcome over 3 games would result in less of a chance of they making a playoff push. So let's just enjoy it for what it is. I like Malenstyn by the way. I think he's going to break the boards at KBC one of these days. When Aube-Kubel returns on Monday night the boards are going to need an ice bath after each game.

The answer is yes. I doubt any parent would objectively say otherwise. It might not be every day, but there are days one kid is definitely the bigger favorite than the other. Sometimes a kid is just going through one of those "dumbass phases" and it's not something you can just overlook. However, your analogy doesn't quite fit. Each kid has their own trajectory. They are not a team working towards a common goal. I am not debating your initial point, I understand the team before the player mentality. However, on a team, some parts are more important than others. Together they create something greater, or that's the plan, but if you had to make changes to it each player is not the same. If they were we'd never talk about JAGs.

Everything Collinsworth says is nauseating. His mere presence is enough to cause gastric distress.

If its a sports hernia there are multiple cases that I can recall where players attempted to play through it only to end up having surgery. It's possible he's trying to play through it. Either way, I believe he's injured and not because it couldn't be another reason. He just looks like he's not able to play the way he wants, even physically along the boards, etc. That said.. he's not being effective and I think it hurts the team. But we know that somehow people believe a top player at 75% is somehow better than a lower player at 100%. I don't buy it, but we see it all the time.

Samuelsson's biggest mistake was not going to get the puck that was slowed up coming behind the net. He instead slowed up for it to get to him at which point he was going to be pressured from behind and the only outlet (the strong side wall) was sealed. Laziness. He was then not aggressive through the rest of the play costing the Sabres a goal. It was laziness, pure, unadulterated, laziness. He's terrible and needs to sit (which I think is everyone's opinion at this point) It really was. I was impressed by that even if was Krebs' stick that caused the puck to deflect up. I'll take that crap over the "I must fight you because you hit my player" mentality. We saw that on display last night and the most comical thing about it was that Bertuzzi took offense to it when it was his buddy pass that got his guy hit in the first place. Overall.. a win. Not impressive by any means. The team does not inspire confidence. They still look 100% like they did last year and that's disturbing.

A little less cap space left to sign the savior? Well then. Let's go!

I have a ***** ton of extra closet space after ridding myself of so many corporate polo shirts and other company paraphernalia. If only the homeless could pay me back for what I just donated to them.

I know where you are trying to dig, but you are wrong. You are frustrated about the current state of the Sabres but where you are going is just wholly inaccurate. Olofsson wasn't the answer. if he was he would have been the answer here. If he wasn't the answer here, and he wasn't. Then why? Because he didn't want to play here? Because he needed the Knights roster make-up to be better? Either way, he was the wrong player for the Sabres. So arguing that him or the others were the answers is just a pure reach. None of them made the difference for the Sabres. That they have success elsewhere is not an indication they would have had success for the Sabres and unlike players who had never played for the Sabres, these players have. They were part of this ridiculous drought and they did not solve the problem. You want salvation in the what could have been and you want to believe it could have been but history says 100% that it never was, so stop looking there.

Then well done.

Uhhhh.. can you, without so much extra language, explain to me how I should read this post? Is it a joke or is it serious?

I'm a little over the Thursday time limit, but in my defense I've been in Vegas for the past week and just got home. Of course I was there for a work conference, stayed an extra day for the heck of it and to get a non-stop back to Rochester (Thanks SWA!) You're thinking... what's the complaint? 6am phone call... work. I'm barely coherent. Congrats, today is your last day. truth be told, they've done for me what I should have done for myself. but what a kick in the nuts. That's about all I can muster right now. MF'er.

As much as people will call blasphemy... I am not a fan of Chefs.. at all. It was all the rage with my son's hockey teams when we ended up in Buffalo but it was just not for me. Can confirm. That's my backup. Although I do love a few litres of beer before the game. Also, it used to be either free or super cheap parking.

I'll see how good Olofsson looks in person tomorrow night as I'll be at the VGK vs. Blues game. Sometimes work trips allow for some fun to be had.

I'm always partial to Pizza Plant. Exceptional beer selection and I love PODs. Even closer to the arena!

it;s a bold strategy. They only get one shot to get it right or to get roasted. At least with individual goal songs people might like some and not others. So which will it be? Panned or applauded? What are the odds that in an effort to save anything from this season the goal song is some variation of the Bills Shout song? I could see someone thinking that would be a good idea.