LTS

I was am at a loss for words. I'm just going to smile for awhile.

Dunno, tonight I used the smoked chicken I made earlier in the week to make enchiladas. Paired that with a Gran Centenario Anejo and then some of my Casa Nobles Single Reserve Anejo. No bad choices there. Now it's beer time.. because, beer. I watched Kessel just wait inside his blue line and then start up the ice and sigh.. I saw it coming. The Sabres doing their standard ignore everything but the puck routine and Kessel dropped in behind them perfectly.

I think this needs to be approached from a different perspective. There's a huge difference between a losing culture and not having a winning culture. The players want to win, but they apparently don't want to win enough. There's no way I accept that any of them WANT to lose. The difference between wanting to win and winning are the little things that teams do to be in the position to succeed. They know where each of their teammates are on the ice. They execute good passes because of this. They score because they have covered the ice and outworked the other team. We only see the games. We see the output of a practice. The hard work ethic, the attitude to not accept anything BUT perfection and the winning that comes with it all starts in practice. I'll grant that a lot of players on this team don't have the talent to be successful unless they can give 100% all the time. Even then, they might not have the talent to truly succeed in the NHL. But a player who has the talent (and Hodgson has talent) but who shuts down and accepts a level of play as horrible as Hodgson has displayed is going to be a problem. Perhaps he needs some success to pull him along and perhaps he'll be tolerated enough to actually stay with the team but he'll always be waiting for someone else to kick him in the ass and that's a problem.

Uhhh sure.

The thing playing heavily in Bailey's favor is having been raised around a work ethic that leads to winning. There's no doubt he learned valuable lessons from accomplished professional athletes while he was growing up. I think that plays to his advantage for succeeding. Oh well, all we can do is wait and hope.

There is only one appropriate crowd reaction tonight before the game starts. The arena should muster up the loudest RJ, RJ, RJ cheer possible. I would imagine that even all the Leafs fans in attendance would chime in with their respect for the man. Besides, it might be the most enjoyable moment of the game. I'll be watching.. it's what I do.

Just checked because I hadn't looked at +/- recently. Yea, -11. Technically Stewart and Benoit are the worst at -12. Short-handed goals will kill you there. :) Fluke or not, when you are on the ice for all 3 of your teams goals you have to be helping somewhere.

Girgensons full potential has not been realized yet and that excites me. I'm not going to go all poetic or hyperbolic on the guy but he just flat out has the right stuff. He avoids big hits, the puck sticks to him, he makes strong plays, beats up other players physically with his relentlessness, and can score goals. He seems to even be improving in that category. I think when it all plays out he's going to be a perennial Selke trophy candidate. Think about this, he went a LONG time last year before he received his first penalty. This year he has 4 PIM which I find incredible given how often he is hacking at other players and hanging all over them. He finds a way to do this without a hooking, slashing, or tripping call. The scary thing for me is that he looks this good on a team this bad. It's not that he looks that much better by comparison, it's that he could be that much better if he wasn't picking up slack elsewhere. Imagine what kind of player he is if you drop him onto the Blackhawks right now. I think I can sum up my feeling on Girgensons simply with "He's got it. He gets it. He's THAT kind of player."

Yea, no chance I wish cancer on anyone. It's awful news to hear.

Right now I have to say that Ristolainen and Zadarov are playing the best. They are turning the puck up the ice from behind the net. They are pushing the puck themselves to break out the zone. They are making smart passes when needed. Zadarov has been out of position, lost a few battles, etc. I would expect it. But right now the kid is not a liability on this team. He clearly stands above Benoit, Meszaros, and Weber. He may regress. Players may figure him out a bit more but he certainly seems to have the heart required to stay competitive. As he continues to hit forwards they will start to shy away from him, even if a little. He certainly likes to punish players.

Hey.. thanks for that update. I don't always get to hear him comment on what is going on. I definitely think that some of the players are clueless. I'm still confused as to how they keep backing off on zone entries and also how they continually fail to cover the third man high. Oh well.. Good to know that Nolan is telling them what to do. Someday then... :)

The sound will be turned up to 11 for this event.

Some observations from last night. Ted Nolan has given up on Benoit, Meszaros, and Weber. He's not as dumb as we think. In the first period he started Benoit with Myers. Almost immediately (after Benoit made some dumb plays) he moved Strachan with Myers. From then on the top two pairings were hitting the ice the majority of the time. As the game went on, in the limited time that Benoit and Weber were allowed on the ice (Except PK/PP) it seemed he had them paired with either Myers or Ristolainen. There's little doubt that right now Zadarov is going to stay with the Sabres. He was +3 last night. He and Ristolainen are solid out there. Having a Myers/Gorges pairing when he's back will help. While it would be awesome if the Sabres called up Pysyk to play with Strachan they won't do it yet because they did sign Benoit and Meszaros. They'll still play, as frustrating as it will be. Nolan also seemed to be doing something truly different and strange. So, he might be as dumb as we think (yea, I AM contradicting myself here). I noticed that he would have his 1 pseudo-forechecker make a swing through the offensive zone and then that guy would bee line back into the Sabres zone (going even deeper than the D). Dunleavy commented on it in the third when Kaleta did it. He mentioned that it looked like he had the guy doing that in anticipation of a shoot in. So that guy is back there to get the puck quickly before the opposition can establish the forecheck? Didn't seem to work but I'm not sure I've ever seen anything like that. He basically has said, we can't stop them coming up the ice so let's let try and stand them up at the blue line with 4 players and have the forward back to quickly take the puck and turn it back up ice. Pairing this with their constant attempts to stretch the ice with long passes out of the zone it makes for an intriguing strategy. I'm not saying it will work, I don't think it will, but it is intriguing. And the Sabres still have no clue how to cover their own zone. They continually are covering the same ice as a teammate. That's all about coaching and not clearly establishing where guys should be on the ice. They are still confused at times.

He fought in the first game last year I thought and that's when he made the comment. I think it was first game last year. Might have been the year before.

One fighting major. He also went after another player earlier in the season who delivered a hit on a teammate. Sorry, I don't recall which one. He was penalized for it. Not a fighting major but I think roughing was called. He did it in the preseason as well. I think classifying him in the not going anything category is incorrect. Hodgson on the other hand? He defines it.

A few things I've done that have helped. I switched the lower boot to inside out lacing. It generally keeps from overtightening around the front of the foot which I used to do when tightened from the outside and could pull harder. About 4 eyelets from the top I switch to traditional lacing. This allowed me to pull the ankle more snug where there is far more give in the boot. You've been leaving the top a little looser. This is a by product of your ankles getting stronger as well. Ideally you want your foot, up to the ankle, to be snug so that the boot moves in tune with your foot and you don't waste energy with your foot moving as you push. At the same time, with a slightly looser top you get increased bend in the ankles allowing you to bend your legs more effectively. Just some fun for lacing as well as what was linked above: http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/lacingmethods.htm

I'll be watching the Sabres. I might flip to the Bills but in my pecking order it's almost any hockey game and then just maybe a Bills game. Not a football fan really. Perhaps I will do something else while the game is on. Who knows. A team that can't score going up against a team that is traditionally hard to score against. Both teams are horrible on the power play. Perhaps there will be a lot of penalties tonight as there will be little fear of the ensuing power play hurting the team.

How sad. A guy gets hit hard and you immediately want to cause permanent physical injury to someone. Perhaps your emotion is getting the better of you. The Sabres responded as needed. It's unfortunate that the lack of true hockey skill o on this team has led you to desiring actual physical harm on others just to the team you root for might have a chance to win. Given your apparent response levels you prefer the play of Patrick Kaleta and Matt Cooke. You'd be gone from the league in less than a season. Your coach would be fined large sums of money for your actions. You'd probably be able to do that once before you were released from the team. It's wrong. There is no justification for it. None. If you want people responding to violence with extreme violence then you should spend your time with MMA or something. Stafford has already dropped the gloves a few times this season, including at least once when it was totally not necessary. Completely irrational thinking to say someone should snap just because they are on a crappy team. I fear that after getting humiliated by the Wild on Thursday a fair share of posters on this board might go and try to burn down FNC to show what they feel is an appropriate response for this team. Sigh.

The play against Ennis and the spear are completely different. Spearing has no place in the league. It's as despicable as boarding a guy who has had his back turned to the play for some time. The penalty for spearing is a match penalty. What happened to Ennis isn't even a penalty if the puck doesn't go out of play. It would have been deemed a shot and a continuance of the hit he took to take the shot but because the puck goes out of play it seems far worse. Oh, and to add to my other line on Ristolainen. I also laughed on the Sabres power play in the 3rd. Stafford gets tossed. Moulson wins it cleanly, shot on net. All Sabres stand around as Elliott has the puck in his glove and can't believe NO ONE is crashing the net. So he calmly lets it go to his defender who shoots it down the ice. Outcoached, outworked, outplayed.

Perhaps because he earned a stupid 10 minute misconduct penalty on Saturday night? I still have no idea what it was for but he must have said something to the ref while the ref was calling a penalty against Samuels-Thomas. No clue.

Deslauriers won't have to be scratched next game. He just speared a hot new star in the NHL. That's gonna be two games. I'd waive Hodgson at this point. He's a turd. Love with 6 seconds left in the second period Ristolainen jumps into the play, goes deep into St. Louis zone. As the puck is coming back he's waving to the bench. The camera follows the puck but at the end of the period there's Ristolainen on the ice. Either no one felt like jumping on the ice or they weren't paying attention. Outcoached, outclassed, outmanned, outplayed. Good night.

I don't know. The line in this game between NHL level and not is pretty thin. A lot of it is in the coaching, both on and off the ice. I don't think the Sabres have the coaching at any level at this point. Granted they don't have talent either but to explain away the effectiveness of someone like Moulson is tough. Sure he's not with JT anymore, but he's never looked this bad. It's a coach who can't get his players on the same page. The 50% thing is completely pointless. It has nothing to do with having 300,000 better choices worldwide. I think it doesn't play here. Lots of stupid people get married, treat it like a commodity, and end it by flushing it down the toilet like that unwanted goldfish from the fair. Anywho. Words are just words until there are actions behind them.

So he's playing D now? :) "Whatever" - this is my phrase for this season. I refuse to be emotionally twerked by these kinds of things.

They blew pretty hard tonight. Grigorenko made a few good plays but Armia looked like a spoiled brat at times. I wasn't impressed. He is still trying to force his way through players and losing the puck. He had his moments I suppose. McCabe did not impress me. He had a few moments but I saw some bad reads on his part tonight. Pysyk just plays his game. You don't even notice him on the ice. Overall, the Amerks looked pretty crappy. Albeit the Comets are the top team in the AHL but I expected more from the Amerks. All in all it was a pretty boring game tonight.

Hah. I saw none of the game tonight as I was busy watching the Amerks lose to the Comets (best team in the AHL). The Amerks looked like sorry turds against the Comets. Sigh. That said, why does anyone even bother to complain about the Sabres? Losing to Pittsburgh is a foregone conclusion. The Penguins are at an entirely different level in the NHL than the Sabres. This is the Sabres. This is who they will be for this season. If you can't handle it, then you would do your health a benefit by tuning out. I'm not saying that to be flippant, but seriously, think about the absurdity of getting upset over this. This team sucks. I don't think Nolan is the answer by any means. This is the pain that was arranged. It will be played out. That said, to put any of this on Murray is absurd. OF course, watching the Amerks tonight I saw a few things. Passes into skates, players slow in reading the plays, players taking bad angles, one too many passes, etc. I did actually have a thought that perhaps Cassidy needs to go because there are some problems in Rochester that seem to also appear in Buffalo. Oh well. At least I got to watch my son play tonight and then we got to watch a hockey game.