matter2003

I think Eichel was touted as being a player close to McDavid's level where we expected maybe a 15-20 point difference between them during the year but realistically it's appearing as if it's more like a 40 point difference. And that isn't what he was being touted as coming out.

The goaltending is really weird...they will make unbelievable saves to keep the team in it and then let in the softest goal or goals where you are like "Serously??" If this was game to game, they could probably have at least 6 or 7 more wins where they would be able to steal a game here and there with their goaltending...unfortunately, its period to period and sometimes even half-period to half-period where they will look all-world for the first 10 minutes and then give up 3 garbage goals in quick succession in the last 10 minutes. I mean how does that even happen??

Sadly, this may be true about Eichel... TB and Calgary have 3 players with more points. Colorado, Toronto, Edmonton, Pittsburgh, Winnipeg, Boston, Florida, and Chicago all have 2 players with as many points as Eichel(OK Toews only has 76 points but still...they also have DeBrincat with 3 fewer points than Eichel at 74) And several other teams have players with more points than Eichel as well. I mean look at McDavid and Dreisatl with 100+ points a piece(and still out of the playoffs). 77 points is a good season, but its tied for 27th in the league. Some of the players above him are good but not great players, and the 2 players he is tied with are Pastrnak and Bergeron who have played 11 fewer games, so realistically he is 29th. Should we be expecting more from him? Would we have gotten more from him if Skinner was still on the top line?

I dont get it...this team has enough good players that is should not be the worst team in hockey since the end of November but here we are again...so we went from the best team in hockey over the first 2 months to the worst team in hockey over the last 4 months. Basically after a good two month stretch to start the year, we are exactly the same team as the year before. How has this happened? This shouldn't be....im not saying we are a top team in the NHL but certainly this isn't the worst team in hockey either. Something has got to be going on with them mentally like they just have zero confidence and are a mentally fragile team to allow things to get this bad from where they were...

Isnt 10 years a long enough time that the Sabres should have some of this luck like almost every other team has had...sometimes multiple times during this timeframe...Chicago struck gold like 3 or 4 times with picks outside the top 10...

Bet they were covered pretty heavily when they were winning all those cups in the 80s...

No...I'm saying the only time the Sabres seem to get a good player who develops and puts up big numbers is if they are the first or second overall pick in the first round. Outside of Eichel, Reinhart and Dahlin in the draft what have the Sabres gotten in the past 9 or 10 years?? The Sabres have 3 first round picks this year...if they use all 3 they need to hit on 2 of them...no more getting nothing out of their mid round first rounders while teams beneath them draft stars.

I mean outside pick number 3 overall in the first round.... Reinhart was 2nd overall, Eichel was 2nd overall and Dahlin was 1st overall. Yeah i know Mitts is a rookie but there are a lot of rookies who put up good numbers these days...except none seem to be on the Sabres.

The difference between good teams an bad teams is that the good teams seem to at least get a few of these types of players every 8-10 years and the bad teams don't...I mean the Sabres have had really bad luck even getting players outside of the top 2 picks to develop into anything...who was the last Sabre player drafted at pick 3 or later that did anything for us? Middlestadt? Dude doesn't even have 30 points this year...

Right...we don't need to find 80 points scorers in the 2nd and later rounds necessarily, but we need to find at least a few 50-60 point players and a few 40-50 point players...we just can't have 10-20 point players or even worse, players that never make it to the NHL or only do so after we have traded them and given up on them...those are the players responsible for the secondary scoring that help win games when the top line is having an off night or when the defense breaks down and the top line needs help with a goal or two to pull out a high scoring game... I mean we have Eichel, Reinhart, Skinner as the top 3 all at or above 20 goals and 60 points and then we have Dahlin and risto right around 40 a piece and then the next highest forward is Conor Sheary at 32 points...that is just not going to get it done. Not unless we have tremendous team defense like Dallas does who has only scored 198 goals(13 less than we have) but have only allowed 191 goals and will make the playoffs. You can't both not score many goals AND have bad team defense if you are expecting to be good. I mean realistically it seems like it should be a pretty simple fix...we need to score about half a goal more per game and allow half a goal less per game. If we did that we would be in the playoffs because we would have a +30ish goal differential which would translate to probably 12 more wins or so over the course of the year...

You honestly think Zemgus would be putting up 90 points? C'mon man...let's be real...nobody in the history of the NHL is an 18 point player on one team and a 90 point player on another...that's the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time.

It wasn't always like this...for about 7 years or so the Sabres did VERY well finding guys like this: Pominville and Roy both in the 2nd round in 2001(Pominville over 700 points for his career and Roy over 500), Stafford in 2004(over 400 points), Afinigenov in 1997(395 points), MacArthur in 2003, Kotalik in 1998... But since 2010? Zemgus Girgensons might be the best...and that is a pretty terrible draft record over a 9 year period...that you couldn't even find ONE guy to contribute outside the top 10 players drafted each year...

On the instigators, Craig Rivet said he is the real deal and doesn't care if its only 1 game...

I mean just look at some of the players in the league on other teams who have scored more than 70+ points that were drafted in the mid/late first rounds or after... Matthew Barzal, Alex DeBrincat, David Pastrnak, Dylan Larkin, Kyle Connor, Brock Boeser, Sebastian Aho, Max Domi, Brayden Point(3rd round!), Jake Guentzel(3rd round!), Mark Stone(6th round!) etc... I am sure i am missing some and there are a lot of others who are in the 17-25 goal range with 45-60 points...like Travis Konecny, Jakob Vrana, Alex Tuch, JT Miller, Phillip Danault etc who are never going to be stars but are fairly good players who will chip in with 45+ points over a season... It seems all the Sabres do is draft guys like Zemgus Girgensons, Mikail Grigorenko, Brendan Lemieux, Joel Armia, JT Compher,(who might be the best forward of the bunch with 16 goals and 32 points this year) or Defenseman that never pan out...other than Jake McCabe who i think is a solid 2nd pair Dman...but that's really about it...no 40+ point players and a bunch of junk they traded away... Just so frustrating to see these other teams draft these studs/good players outside of the top of the draft but the Sabres never can seem to find them...where does the fault lie? Scouting? Coaching? Playing style? When can we actually find a guy who can play that isn't picked in the top 3?? I mean we are all excited about Reinhart and Eichel but these teams are finding guys in the mid/late first rounds who are putting up more points than either of them...then you have Leon Draisatl who just scored his 100th point and 47th goal last night... Listening to the Instigators this morning and Rivet was very high on Olafsson even though it was 1 game...said he can play and he will make the team and contribute next year...I hope so, because we need someone that can score more than 18 points in 80 games from players drafted there...

This team blows...how much longer before Housley gets canned?

Unbelievable..Sabres should have won this game 5-1.

UB Women won Quarters 2-4, just a shame they lost Q1 by 12 points or they would be winning

UB looking completely overmatched today...they got eviscerated...

I think pretty much any Joe Schmo off the street or any poster on this message board could have managed to win 13 of the last 49 games like Housley has...its an utter disgrace what he has done to this team.

Let's hire Gene Sterratore as coach...I mean he seems to do everything else...Rules analyst for the NFL broadcasts, now he is in the NCAA Tournament as a Rules Analyst...why not Hockey Coach..could he do worse with this team than what we have had??

I think the question becomes how closd to 100% of what a player has to offer is the coach able to get from him on a consistent basis, and how often is he able to get the entire team to give it on a nightly basis. It does no good if the coach can get 5 players to Give him 100% of what they have to offer in a game if the other players are giving him 50%. It would be better if he could figure out a way to get the whole team to give him 75% than a few players giving max effort and the rest half effort. And this is where Housley seems to fail. To be a successful head coach you need to be able to get at least 80% of what a player has to give each game consistently, with closer to 90-95% for long stretches. This is why some coaches will make the playoffs with the same roster another coach has near the bottom of the league. Housley consistently gets less than what he should from his players ability, which is not the sign of a good coach. This team woukd be in the playoffs or within 2-3 points of the playoffs with at least 10 other coaches in the league in my opinion. Thats why Housley needs to go, he is never going to get the best out of what he has.

Moulsson and Okposo come to mind...

I'm just sick and tired of watching the same garbage for 5 years...teams have gone from being good to bad to good again in that time and we still cant figure out how to stop turning the puck over in our own end.

What other team makes the same stupid mistakes eveey game, 5-10 times a game? Its like they never have been coached to stop doing it. Its just utterly mind boggling...like its their goal.to set up the other team with prime scoring chances 5-10 times a game...I mean what other team does this stupid stuff? This has to be the dumbest team in the NHL...they never learn from their mistakes...they keep making the same ones every game. 70+ games and they STILL do the same idiotic things?? If the coach can't figure out how to teach them anything then why is he coaching the team? They are absolutely clueless in their own end. Housley has to go...when your players are still making the same mistakes in game 72 aa they are in game 1 that is garbage coaching. That should NEVER happen.

Ok...I am on board with this. He has no answers...the team is in disarray...they are trending back towards worse team in the NHL status after keading thr NHL in points late in November...its inexfuseable.