LTS

I, for one, am a huge fan of the dump and chase the other team back out of their zone strategy the Sabres use. 😉

Interesting. 13 seconds irritated me but not to the same level. What irritated me most I think was how cocksure everyone was about the Bills winning that game. I am pretty sure that was the first time I posted "You ain't won ****, until you win ****." In my head I maybe felt a little vindictive towards all those who were bragging so hard about the Bills. It was one kick to the nuts that people who had never been kicked in the nuts by the team needed to feel. I'm not saying it's right, but if the Bills do win it all, then people now will have the 13 seconds game to help put in perspective what an accomplishment a championship would be. I still want them to win though. No matter what happens, I was still born in Buffalo, spent 21 years there and only moved an hour away. I want that city to experience a championship. Especially after having been kicked in the nuts so many times.

I have a beer league game... hallelujah.

Raise your hand if you think Dahlin moving to another team wouldn't result in an immediate change in his statistics and he'd be considered one of the best in the league. He's one of the most talented players and a leader on a team that is crapping the bed right now. He might just be pushing a little too hard and trying to play outside his game in an effort to help the team succeed. It's clearly not working, but while numbers tell you what's happening on the ice they don't tell you what's happening in someone's head.

This is what my son and I had an animated discussion over prior to the Bills/Miami game. I was his age when 4 straight SuperBowls led to an incredible disappointment. That changed me. I do care how the team does.. but I just laughed while they were futile and I simply smiled when they fail to make it back to the SuperBowl now. I just don't care enough.. I've experienced the biggest game loss and now after that much time has passed i am positive I just have a very different priority on it. Back then I thought it was incredibly important and now, it's just a cool thing if they win a championship. Of course, I say this having not experienced what winning a championship feels like so I reserve my right to change my mind once its happened. 🙂

The casual fan is off doing other things. They'll chime in on how the Sabres suck but then they're off to other topics. We are all here, all posting. Even if we don't watch the games, we show up here on a routine basis whether to try and spread optimism or to let loose our irritation of the performance of this team. It's dark right now, real dark. It's hard. At some point it will get better... but JFC don't we all wish it was right now.

If I were taking a wild guess I would have pegged that photo for d4rksabre.

No doubt. There are plenty of people to point at in these situations. You have no shortage of near professional or slightly less successful professional players who cannot let the sport go and try and build some kind of "development" program based on their name. Parents flock to them because they all believe their child will be the one and then be set for life. They all play politics and shift alliances in a heartbeat and the people running the organizations encourage it. Even those with rules to help prevent it still allow their rules to be broken, constantly. I'm about done with youth sports (thankfully). I have a 16 y/o daughter who plays volleyball and we've managed to stay out of MOST of the politics but they permeate even into the school level where parents are complete ----wads and then influence their children to be even worse. No one says anything because they don't want to be blackballed... of course my daughter has spoken up on a few occasions which I fully supported after making sure we spoke about what the possible outcomes of her taking a stand could be. She'll likely not play HS volleyball next year because of it and she's okay with that. She hooked up with a lower level club team that emphasizes the right values and she's loving it. My son went through the whole process for hockey and baseball.. it was awful and he lost his love for both sports at one point. He now plays club level baseball in college and he loves it. It's amazing what we do to our children.

There is some video somewhere of Cutter saying he grew up a Penguins fan so he wouldn't like playing for the Flyers. Ridiculous if you ask me. I think we're beginning to see the next generation of athlete coming through the system and I'm thinking the old guard fans are not going to like it very much. I get concerned that the "amateur" level free agency craze has taken hold. Hockey is a bit insulated but these college players with the transfer portal and the NIL shenanigans will have an impact on attitudes toward being thankful to be drafted to "highest bidder wins". Sure there are agreements in place but I suspect we'll see players advocating heavily for more control over where they play. We've basically built a youth sports system that caters to these athletes. Sure it's been around awhile, but it's getting worse and so I think the impacts will continue to grow. Anyway.. glad it as not a Sabres problem.

LEGEND.

There's a lot said about Fubo.. all accurate. In the end, the only services, cable, satellite, or streaming that have MSG are all going to be about $90. Fubo does not have TNT as pointed out. All broadcast TV is either 720p or 1080i. It doesn't matter if its streaming or cable or satellite. They may upscale it before it gets to your device, but the broadcast is in 720p or 1080i. I do have Fubo.. they have cracked down on password sharing. I have unlimited screens but if my son is at college and attempts to watch while I am watching at home we get messages kicking us off saying we are in too many places. Unlimited screens applies to streams to the same home IP. You can get "around" this by using a phone or tablet. It used to allow a PC as well but they've cracked down on that. Technically it's not the streaming services as much as it is their carriage agreement for the underlying networks.

Ahh got it. I hadn't read anything about how he interacts in that regard. I have no doubt how competitive he is.. he's a monster player. I'd take him in a heartbeat, potentially over a few other big names. I am a huge fan of how he plays the game.

Soooo I am guessing you are assuming I know something about Nate MacKinnon? I don't. Did he do something like this that I am unaware of?

I'm not talking so much about age differential as I am era differential. I get your point, but my question is.. "Does McDavid blow up on a 1-3 year player?" We have no evidence of that happening or him even being that kind of player. I'd like to agree with you, but... youth is different these days.

I just want to hear about this happening on some NHL locker room today. As much as it may pain some of us to say it, today's youth responds differently and I'm never certain if something like this would tune them in or out. We can all say too bad, but we don't control the youth of today. Now, if we are seeing this kind of success in other locker rooms I think there is evidence that perhaps the approach could work. I know the arguments my son and I get into about this team often get to the point of a debate in this area. He often sides with the feel good and I'm more along the lines of how I would be smacking the ever loving crap out of some of the people on this team if I were in that locker room.

I think you are on a good track here. Each fan will have their own expectations of what the team should do and what it should accomplish. That is a level of subjectivity that I would not necessarily want to wade to deep into. As we see on here day in and day out, the expectations of the individual fans often lead to very real angst, irritation, and battles between posters. However, the team itself sets expectations each year. The amount of leeway I would provide them is based very much on the expectations they set each season. This year, they expected playoffs. It does not matter what I or anyone else on here thought of the team, the people who run the organization and the players themselves all said it. They set the expectations and since they are the ones who have to achieve, there's no level of subjectivity. By all accounts, each and every person in the Sabres organization who has control over the product on the ice has failed to deliver on their expectation. I have no patience for that. As for the organization overall? I have all the patience in the world. If they don't win it's not going to impact me negatively, I will find other things to do. I want them to win, but I'm not attaching my happiness to them. It's not worth the stress.

Augustine was in net when I woke up and turned the game on.. isn't he the #1? He wasn't playing earlier in the tournament because of illness.

Well.. this game sucked. And while I wanted to drink I ended up with some level of sinus headache that ruined my night even more. This team has no pride, they are defeated when they step on the ice. How do you let meathead Tkachuk pull a Paul Bunyan on Girgensons and not go after him? If I were inclined I'd go back and pull one perfect example from the game... I want to say it was Tuch who had a chance to hit someone in the offensive zone but decided not to. Then came back and figure he should hit a Senator in the defensive zone.. he had him lined up, then stopped, then hit him. I was all sorts of confused. Meh.. earlier threads asked if this team cares about winning and I said yes. I think the answer is still yes.. but they don't care enough.

I did. I'll look for all those explanations of how good he was in the missed throws... or his fumbles.. or.. it's not worth arguing over frankly. Josh Allen can run.. he can't throw the ball for a damn right now. The problem is a QB needs to do both.. Yeah.. they get the 2 seed.. so what. Success if winning a SB or even getting there for this team. No chance in hell they do it. PHI has lost a few games in a row because their defense or lack thereof has been exposed. A win is a win.. but I wouldn't look at today's game and bet on the game next week. The team is not good. You say it yourself, it's ugly. Why insist I put lipstick on the pig? It was an ugly win that does not inspire confidence against better opponents who can execute. I don't need to post after a loss.. what's the point? There are a lot of fans who seem insistent that this team is better than they play.. not sure how that works... but like I said after last years season when everyone was so high on this team... "You ain't won $!@#, until you in !@#$." I'd figure every Buffalo fan would know that by now. Sure.. the 2 seed.. as I said above. They then do what? The Bills should have had 21 points in the first few minutes of the game. They are inept and a GOOD team will beat them. It is. They advertise the play and still can't set up the proper blocking.

Define OK? He looked like crap before the apparent injury.

The fact that people still have hope for this team is amusing. They win with the lowest probability events happening and fail on the high probability. I don't know how you look at that team today and have any level of confidence they can be successful.

Meh.. like it matters. This team has lost with every player anyone has campaigned to be either in or out of the lineup. Just watch Tkachuk do stupid things and Stutzle dive. In fact, I'll drink one less drink for every dive Stutzle performs.. I should be stone cold sober tonight.

I think you'd qualify... but would you toe the line and refrain from criticism or would you seek to obfuscate your critique within your wonderfully flowery language?