Thorny

Come on, this isn’t a serious question. A sports-historic run of ineptitude aligns precisely with his tenure. Yes, a million times over yes. It would save the franchise He’s the biggest issue, by far Would defy logic to suggest we could pull a worse rabbit out of the hat. You don’t fear stuff like that when your current hand is the worst possible.

Alex Tuch is sorta an Event guy. He’s always up for the Moments but he’s not a guy who’s seemingly giving his best day in and day out. He’s always struck me as the guy who “always finds the camera”

I chose to say 51% in spite of better judgment before the year started, 2 games isn’t enough to jump off what was already a hopium filled projection. I’ll still say yes. It’s probably just cope but I ALWAYS think about that Marcus Johansson 2C, Botterill team that was FLYING out the gate at 2-0. Look what happened. Why not the inverse?

On a positive note: even nfl teams sometimes make the playoffs after 0-2 starts. It’s optics, and a belief that past precedent is a solid indicator that the 0-2 is reflective of the roster, that represent the concerning factors more than anything, more than we are actually behind any actual 24-25 8-ball

I’m honestly very tired of hearing about the “fourth line” lol. is that really where we are 5 years into this regime? the fourth line.

Being a good home team would go a long way this year. Maybe that’s what we’ll see, which is more along the lines of what you see with most teams re: splits. Maybe we get back to NA and they look like a different team on home ice/frees Lindy up a little bit or something.

Again, it’s early, but on another note: the optics of this season are liable to tank even quicker than normal given the purported idea we kept cap space supposedly so we could lock up our guys to long term deals and keep this core together. I never thought counting chickens before they hatched could be relied upon on so throughly as a strategy, but it could tank to even more disastrous and comical results than we even thought. We didn’t want to do what was necessary to field a winning team now, because we thought it would hurt our chances at winning later? It’s the exact opposite and always has been. There’ll be no winning later until we prioritize it in the now. that we haven’t, or choose not to prioritize winning, still, after all this time, is leading to this. I’ve been saying it for 5 years. I’m sorry, but how many times does it need to be said. More, I guess. They are insulting the fan base on a daily basis by the way they structure their prioritizes. They are doing extremely poorly by the fans

It’s actually not as strong a correlation as you’d think.

Everyone said all this stuff. None of the fixes are complicated. We don’t get to throw our hands up in the air and say, “well, HOW?!l” when you spend in the bottom 10. That’s usually what happens. I disagreed with it cause I don’t care about the injuries aspect. It’s not a key variable, all teams suffer them, it’s not why we lost, Jersey has injuries too

We’ve essentially run back the roster again. This is what I meant by it’s tough to project better until you actually see it. It’s tough to expect different when the true potential catalysts for change remain untouched. Talking about a revamped 4th line is just dog days message board fodder, we have to admit that to ourselves. You don’t break a 13 year playoff drought by tweaking the least important sports on a roster you tweak the least important sports on the roster when that’s all you can find a way to do. We didn’t maximize our spending: again, why do we think we can win WITHOUT prioritizing it? How much hubris can one team have? But, it’s only 2 game. While the warning signs are flaring, perhaps this is a misreading creeping in and this team really will round into form in a timely manner. It’ll still a tiny sample size, as I mentioned yesterday

If you are counting on a coach to do this you’ve already lost. This isn’t a viable avenue for success. “It’s going to take the coach a long time to single handedly revamp the output of our entire roster by standing behind the bench and yelling at them.” isn’t an actual strategy and isn’t rooted in reality. If a coach has to do that much heavy lifting, the issue is the roster. You are cheaping out on the sum total of 20 sports and trying to buoy the whole purely through the coaching position. It doesn’t work with a star player, never mind a guy who doesn’t play. And “it’ll take time” (during year 5) need not apply unless the sentence is “it’ll take time for this roster to mould into shape for a playoff berth THIS season.” There’s no more runway

lol that’s Bull

Guess I’m not really waiting a few games before commentating..whatever. I’ll keep it brief i was impressed by JJ’s pass on the goal You know who looked good? One Bowen Byram. My worries about what the ETA is for his return to form being proven needless would be a massively positive development. I actually thought UPL was swimming around a lot, he’ll improve. The biggest thing possible for line 2 will be Tage performing as a superstar. Would probably buoy both lines, in effect. Truth is, most times, you need a star on offence to keep the whole machine turning. We didn’t have depth when we had the star in Jack. I think we have the depth now. But no performing star. Not yet. When Tage *was* a star 2 years ago we should by rights have made it if not for key errors from the GM, especially in goal. Can Thompson be that star again, and for a good while? We’ll see soon to be honest. The runway of his prime isn’t on its early days.

Right but I just mean if you look it up, October 4 is said to be the first official day of regular season

If I was a fan of the panthers, I wouldn’t be concerned after a loss. I don’t think you really understood my post playing competitive sports, which I’ve done all my life, has literally nothing to do with my post or analysis of the situation at hand

I mean, everyone should be “concerned”. It’s not like the default is that we are good until proven otherwise, it’s really the opposite. If we are thinking playoffs are even a 50/50 consideration, any loss is “concerning”. What we don’t possess is knowledge that the team will in fact be bad this year. There’s concern for what we will be, as it’s so up in the air, but when you’ve only played one game it’s definitely still exactly that: up in the air. Far too much emphasis is being placed on one game, on that I agree and spoke to earlier. It may be true the team will take time to learn Ruff’s system or whatever, but it’s a self imposed staffing decision, and unfortunately for us doesn’t mitigate the necessary results in any way. These standings points aren’t less important because we are gelling or something, and obviously no excuse has been provided The online world will dollars to donuts swing entirely the other way if we win tomorrow. “We back” will be the refrain. Everyone knows the script. Send me a pm if so inclined. You have my twitter, too.

Well, it has officially started, but I take your meaning

He’s stood out the most today of the 3 easily

Wasn’t gonna post during game but here’s 1: It’s one game not meant to belittle any reaction. They are justified and deserved. The team may suck this year and have for far too long but you can’t glean much from 1 game. You just can’t. We walloped NJ in game two with Marcus Johansson as our 2C and everything seemed great, a few seasons ago It’s too soon to say on THIS year

You won’t know if there’s a goal at all never mind who scored it

BENSON! there, I beat Brawndo

Just straight up on sportsnet in Canada lol

This is incredible.

So it’s not about IF the Sabres make it, it’s a question of by how much