Doohicksie

Wow, those newbs must be bad if @Buffalonill is the voice of reason. 😉 Kind of like Godwin's Law... let's call it Thorny's Law.

Some guy named Burl just told me that this year you should have a Holly, Jolly Christmas. By golly.

Are you sure Cozens is done developing??? Also: Cozens is on a pace for 29 goals/87 points. Yeah Tage scored 38 goals last year but he only had 68 points. Tage was also a -17 last year while Cozens projects out to a +6. A case could be made that Cozens actually deserves more than Tage based on last year of play before deal is negotiated. Cozens at 21 has more upside. And if the Kid line continues to grow and develop they could easily be the #1 line in the next year or so.

For those of you discussion goaltending and Jack Eichel and the like, you should be talking about if you post in this thread.

The Sabres will render the Avs toothless!

This time we got 'em. All four lines will be clicking and even Bryson will look good. Sabres: 6, Avs: 2 LET'S GO BUFFALO!

And to all indications, Tage is very happy with his long term contract. He's on contract to earn more than he can ever really spend. People who make more than that are just d*** waving.

But that Tage Thompson.... he's pretty good, innit?

At this point in the season the Sabres are done. The odds are against them and to overcome such odds just doesn't happen in sports. They should just give up and start polishing their golf clubs because long odds like the Sabres face can't be overcome in sports.

Haven't we already hashed and rehashed the Ullmark situation? Is this thread even REMOTELY about goaltending? Anyway, I just popped in to say that while Tage may not have the best one-timer in the league, I think it's safe to say he has the most intimidating one. When he connects like he did on his second goal last night it's just a sight to behold: Fast release, heavy shot, 100 mph. If I'm a goalie I'm not going out of my way to stop that.

So that puts Bryson at -5 for the season otherwise, which means he's *still* the worst Sabres defenseman for +/- ...although Pilut is right there at a -4 in 14 games (so if you take the 8 gamer out, Bryson is -5 over 18 games... so they're basically the same at ~ -.28 per game.

I'm curious if you (or anyone else) looked at the period that the D was depleted to see how much of that -15 came during that period. He was, after all, fighting above his weight class. If you give Comrie a pass for those games you might have to give Bryson similar consideration. Even with that historical information though I thought he was our worst defender last night. In a game where the Sabres didn't allow a goal, he was the only Dman that did not have a positive +/- rating. Interestingly, the +/- leader of the D corps was Clague at +2

I was looking at it more from the standpoint of how L.A. plays: Pepper the goalie with long, harmless shots and hope for juicy rebounds. The Sabres used to play that style. It's good for generating lots of shots but not so great for generating goals.

If Tage sets the tone: Make good money but don't be excessive about it, maybe several of the other players will follow suit. One thing to consider is the Sabres offered Tage and Muel long term contracts before they were proven quantities so the Sabres assumed considerable risk to do that. There's something to be said for that I think.

Nat King Cole felt that smoking improved the timbre of his voice and smoked because of that. He died of lung cancer at 45.

My concern would be that Dylan's agent would say that they want a bridge deal then, and at then end when he's a UFA he will go elsewhere. I would hope Dylan would want to be part of what is building in Buffalo, but agents are greedy.

There was a shift late in the third against L.A. where Okie/Jost/Gus didn't *do* anything in the offensive zone... other than totally disrupt the Kings' attempts to clear the puck and get it up ice. You could tell they weren't really trying to score but they totally stymied the Kings from actually doing anything themselves. It was a thing of beauty.

Cozens is a good pivot and provides stability and backbone for the line. Peterka is speedy (both ways) and a good finisher. Quinn is just the complete package. Is there anything he doesn't do well? And the extra factor of them all seeming to know where they are puts them over the top as an effective line. On JJ's goal yesterday everyone oohs and ahs at Quinn's pass but Peterka's pass was just as good, perhaps better considering he had to get it through the defenseman. And even before that, the break was made by some tough board work by Quinn and Cozens and a quick pass up ice from Cozens. Cozens was caught up behind the play but Clague had joined the rush to further confuse the defense. If the vision those three have could be transferred even a little bit to Casey, with his tool set, he'd be so much better than he is. Instead he skates into a dead-end and then looks for an outlet but by then he's under too much pressure to make a play. If he were a quarterback he'd be admired for his passing but would have terrible pocket awareness and would take too many sacks. From that standpoint, I think spending a couple of games in the press box with a coach might do him a world of good.

To be honest I thought the vast majority of Andy's saves fell into the "routine" category. There was that one on the one-timer to his left (I think it was the save of the game), but mostly L.A.'s shots were from the periphery and even though the Kings crashed the crease they just couldn't finish... that was really the story of the game: A lot of effort and hard work from the Kings but no finish.

Jeff typically turns that around on them and draws penalties when they're trying to goad him. This incident was different; it wasn't about Jeff (he takes a lot of abuse and uses it to his advantage actually). It was about protecting the goalie.

Nothing wrong with the other team thinking you're a bit unhinged.

You know who plays okay with the bottom D? The Cozens line. Maybe because they can generate O without much help from the D.... just dump the puck up ice and let them take over, none of this driving offense from the blue line crap. And defensively the Cozens line is very good about backchecking so they can help make up for deficiencies of a bottom pairing. Quinn in particular is great on the back check; almost like he's greedy and wants to get back on offense as quickly as possible.

My family isn't that dysfunctional but the song does strike a chord with respect to holiday gatherings. Good gravy... that song is almost 30 years old!

Did he? I've forgotten a lot of that he said-she said.