Doohicksie

You mean my Derek Roy avatar or my traditional chicken head?

Looked like a sure goal to us. Until it wasn't.

They never got to shutdown mode tonight since the game was tied. They didn't have a lead to protect (well, a 1-goal lead for about 4 minutes in the third, but too early to close up).

One thing that stuck out to me tonight: The Sabres have some BIG players now. Tage, Tuch, Muel, Power, are all monsters, and Cozens and Dahlin play bigger than they are. I watched Tage a lot, considering his lack of goals lately, and he works hard, very hard. That line gets hemmed in their own zone now and again but when they break out they quickly flip the ice and you can see the panic skating from the other team. His goals have dropped off but he's still distributing the puck like a baller.

I've noticed this: Olofsson is outstanding getting his one-timer off while on the rush. He had one tonight (a thing of beauty) and and one against Anaheim (off the Lyubushkin feed). A lot of players can crank a one-time when they're set up for it; he skates hard to his spot, sets up while still skating and gets it off before the goalie can even react to his presence.

...but they didn't cost us anything either. I think it's good to give them ice time; they need it to improve.

Mitts is an ink blot test: You see what you want to see. I see a guy who was jerked around and put in too many positions to fail who's been reinventing is game and is finally making progress. He's a good, but somewhat flawed, player who is clawing out a role on this team. He may figure it out or he may be the next Hinostroza who gets moved/waived to make room for the next prospect.

Only if you wear a mask. Not really what I predicted but It was fantastic to see them win in person!

Power!

Goalofsson!

Dahlin.. nice shot

So does Punch.

So @Spoonman was a late scratch, @Redneck has been called up from the WCFHL McKinney Mugwumps

7 points behind Washington with 4 games in hand. If all teams win their games in hand, Buffalo is still behind Pittsburgh but passes Washington, Florida and NYI. With their games in hand they're likely to pass FLA and NYI and are basically neck-and-neck with the Caps. And the Sabres are marginally better over the last 10 games compared to Pitt and Wash.

One aspect of the Sabres that's been frustrating has been their inability to hold 2nd and 3rd period leads. They usually end up winning the game but not always. Against Anaheim Saturday they had a 2 goal lead and lost it, then went ahead again 3-2 before losing that lead and entered the 3rd tied at 3. In the end they won 6-3. One development that came out of that was that for most of the 3rd period, Donny Granato switch centers on the 1st and 4th lines, swapping Krebs for Tage. It gave the fourth line a huge physical presence and Tage responded well I thought, simplifying his game to extend offensive zone possession without trying to score every shift. For his part Krebs did well with wingers Tuch and Skinner. He added a defensive dimension with his 4th line mentality (which is good because as a unit the Tage line can get hemmed into their own zone at times), and it turned out Krebs even scored a goal. I don't think you break up the top line and Krebs is doing well on the 4th line, but late in the game swapping the two centers seems to create two highly skilled but defensively responsible lines. Is this Donny's solution to creating a Shutdown Mode?

Welcome to Texas! 😉

Well aren't you a little bucket of liquid sunshine this morning. 😊

Alright Sabres, LET'S GO!

That's not a solo.

You mean @Spoonman? Yes, I'm picking him up to go to the train station and we're sitting together.

Tage gets going again and we get goals from all 4 lines and the defense, all because *I* will be at the game. Go Sabres!

Ducks broadcaster about the Sabres: "They have enough talent in their lineup that they can outscore their mistakes." My comment (and probably already been said in this thread): Lyubushkin's best game as a Sabre.

So I watched sections of the Anaheim coverage. A big negative: When a team is on the power play they use that puck tracer in real time (most coverage just use that on a replay). The good: They had a lot of great things to say about Krebs and Cozens, saying that the standard coverage these days are to talk about Tage and Dahlin but that there are a lot of good players on the Sabres besides those two. They questioned several times whether the Sabres had a "shutdown mode" and it occurs to me that swapping Krebs for Thompson on their respective lines might be Donny Meatballs' attempt to produce a couple of "shutdown mode" lines as he did for most of the third. Krebs is still offensively talented and that line still skated hard; Krebs even scored a goal as "1C". Tage for his part tended to use his size on the forecheck and behind the net rather than dipsy-doodling to try to produce a goal. This could be a great development if the Sabres can develop a true "shutdown mode."

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