Jorcus

This is the problem when you do not have straight line skating speed.

I am not sure of the context of that Hamilton quote but I remember hearing him a number of times last summer that Dahlin should be the captain. A lot of that was Hamilton's view of Dahlin in practice. Either way he is the captain and despite a number of issues of the what he does inside the context of a game he has not done anything nearly so bad to get demoted. Why create a new problem you don't need to.

Grants promotion was after the victory of Vicksburg so the West was left to Sherman at a later point. Much of Grants reputation as a butcher seemed to come from the battle of Shiloh. His political opponents in the west would use that against him.

I just finished reading the Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. There was a method to the madness as well as political pressures to get something done or just give in and let the country be cut in 2 It was very close to that point. In some sense it was a war of attrition as well as a war of perception. According to the Grant the Southern press kept feeding the idea that they were winning everything until Sherman was turned lose and brought the war to Atlanta and the sea. It was at that point the the Southern population could not ignore reality.

Maybe part of it is UPL but the style of play in front of him I think is a bigger issue. When did UPL get good last year? Ironically it was a January 9th 5-2 loss to the Kracken with Levi in the net that ended up sending him to the Amerks. After that the Sabres became one of the better defensive teams in the NHL. UPL only gave up 4 goals 3 times in 23 games. All the rest were 3 or less in that stretch. The wheels came off against Edmonton where the Sabres gave up 8 to them on the road. UPL was pretty played out by then. The big difference was the style of defense. The Sabres started to play a zone keeping almost all shots to the outside. They would give up the one shot and then control the rebound and handle the puck behind the net if needed to maintain control out of the zone. UPL is good at playing with in that structure. Where he comes apart is if there are too many repeat chances in front of him. He is too big to be a scramble goalie. The third period against the Senators resembled the good defensive structure of last year. A lot of that style has to come from the forwards. If they are not all back in the zone working as a unit that goes away. It would have all worked if the power play could have supported the lack of 5 on 5 production during that stretch but it did not. Granato got fired and instead of building on that foundation it got reworked to the detriment of this team. I think the danger of playing a fast game is that when you get tired, (we only had 3 lines yesterday) the intended result goes away. The Sabres with few exceptions got very slow and could not play in a form to chew clock and counter attack. Add the lack of shot blocking and you get what you ended up with, another blown lead with a broken defense.

Yes

I don't think Dahlin played well at all. Early in the first period did he really have to flip the puck out of the zone? Maybe, he did but he does it way to often and it just kills any chance of clean breakouts. His zone entries on the power play are a mystery to me. Power and Byram are way better at getting the puck in the zone on the PP. We don't see Byram enough on the PP but he made great move to gain zone entry. Then there was the tripping call after the back to back scores in the third which lead to the fifth goal. When he get frustrated he some how finds a way to hurt this team.

Cozens had a terrible game, The whole first line did but the first goal was all on Gilbert. They went 2 on 1 to get control of the puck and when Gilbert got it he had an easy behind the net outlet to Byram but he backhanded it up the ice to no one really. Quinn was up that way but behind the opponent. Just not a good play on his part. The second line were the only decent players on the ice. I like the speed of that line with McCloud and Peterka but McClouds passing skills are not the best. It does not matter though Lindy will change the lines again by next game.

I have a 1990 American Fender Telecaster plus with the lace sensor pick ups. My wife had bought me a fender acoustic for Christmas but let me trade it in. Went to Airport Music and they had this barely used telecaster for about the same price so I came home with that. It is very different than most telecasters in that it's heavy and does not get that country twang without a lot of help. It does have a versatility and is easy to play. It's popular mostly because Jonney Greenwood from Radiohead often used one and they only made them for 4 or 5 years. I don't play it often. I really need a better amp to play it though. I have acoustics that I play more often. The most valuable guitar I ever played was a very early Stratocaster. A guy I worked with got it from his fathers closet and it pretty much sat in his closet. I swear the serial number on it was in the teens which did not make any sense in the Fender numbering plan but it was authentic. He called the shop where his father bought it and they remembered his father and that it was the first one that they had sold. Being the early 80's guitars were just starting to command big collectable prices. I think the Japanese were getting really big in to collecting then and started to blow up the market. He took it to the House of Guitars who were just dumbfounded. At first they thought it might be a fake I think because of the odd serial number. They were like this can't be but then decided to offer him a fairly large sum for it and to put it up in the big glass case above the door. He passed, He just wanted to get an insurance value. Neither of us could play very well and it was not an easy guitar to play for an electric. You needed strong fingers for the heavy strings. It was probably worth 10,000 then. If he still has it who knows. Well north of 100K because of the shape it was in. Truly a classic.

I did not see it that way. Benson was driving to the back door which is good. Chabot the defender did not engage Benson but tried to intercept the pass and whiffed on the attempt. McLeods pass was pass was probably not getting though to Benson given Chabots position by the time Benson got there but good things happen sometimes.

The Sabres did play a good game. Except the bad breakdown the third period with the lead was much better. They just can not seem to go into turtle shell mode and get a stop when they are tired. The best thing about the last few games is the power play coming around. The first unit has some chemistry. Keep it going and things will get better.

If you need a center I would bring up Kozak If you want a winger I would bring up Rousek. I think Rousek would have to clear waivers so I don't think you would want to call him up to sit on the bench for 2 games. Same with Murray.

The takeaway numbers could be better but the Giveaway numbers are not bad when compared to the other good full time defenders in the league.

On Benson, You have to remember that he got on the roster because there was no better option at the time to replace the injured Jack Quinn. Adams failures are long but not addressing that issue last year hurt the team and Benson was not productive enough to play a top 6 roll on any team even this one. He still is not productive enough for that roll. For all the good things he does, and there are many he is very limited in his up and down the ice speed and has a very slow shot. He can be a useful player in the right situation but when talking about youth vs vets the 2nd line wing has been the festering open sore on this team that never gets healed. I have my doubts about Bensons celling being very high. Maybe a couple of years of physical maturation can improve his needed skills but that is a big unknown. A year in Junior would at least have let the strength level come up. He never should have been here last year and to be honest I am not sure even this year because we needed something different. I hope he works out, I am sure he will in the right situation with the right team structure but a wide open end to end team is not this guys game.

A lot of whether a player thrives or dies comes back to systems and coaching vs what that player is good at doing. If used correctly, Why is Jokiharju is in purgatory? I have no idea other than he is not a Ruff guy or can't play the Ruff system. What is the Ruff system anyway? He acts like he wants a transition system but gets upset when it leads to increased turnovers and lack of possession. I really don't think a lot of this team knows what Ruff wants them to do. Maybe they are just not able to do what he wants them to do. I agree that for the most part it is not the players.

I think there are a lot of competent hockey people who would look at this situation and take this one. The assets alone are enticing, you can't do much worse than the guy you are replacing, and how often do GM jobs come up? As far as Pegula being invisible, It's true but it's not like he is super visible for the team that is going well. I don't care if I ever hear from Pegula, I just need him to make the change we all need to be made.

Just to add on he is third in the AHL overall plus minus. Now plus 40 in 97 games. I have said this before plus/minus in the AHL is a good indicator of who is ready to come to the NHL. I don't see the need to bring him up this season unless it is in spot duty. At the very least he should be on the Amerks at the trade deadline so he can be in the playoffs. Now if the Sabres could get a trade for Yan Kuznetsov from Calgary and throw those 2 giant Russians on a shut down pair our end of game worries would be over.

I don't think the choice has to be made now unless there is a compelling deal on the table. The Sabres can cut a 1 year deal with Byram even if it goes to arbitration. Not ideal but it would buy time to sort things out for the long term. It's interesting that the goals and assist are identical. Doing an NHL edge side by side shows Byram to be equal or better in all categories. I prefer Byram, he is faster and better than both Dahlin and Power at passing. He also has a hard shot. Not as physical as Dahlin on the back end. He is better than Dahlin at breaking up 2 on 1's. The choice is Byram if a choice has to be made.

All these guys are barely AHL material.

I checked again it was not icing it was a puck in the benches that stopped play so we could have changed and not rested.

I have to amend my previous post. I think it was after an icing so we could not replace players but still. I think the time out hurt more than it helped.

Talk about coaching. Was the timeout with 20 seconds to go a good move? Helping the Aves best players time to rest and set up a play? We would have been better off replacing our players with a fresh group and tell them to attack the Ave's and with 20 seconds left if you have to tackle a guy or smash him to the ice go do it. By the time they would sort out the penalty there would be less then 10 seconds left in the the worst case scenario. What a stupid end to the game. Bad coaching for sure and that was Lindy's fault.

This years record 14-20-4 Last years record 15-19-4 Power play still blows.

Now that they are healthy and have better goaltending the Aves are probably the best team in the West. Our speed is useless against them as they have more than we do. Unless we play super solid D and stay out of the box there is little hope of a win. Pray for good bounces.

I am not sure how much speed he has anymore. When looking at the NHL Edge stats I don't care if your the fastest skater, but I do care about how often you skate fast. His metrics have gone down post injury. His 18-20, and 20-22 MPH speed bursts are about average. He is not all that nimble either like Benson or the way Jeff Skinner was. What he seems to lack is any form of aggressiveness in his game. I really don't see him selling out to make a play very often.