Pimlach

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It’s truly is the Matt Ellis of power plays

Terrible power play. No excuses with Tage out. We have enough guns. Two minutes down. Did we get a SOG yet?

Benson caused the goal. It very cliche here to blame whatever defenseman is in the TV screen, the problem was the turnover on the breakout with numbers coming back against us.

Seeing Jost on the first line is infuriating me. Give Krebs that look or move Mitts up. WTF

Always a lot of College kids from New England.

Good evening Teammates, Punch checking in. A TNT game, with no Tage? What could go wrong? Listening to the pre-game show. Accolades for the Bruins organization. Not much to say about the Sabres. Huge game. The time is now. Home Ice. MUSCLE WEIGHT

Could be just because they have 7 and they did ok the last 2. There is nothing wrong with having 7 decent defensemen. Good teams have 7 and 8 and the bottom guys sit out. Although I would be happy to see him packaged for a defenseman in return, and one that can play top 4 minutes, and play with a physical stay at home style to compliment Power.

Or, he was carrying out his bosses wishes regarding Eichel , who didn't want to stay. The injury was a convenient way to part. Reinhart didn't want to stay either.

This thread says a lot about the state of Sabre Space today. We are tired of waiting for good hockey. @GASabresIUFAN is 100% correct to believe that Adams may not be that serious about improving the club - at least not improving it at a pace most of us would like to see and that the rest of the league typically works too. He could be backed up tonight when we watch Bruins vs Sabres on TNT. The TNT guys railed on the sabres last game. The national TV guys in the US and in Canada all rightfully question what is going on in Buffalo regarding this team. If the Sabres play another bad game, and especially of the crowd gets unhappy, there will be more comments. @PASabreFan is 100 % correct in stating this all depends on his boss. If Pegula is ok with falling short of a stated goal, then Adams did enough to keep going. Pegula is going to give Adams a lot of leeway because he is following plans and orders on the slow rebuild from within. No big signings except for players "that want to be here". It could take years to fill the roster with good players and of course, you risk ruining the core that you started with. @LGR4GM is 100% correct in stating we covered this a lot, in a lot of ways, in a lot of threads. @nucci might be correct by simply stating that maybe he is not that good? Adams has said several times that bigger deals have not come to fruition. We all know there are obstacles.

Where is he? Did he quit?

I remember when you called it.

Good point, and he did his homework and made a smart pick, and he seemed to know he had at the time. The luck part comes in by considering how few 18 year old's come right into the NHL, in addition to the fact that Benson slid to him and was graded much higher by several draft pundits.

Translates to: he met him a few times and liked him. I do think Michael can be a good coach in the NHL someday. Working for Peter Laviolette was a very good move for him.

Are they really worried? He has 1 year of experience as an assistant coach in the NHL. Two years as an assistant coach in the AHL. One year as a developmental coach for Washington. Prior to that, two years as a the Junior Sabres HC in the OJHL, followed by some GM/FO work. Seems more like they would be happy for him. If this is true then maybe Buffalo will be looking at him? It would be just like them to take Peca over Berube or Gallant. It fits the pattern.

Probably so, but not from me. I said Adams was not serious about winning in the off season and I am sticking to that. His inability to bring in goaltending and to improve the bottom 6 forwards has hurt this team. Adams is dam lucky. No one had any idea that Benson would beat out Savioe, Kulich, and Rosen, and be this good at 18.

Merry Christmas Sabre Spacers

But I wished you a Merry Christmas. And rest assured, I won’t ruin my top shelf Scotch or Bourbon with eggnog.

To me it was late, and it was high. You have watched enough hockey to know this was a big guy taking run at a rookie to intimidate him. That is exactly what this was. The purpose of a hockey check is to separate a player from the puck in effort to gain possession of it for your team- Johnson had already sent the puck up the boards. The hit did not in any way meet the stated purpose of a check by NHL rule because it came after the puck was sent up the boards. So it was a late, since Johnson clearly does not have the puck when the hit occurred, leading to another judgement call - how late is late? I was also high, another judgement call - how high is high? Looking at it at full speed, which the ref has to do - it was possibly late, possibly high, and was also very close to boarding and charging and roughing - all of it let go. All five possible outcomes that would give Buffalo a PP were let go. So the ref chose to not call it. I was OK with that, but not with any of the rest that followed. A referee CANNOT call Buffalo for the extra 2 and an extra 10 and a game, and then explain it as they were bothering him by mouthing off in the period prior. That is worse than a make up call, it was an "I'll show you" call? That is a problem that I am not fine with. He basically stated he had a bias. If you cannot understand this then maybe you just want to rail on the Sabres? Of course this has nothing to do with losing culture, the guy who "instigated" the fight is not a long time Sabre. He is a long time NHL vet, with no track record of instigating fights, that plays the game the way most other teams play it. I am watching a lot of hockey games and the officiating is wildly inconsistent. It was a problem in NY that night for sure. We didn't get a PP until the final 3 minutes and then it was negated quickly by a call on Buffalo. We outplayed them for long stretches and the Rangers never once held, hooked, tripped, or cross checked - that is amazing for them. I will close by saying that EJ's response is exactly what this team needs to keep doing. EJ knows how its done because he comes from a winning culture. I never want to see a Lucic-Miller incident get let go again. Oh, Merry Christmas too.

You’re talking about fighting. I’m talking about the missed call on the boarding, the abusive call on the Sabres for the extra 2 minutes, the ridiculous extra misconduct calls resulting in 37 minutes plus a game on the Sabres - all because the ref missed a dangerous and late hit on a vulnerable player. They now say they were upset because we were running our mouths in the first period. All this after the NHL said they were cracking down on boarding (missed Kane hit) when they gave Eric Robinson a game misconduct. Only to see the officiating miss yet another call a week later when a player got hurt on a boarding. After all that, you sarcastically asked me if they should beat up the refs. I gave you several options to address bad officiating. I will explain this once more. The missed call on the Ryan Johnson hit led to the fight. Fighting is all but eliminated in the NHL, but you still see it, mostly when a team feels the officials did not do their job. Then the team will respond. I support that. The alternative is Lucic-Miller. I won’t support or respect a team that does not support themselves.

How about the proper use of replays for starters? How about NOT penalizing a team for a challenge? How about calling penalties in a consistent manner (I already mentioned the boarding examples). Grade the referees and disciplinary action, including fines. They are a joke. Worst in all the major sports.

It also obvious that teams that are known to be physical get away with bad hits more than teams that are not. When a team retaliates they usually get the more severe penalty. The irony is retaliatory action often come from the ref not making a call. The officiating in the NHL closely resembles that of professional (fake) wrestling.

Don’t accept it then. Not sure what that does but if it makes you feel good then don’t watch it. I don’t accept inconsistent officiating which is quite often the cause for fighting. I also don’t accept biased officiating, which sounds like what happened in the Rangers game.

After just 1 game you are saying what many are thinking. Lets see what unfolds in the next few games. They played a decent game versus the NYR.