Pimlach

Benson is always in the play. Good shift.

Spirited Anthem.

Normally I am saying no to 11-7, but not for the 12 forwards we had available.

Good Evening Teammates, Punch checking in. Looking forward to something good to happen. Maybe tonight. You just never know. Need 2 points come hell or high water Go Sabres!!! Muscle Weight.

I'm watching. I love watching hockey. Sometimes I practice my guitar and run scales while watching. I have not lost my love of the game yet.

I wonder how many people said that about Bill Cowher. Took him 4 years to get to a Super Bowl and 10 more to get back and win it. Then there is Andy Reid. Six years to get there, fifteen more to get back and win. One difference is McD has Josh Allen. With that, coupled with todays continuous media, the pressure on McD is sky high.

Is your wife ok with this idea?

I am so glad they called them up together so it can be fair and exciting. The Rangers might be tougher to play against than NJ, so good luck boys.

Yes. He is really good (not perfect, no one is) at his job and I don't understand why people don't acknowledge it. Yes, you can name some draft picks that didn't make it, so can every team. We have very few roster holes. With all the injuries we still have the team playing competitive football with the exception that they cannot finish their games. For that, we have national consensus across the whole country that the coaching staff is not up to the task of taking the next steps.

I am not ready to give up on playoff this season (stubborn I know), but it wont matter, we aren't going to win on the road. Yes, next year is critical for a retooling the roster and we might miss the playoffs again. The following year we can dump Von Miller and Knox, and work some cap magic to re-emerge. If TP fires McD and also loses Beane then all bets are off. I have ZERO faith that he can get lucky again.

Excellent post. Spot on. Its amazing how many Sabres fans know this, and hockey fans around the league like yourself know this, and hockey Television crews all over the US and Canada know this - but our GM does not. Worse, the owner is ok with the it.

Jost and Krebs are about equal. At a minimum, I would look for a vet 4C (even if a rental), send Krebs to Rochester and let him work on his offensive game (if waiver exempt), keep Jost as the spare forward for when Tage gets back. I am not fine with Kulich and Rosen playing with the line combos we have right now. Send them back to Roch as soon as possible, I would love to be proven wrong, but from that limited showing they belong in Rochester.

Poor Rosen. At least Okposo has started to contribute, and Krebs didn't hurt us against the Devils. Rosen and VO on wings with Jost is not a good thing. None of them wanted the puck last game.

Excellent post. Fancy stats are useful but probably should not be taken as a single defining entity. The eye test tells us that Mitts and JJP have been the best forwards, that is backed up by data. Sometimes the supporting cast has a lot to do with bad or good fancy stats - doesn't make the the stats wrong but it can explain a lot - per your Eichel example. Look at the players that were decent before they came here, struggled here, and then went back to being solid players when they left. Someday we will get enough NHL talent, coupled with the right coaching, to turn this around. I still think we are close on the player side if we make the right additions.

There are no good combinations on the bottom 6. None. Rousek should have been called up as as a plug in for Girgs. Simple and straightforward. That is what he projects to anyways and he has showed us he is responsible defensively, which is what we needed to replace more than anything else. Kulich or Rosen could have had their shot under better circumstances. I don't know who makes these decisions but they are DUMB.

That was me. That 3rd line is making me crazy. On the positive side, Peyton Krebs was the only player to finish not negative against the Devils, he was even in +/- after 16:32 of ice time. I still think if we were run like an established and legit team he would be in Rochester, but hey, that's something for him to build on.

Those are just the OT games. The are many more L's that never got to OT where we took the lead late in the fourth quarter and lost on the last drive - such as the New England and Denver games just this year.

I like McDermott but the body of work speaks for itself. Good, but not great. It sure looks like he peaked as a HC in Buffalo.

Same with our Bills Backers table. The defense has closed out games very rarely. You just knew what was coming.

This would of course never happen. Until we are all but eliminated Meatballs stays and he gets to feel all the pain and suffering that we feel. When he gets whacked Appert gets the reigns to finish it out. Then in the off season the BN releases news that Adams signs Brind'Amour to coach the Sabres, only to recant the story the next day after it is leaked that Adams would not agree to fix the roster to his liking. By then Gallant will be gone, and they sign Appert from the bargain bin and sell it as keeping consistent with the master plan of building from within with people that want to be here. Appert will retain Matty and the boys .... { I wake up). Now my nightmare ends, or does it start all over?

Sarcasm intended no doubt? You need a sarcasm gif or I am going to start taking these posts as signs of compliance.

On game day I am usually optimistic. Not today. That Devils game, and the Bills failure to secure a critical win, have me down. I don't think they have much of a shot tonight but you never know what this team is going to do on any given night. Is Greenway back? That will help. Anyone know why they just didn't plug Rousek into Girgs spot? That is supposed to be his kind of role right? I don't want to see the line of Rosen-Jost-VO ever again. If I am a defensemen and playing behind that group I will shoot the puck straight at their heads the first time any of them fail to support. Other than that, good luck tonight. Especially to UPL, he will need it. But we have a better prospect pool, right?

We keep seeing stats that say our goaltending is not the biggest problem this year yet people keep blaming the goalies. The forwards are a completed mess. The lines keep shifting and there is no consistency in them from game to game. This was the year we "learn defense" in the Granato system. I don't see it. I see the forwards playing slow and thinking too much - that is not team defense. We have 4 forwards that are just not good enough to be on an NHL playoff team. At least three of them play every night. Last game we had too many AHL players on the roster at one time and NJ took advantage of them. The bottom 6 started bad and is worse due to injuries in the top 6. The AHL forward prospects are not ready. Management did not add NHL depth.