Robviously

pfft....not while Gerbe is on the roster. Fire in the belly, bro!

Yeah, that was cool. I'm honestly just happy McCormick is healthy enough to do that.

If we had a real captain, he'd be burying all those chances.

Horrible leadership by Pominville and Vanek scoring that goal. Real leaders would inspire their teammates to do it instead.

Yes, and your picks for better leaders were completely ridiculous: Gaustad, Myers (?????), Weber (-19 last year and a 5/6 defenseman at best), Foligno (22 NHL games), and Gerbe (least effective player on the team). We're really going to romanticize Paul Gaustad? Here's a quick recap of his career with the Sabres: Zero playoff goals. Zero memorable hits. Several embarrassing "don't hit me" fights. Most of this happened while he had an "A' on his sweater. Oh, and this year he has zero points in five games for Nashville. Maybe if he had zero points in five games for us, people (you) would remember that he was part of the problem here and definitely not the solution.

It's nice to see that the bad start is causing people to lose their minds and lash out at the few players who are doing everything they can to help us win and actually producing on the ice. Yes, down with Pominville and Vanek, they aren't producing enough "heart and soul" or "fire in the belly" to magically make our bad roster good. If finesse players can't be good captains, does that mean LaFontaine was a bad captain? Briere? Joe Sakic? Wayne Gretzky? These are bad leaders now? Finesse players can be fine leaders if you can count on them, and Pominville and Vanek are two of the only Sabres we've been able to count on for years. The fact that Pominville has missed nine games in the past 5 years (all due to one cheap shot that gave him a concussion) should be something we like. The amount of abuse Thomas Vanek gets by going to the front of the net should say something about his heart and toughness, but fans forget as soon as it's convenient. We're really going after our two best forwards? You guys understand that it's possible for great players/leaders to just be stuck on bad teams right? And that it happens in every sport? As for Ruff, if he really only wants players who won't question him on anything, he should be fired immediately. He should be fired anyway. His team constantly plays like they're afraid of making mistakes, which ironically results in them making more mistakes because they're so up in their head about everything. Tyler Myers is NOT as bad as he's playing right now, but he's completely mixed up and confused and unsure of everything when he's on the ice. That's not a leadership failure on the roster; it's just horrible coaching of a young player.

Great news! Jake McCabe hurt his ankle! (Is today over with yet?)

Another win for the Amerks: 5-3 over Syracuse. http://theahl.com/stats/game-summary.php?game_id=1010527 McNabb with two more assists, both on the power play. I'm hoping his game is coming around and he's a guy we can depend on next year. Gauthier-Leduc was a +2 and Pysyk was -1. Kevin Sundher scored his 4th of the year.

By this logic, Miller is a lousy goalie and Ruff is a terrible coach as neither has been able to lead us anywhere since Black Sunday. Other former Sabres who were lousy leaders: Pat LaFontaine and Mike Foligno. Sounds about right. Yeah, Gaustad was outstanding. And your logic is incredible. Vanek and Pominville scored their playoff goals against the Flyers in the wrong periods, so those don't count. (Vanek scored 5 goals in 7 games that series, and 2 goals in 3 games against the Bruins the year before. But, yeah, he sucks in the playoffs when it counts.) How many playoff goals did Gaustad score for the Sabres? None! EVER! He scored his first-ever playoff goal for Nashville last year, bring his career total for playoff goals to ONE in FORTY EIGHT GAMES. He's totally captain material though. "Hey, Marcus Foligno, you've played 22 NHL games in your life. You're the new leader." What could possibly go wrong? Mike Weber is a 5/6 defenseman who struggles to crack the lineup and was -19 for us last year. Obviously he's ready to lead us to the Cup. Myers is a total head case right now, so of course he's a good choice to get the "C" and turn this team around. And Gerbe might be the least effective player on the team right now so obviously he's captain material right now too. (If these choices were designed to make your Gaustad pick look less insane, they almost work. Almost.) They're no Paul Gaustad, that's for sure.

WTF? You want to punish the two players that have been carrying the team for years? How much more can they do? Also, presumably you're saying we should strip them of the C and A so that other players can be captain and alternate captain. So which other players should we reward? Or, to put it another way, who is showing better leadership right now? I also don't take the team's general suckiness as a reflection on Pominville's leadership, or Vanek's for that matter. They're clearly doing everything they can, but that doesn't mean they can magically make a bad team good.

I think this is dead-on accurate, BTW. Black Sunday set this organization back in every single way and many (most?) of the moves to fix it since then have either failed or made things worse.

Paid huge dividends today. Way to go, guys. :sick:

He's certainly the best power forward prospect of the last 20 years. I can't think of anyone with his level of hype/potential. That's really silly. There's no reason we couldn't keep both. I'd sign up for a Foligno clone right now. It's not like having one Foligno makes having another Foligno would be useless.

Sounds like I missed an awesome game today. Nice to see the Sabres squander all the good will they earned with the Boston win.

The Stafford comparison was in my head watching last night's game. From what I saw last night (which was only two periods), Kassian looks like a bigger and much more effective version of Stafford.

You think you're better than us just because you live in the future?

Exactly......d'oh! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FB30fRju08 I never understood the argument against it. What do we want in our fourth liners? Guys who can play 5 minutes a game and score goals? All I really want from my fourth liners are guys who can kill penalties, throw hits, and/or beat the crap out of people.

A sophomore slump in his second pro year shouldn't surprise anyone. The good news is that his stats this year (3+21=24 points in 40 games) are pretty close to his AHL stats last year (5+25=30 points in 45 games) and he was still good enough to be an AHL all-star.

The WGR app should work fine. As far as I know, the NHL doesn't have any rules against letting teams broadcast their radio feeds over the internet for free. (MLB and NFL both do. Not sure about the NBA.)

Oh, good catch. I noticed that when it happened but I figured it was just Thornton being an ass because he lost the fight and was embarrassed. In retrospect, knowing that he was knocked out, it makes a lot more sense.

I'm watching the Blackhawks-Canucks game right now to see the "new and improved" Kassian. 1-0 Canucks after the first. I have to admit, Kassian does look great and, no, it's not because of the Sedins. He did a great job screening Crawford on the Vancouver power play and later made an awesome pass to set up the Canucks' goal. He's been involved in a few other scoring chances as well. He isn't using his size to punish the Hawks but he's using it to protect the puck and by going to the net.

Yeah, emphasis on "one year." How did he do every other year besides that one? http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=24107 Not exactly adding a lot of value beyond enforcing. If John Scott never scores a single point as a Buffalo Sabre, but makes other teams think twice about starting trouble, that's good enough for me. Aaaaaaand it turns out you were being sarcastic. Well, the point stands, Shawn Thornton isn't much more than an enforcer.

What's your take on Pysyk? (I've only seen two games this year.)

Another way to look at it: Hodgson, Myers, and Ennis were all drafted in the first round in 2008. Of those three, who is the best right now? Pretty clearly Cody Hodgson (though Myers has had the better career). Of those three, who will be the best in 2014? 2015? Another fun thing to keep track of. (Although, only "fun" if none of them completely flame out.)

I understand why he's not a Sabre this year. I'm just wondering what the team thinks of him and how they view him panning out. There was definitely a time last season where he was talked about as our no.1 prospect (and it wasn't that crazy).