Jsixspd

I've never seen the Sabres with so few hits this season in any building. The Chicago game was a home game, BTW. The Sabres have averaged 23.1 hits per game over 62 games. Prior to these 3 games, the hits per game average was 24 and tenth in the league! If it were just 1 game, I'd say it were a fluke - but 3 games? And all 3 games were pretty poor outings by Buffalo too, including that awful showing at home against Chicago! Here's the stats at Sporting Charts. https://www.sportingcharts.com/nhl/stats/team-hit-statistics/2016/

Bogosian is -11 even after missing nearly half the season due to injuries. Kulikov even worse at -15 after 36 games played. Terrible! Gorges needs to be shown the door too - he is just terrible; he looks slow and useless. His plus minus is "ok" at -4, but only 3 pts total after 46 games, and an average TOI of 18 minutes plus? Brutal - his worst season ever in the NHL. These 3 high dollar d-men have a whopping total of 2 goals and 9 points, for 12.4 MILLION dollars in salary this year cumulative. Any playoff bound team - the top d men are gonna be contributing more offensively than these useless slugs.

Anyone else notice there's been a significant drop in 'hits' by Buffalo over the past three games? Per the box score, only 8 hits tonight, and 6 in the game against Colorado. 5 against the Blackhawks. Prior to this 3 game losing streak, they had 12 hits against St. Louis 16 against Colorado 23 against Ottawa 19 against Vancouver (loss) 41 against Toronto 24 against Anaheim (loss) Buffalo pretty much was always delivering double digit numbers of hits in all their games, win or loss. Note that against Vancouver and Anaheim - both games losses, they averaged 22 hits per game - that average is higher than their total combined hits in their past 3 games (22 vs 19) That's a huge drop in physicality. Has Bylsma lost the team?

Gorges should be GONE. He is horrendous - someone mentioned his instrumental role in Colorado's opening goal - I had just fast forwarded thru most of that game, so I went back and watched... That pass of Gorges' was terrible. He put it right on the Avalanche player's stick. And then to compound it - he regained possession of the puck in the Buffalo zone -and promptly had it taken away from him in a one on one, and that set up the score by Colorado a few seconds later. That guy should not be wearing an "A" - that sends a terrible message to the younger players. Excellence should be standard. If Excellence isn't standard for a player, then that player shouldn't be anointed with high status. If I were Bylsma or someone in charge at that team, I'd yank Gorges' "A" so fast his damn head would spin! And I'd give him a good verbal dressing down too - so he knows that excellence is the minimum standard!

Why does Bylsma keep incessantly playing Lehner, especially during that one game intensive stretch before the bye? Shouldn't Nilsson start at least 1 out of 4 games to save Lehner for post season hopes? Nilsson hasn't played in 3 weeks. He has a .922 SVG% - it's not like they're starting a scrub like Patrick Lalime. Shouldn't Lehner get some relief?

Eichel was -3, Kane -3, and Reinhart -4, last night! That's brutal. Gorges at least was limited to 'only' 13 minutes of ice time, unlike his usual 20+

Another example of Buffalo dropping a "should win" game. That awful turnover at the end that gave the Avalanche the empty netter sealed the deal.

It's awful that the season rhythm has to change - twice -once because of AS break, and again now with the bye week - because of the craptastic All-Star Game anyway. In general, the All Star Game outcome is a matter of supernatural indifference to myself. The only time I even cared was when John Scott was involved.

hahahaha!!!!! I count 8 teams in the link below having their bye week this week, including Buffalo. The last team in the league to have a bye-week is the Anaheim Ducks - theirs starts Sunday. But yeah, 21 teams had their bye weeks earlier in the season than Buffalo. But I suspect no favoritism - could be argued that a bye week later in the season is more beneficial to get a team rested and healthy. Although it's rather dumb to have it so close to the All-Star Break. https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/57by28/complete_list_of_nhl_bye_weeks/ It was even worse for the Panthers - their bye week was something 5 days AFTER the All-Star Break. That doesn't make much sense.

I'm not sure how the player union felt this benefits players - the season length is the same - 82 days - and the 1st game/last game span is about the same. All this means is that more games get crammed into a shorter time span, at some point in the season. I would think playing a denser schedule would increase the chance of injury, not decrease it.

So the Gold Bar Standard Team for rebuilds came into town and showed Buffalo what they need to aspire to? 30 games behind .500 when it bottomed out then rebuild, then it was 20 games below .500, 2 games below .500, 10 games above .500, and a conference finals appearance, 22 games above .500 and a Stanley Cup win So they went from a cellar team to Stanley Cup champs in basically 4 seasons, and each year was constant improvement. We sure don't seem to be on the same steady climb to the top pacing here. No excuses, if this team isn't pushing deep into playoffs next year, and above .500, the rebuild isn't effective.

The Sabres did very well against Ottawa, and shut down a tank-caliber Avalanche that is a whopping 25 games BELOW .500. So an unexpected win, coupled with an expected win! A win today would show they might have a legitimate chance to claw their way into a Wildcard berth. A loss - and they confirm they're an 80-82 pt season team. Let's hope for the best.

Are Bylsma's methods 'unsound'? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNsltQXTVU

At least 9 out of 10 regulars at this forum would, if they played for the Sabres, think Dreary Dan sucks as a coach and there would be a lot of friction. Who can fault Eichel for thinking the same?

We're only 5 days away from the 6th anniversary of the Pegulas taking over the team. It's also going on 6 years (coincidence?) since the Sabres have been in the post-season. We're sure not seeing a fast Chicago style rebuild where new owner/GM comes in, and the team improves noticeably every season (they caught fire after Quenneville became named coach, and have stayed one of the forces in the NHL ever since). Owners meddle. GM seems content and complacent. Coach seems like a fish out of water. Brandon does whatever Brandon does, behind the scenes. Great rebuild you got there, Tim Murray! We'll be lucky to get the team BACK to where it was before Pegula, you, Brandon and Bylsma took over. lol

Well, right back to the 82 point pace. And Gorges with nearly 21 minutes of ice time??? He looked slow and ineffective out there last night - what the hell is Bylsma thinking? Or is he even thinking? Per Lehner "coach has a plan" but players aren't following it? WTH??? Maybe the plan is tanking, and the Sabres aren't following it by winning now and then? Tanking seems logical conclusion - playing the starting goalie without rest with predictable results. I'm sorry -but Dan Bylsma should put on his big boy pants and run this team himself - he's paid one of the top reported coaching salaries in the NHL to do so! He shouldn't need Lehner whining in the locker room about players not following the coach's 'plan'. If he isn't alpha male enough to enforce his wishes and discipline by himself, he should be shown the door!

Yup - what a great game - the 1st period was fantastic (except for that idiotic too many men on the ice penalty!) Sabres definitely looked like the better team last night - which they should be, frankly!

Frankly, I really don't care what he does off ice as long as it doesn't end up in jail time. He seems to be growing into a solid and consistent star on this team. You know, if as was previously mentioned, if Murray got some incredible deal offered him for Kane in the Sabres favor that would definitely make the team better in 2017-18, then take it. That's a wise strategy. But don't go looking to trade, and let's remember "A bird in the hand......"

Thanks for tallying this up - I knew we'd been swept by several teams - but couldn't recall them all. The Boston one is really bad - because the losing streak extends into fall of 2015, for pity's sake!

Dose of reality in this game. Sabres are back to a point per game pace now.

And next year, if the rebuild is successful, we should be pushing into the playoffs, with a wildcard spot and a wildcard win(hopefully). Kane being traded would create a serious loss of offensive power that Murray would need to backfill with someone at least as capable IF the rebuild is on target for 2017-18

I've lived in Mid Michigan almost 1 1/2 years now, and I suppose I could jump on the Red Wings bandwagon - lots of family and friends are Wings fans, but I will always be a Sabres' fan. 2nd season of buying Center Ice so I can watch every game if I want to. Have the DVR set for season-record -so I record all the games - some I just time shift and scan through for highlights. Sometimes incredibly frustrating to BE a Sabres fan but there's occassional awesomeness like last night that keeps me a fan. If Ville Friggin' Leino couldn't push me away, nothing can!

Voted!!!! After last night, how can I not vote "KEEP"? I will be very disappointed if he's traded - I hope Murray remembers an old adage - "A bird in the hand...."

Wasn't there a great play to score a game winning goal last season made by the Kane/Eichel pair up? I remember RJ's call of the goal was rebroadcast/shared quite a bit - it was as good as the goal. Good to see 'em working together - we need more of that chemistry!

If we want to feel better about Brady, go here and check the post season stats http://www.pro-football-reference.com/leaders/pass_td_career.htm Peyton Manning has EIGHTY THREE more playoff game TD passes than Brady. I don't think he'll ever hit number one in that stat. Brady is 4th. And check out the other stats in the pull down - Brett Favre has the most completed playoff game completed passes - 1056 more than Brady. I doubt Brady at 40 will even come close to achieving this. Playoff passing yards - Peyton Manning has 10,500 more yards than Brady. No way does Brady catch up to this either. We could argue, based on playoff stats that Manning is the greatest QB of all time.