Jsixspd

Wow, that minute after the PP was sad.... it was like the Red Wings had a 5 minute pp instead of 4 minutes.

Nice work by Kane on this PK.

Well, that was kind of a dumb penalty - since the puck had already passed that Red Wing player -and a 4 minute one to boot. :(

I got in and started watching with about 2 minutes left in the second. Sabres seemed really listless, like they were "out of gas", and the puck spent most of the end of the period in the Sabres zone.

The Sabres have been HISTORICALLY bad the past couple years. To put 73 points into prospective I went back and looked at the seasonal points of the worst 5 teams in the NHL for the previous 5 complete seasons (didn't use 2012-13 - the partial season), excluding Buffalo's amazingly bad 2014-15 and 2013-14. The average of 5 teams for 5 years = 73.4 points. A team that scores 73 points on a season is a POOR team. Let's be blunt. It's bottom barrel performance - most years, 73 points would be the 2nd or 3rd worst team in the NHL. I was hoping this year we'd hit in the low 80s. 73? That would be represent going from abominable to just plain awful. :( That's out of the goal scoring players in the NHL, not teams. There are more than 30 of them - lol. ;) And our rookies are doing great - I think there's a great future ahead for Eichel.

A continued concern remains scoring. Last year we finished dead last in the league at 1.87 goals for per game. We're doing better at 2.28, but we're still 27th in the NHL. We need guys who are a consistent scoring threat. We just don't have enough goal scorers on the team yet. O'Reilly has slipped a bit - he was in the top 20 in the league in goals scored, but now is 22nd. Eichel is the 2nd most productive player, but he's way down at 50th. Our 3rd best, Reinhart, is 81st. 4th best - Kane and McGinn are waaaay down in 121st place. No point in digging beyond 4th - we've got to go down into the bowels of the NHL rankings. Eichel is in a good place for a rookie. But team simply needs a lot more firepower, plain and simple.

This season is, and has always been, a write-off. Realistically the only thing we could expect this year was substantial improvement over last season, building towards a push for the playoffs in Spring 2017. HOWEVER, if they only hit the 65-70 point mark this year, I'm going to be very concerned they can improve enough off season to squeak into the playoffs NEXT year. Let's see where we are in a month.

The Sabres are starting to fall a bit behind in demonstrating a successful post rebuild season - Chicago earned a decent 88 points their first post rebuild season. Right now Sabres are on a pace for a mediocre 70 points or so. They gotta bring it in the second half of the season and take it to the next level; they should be hitting 78, 80 points this year. We need guys to step up and score goals.

Lehner maintains his perfect record- the Sabres haven't won in any of the 3 games he's had ice time in this season. ;)

Yeah, but at least their fans have 2 Stanley Cup wins in the past 20 years to hang their hats on. And a division pennant a couple years ago. We got about jack squat - it's been 16 years, going on 17, since the Sabres made it to the SC finals. Reminds me of that scene in the movie "Airplane" where one of the stewardesses, thinking she's about to die, bemoans the fact she's never been married. Moments later, another woman enters the scene and states - "At least I've been married" to the great agony of the first stewardess. LOL.

A tank by any other name... The point being - two godawful teams used accumulated draft picks, and under new ownership/ management, rebuilt from the ground up. Let's call them rebuilds, rather than get derailed by semantics. Chicago was in a bad way when Rocky Wirtz took over after his dad, "Dollar Bill" died; as bad as the Sabres lowly state. . I'm just interested in seeing how our rebuild compares to Chicago's. Blackhawk's rebuild has been an unbelievable success; and they've been a strong post season contender for the past 7 seasons. Chicago managed 88 points in their first rebuild season, Sabres are at 42 after 46 games; staying with that average, the Sabres hit 75 at the end of the season. Doesn't look so far as if our rebuild is quite as successful as Chicago's. It's a bit discouraging; but perhaps the Sabres will improve their average of .91 points per game at this tie. We hit 80 or higher, I'll be more optimistic.

Hard to put trust in a guy we've seen a whopping total of 87 minutes of TOI after more than half the season is over, and who has spent most of the year sidelined with a self-inflicted injury - somehow managed to give himself a nearly fatal charley-horse while stretching in the crease during a break in the action in Game 1. That takes a special kind of skill. He didn't have the most auspicious of starts with the team, and his one full game he played was a pretty 'meh' performance. Kind of concerned about his durability. He needs to really bring it out there, and prove himself, to stay on this roster.

"It's a Sicilian message... Joe Ba.... he sleeps with the fishes!"

haha!!!! RIP, Iron Mike! He was a great heel/jobber, and was always good at generating a lot of audience heat. Sad to read about him - he has been confined to a wheel chair since 2007, at the early age of 55. He was only 64 - most of those guys die so young, way below average for lifespans. He sure didn't look like a juicer either - just a big beefy guy.

I didn't realize our favorite enforcer,, Battista, had departed. Isn't it kind of tinfoil to assume he was fired due to Russ Brandon flexing his bureaucratic marketing muscles, when in fact the press release said he left because he wanted to spend time with his family? At any rate - his position - VP of Hockey Related Business - I see from the Sabres' staff directory - it apparently no longer exists. http://sabres.nhl.com/club/page.htm?id=36588 So this position was created when he arrived, and it was eliminated when he departed. Only Battista could do what Battista did apparently. What was it he did?

Awwww! :( Interesting - I don't see his position - "VP of Hockey-Related Businesses" even listed. Apparently the job was created for, and ended, when he departed. No one else but Battista could do it like Battista did it - whatever it was he did.

Interesting about JoeBa. The Sabres website shows him as still there; http://sabres.nhl.com/club/page.htm?id=94184 Dayum, gonna have to change my title statement -we can't blame it on Battista any more. :( http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/13371643/joe-battista-stepping-buffalo-sabres-executive

Black is gone, but Battista is still there in his sinecure post. I could see where it would be galling to an experienced and seasoned hockey executive to suddenly have orders or directives countered by an inexperienced hockey person whose only qualification was being spouse of the owner, if indeed that did happen. In a sane world, the most knowledgeable and the most qualified person is the person in the center seat.

Even Chicago with their spectacular, gold-bar standard for tank and rebuild, didn't hit the playoffs in their first post-tank year. But they did better - much better - than the previous year. That's my only hope for this season; and it looks good so far. Let's start worrying about playoffs this fall. This is a season to enjoy a much more competitive Sabres team, as we've been able to these past 2 excellent games. There's no slugs out there on the ice like Leino or Hodgson; that makes it much more watchable for me.

The Coyotes feed version of the Brawl To End It All. Bogo is a beautiful human being. :) Johnson has a pretty hot hand in net too. His last 3 games; only 4 Goals against with 105 total shots on goal, for a 1.33 GAA, and a .962 SV%.

What a great game! I've been in the process of moving out of state - but I got my DirecTV reinstalled, AND purchased CenterIce. So now I can watch the Sabres again!! The Coyotes were definitely the instigators at the end - great we got a team of stand up guys now who aren't gonna take crap instead of a bunch of Ruff and Regier cream-puffs.

Neuvirth is putting up some very nice numbers in his backup role at Philly. Kind of wished we still had him, although Johnson has been a nice acquisition.

The problem the Sabres had, and still have; they need players who can score goals with consistency and when needed. The Sabres are, I believe, 27th in goals scored in the league. Our best guy in points, O'Reilly, is 19th in the league. But then you gotta go WAY down to 81st place to find Buffalo's number 2 point scorer, Risto. Eichel, 3rd on the team, is 96th!! O'Reilly is also 18th in goals scored in the league. But then we gotta plummet down to 57th place to find the number 2 guy - Eichel; tied with Drew friggin' Stafford for cryin' out loud! The Sabres need 3 or 4 more O'Reillys. He's been a godsend this year; without O'Reilly the Sabres would be last in the league in standings. Still. Even with O'Reilly they're 29th! :( I haven't seen as many games this year as normal as I've moved out of state - but.... from what I've seen you got a lot of guys who aim for dead center for the goalie's belly; They must think they can shoot the puck hard enough for it to push the goalie into the net to score a goal - that's about the only way you're gonna score that way. Usually goalie just holds onto the puck and its faceoff time. The Buffalo Belly Shooters are out in force (again) this year.

I think the worst part about Gorges this year is all the penalty minutes he draws. When your team is 24th in the league in penalty kill, that's not the best place to be. From a +/-, he's only -4. Which is good for this team. Eichel is -13 already. BTW, what a GREAT win, and awesome bounce back from a tepid display against hated Boston on Friday.

What a sad effort at home, against hated Boston. Lehner had a less than impressive debut - 3.00 GAA, and .900 SVG%. Average stuff from Lehner. Amazing how the game seemed to fall apart after Zemgus was sidelined. And... Rex Ryan and Rob Ryan were both in attendance - double-jinx against the Sabres.