GAME DISCUSSION THREAD

[TheMatrix31]

 

That's good enough for you? It's not for me. The Sabres can definantly upgrade the goalie position and they should take a long hard look at doing so.

 

So who ya gonna get?

[Kristian]

Hasek never had the quality players surrounding him that Miller does. Go check out Haseks playoff numbers for the years he carried Buffalo and tell me he wasn't a stud.

 

Miller was good for 2 games and average to bad for 5 others. Tell me again how that inconsistanty is good enough, he got outplayed by guys making $5 million less than him.

 

That's good enough for you? It's not for me. The Sabres can definantly upgrade the goalie position and they should take a long hard look at doing so.

 

Boucher outplayed him, Bobrovsky and Leighton were equally worthless.

 

While the Flyers were good, in 4 games out of 7, Miller had a below 0.900 SV%.

 

Anyone will tell you that won't win you many hockey games, especially in the playoffs.

 

In the three games in which he stopped at least 9 out of 10 shots, the Sabres won, no getting around that.

 

Worth 6 mill? I don't think so.

[deluca67]

Did anyone notice how fast the Flyers left the ice after the handshake? It seems every team nowadays salutes their home fans by raising their sticks for a few minutes before leaving the ice. I just watched the Canucks do it after they knocked out Chicago in OT. I guess Flyers players hate Philly fans just like everyone else on the planet. I also didn't see that POS Carsmello come out for the handshake like Miller and Gerbe did. Such class those players have.

 

I also have to laugh every time someone says Miller is not a champion and can't get this team to the Cup. Well Hasek wasn't a champion before he went to Detroit either then by this logic. You put Miller on Philly and they win the Cup in 16 games. Miller is the ONLY reason this series went to 7 games. Having two shutouts against a team like Philly in a 7 game series is pretty effing good in today's NHL. Miller will win a cup whether it's in Buffalo or somewhere else. And if he is somewhere else, I hope Enroth is still here. He looks like he's gonna have a long and successful career in the bigs.

The 6 or 7 gift goals the Sabres received are the only reason this series went seven.

 

You are correct, put Miller on the Flyers and they do probably win the Cup. You can say the same for the Caps as well. The problem is there is a Salary Cap and teams can't load up like that. That is where the entire discussion of moving Miller is spawned from. Do you tie up $6 mil in a goaltender or do you spend it elsewhere. The Flyers decided to spend it elsewhere and it paid off in this series. Despite the gift goals they gave up they had enough talent up front to beat the superior goaltender.

 

Also,

 

Let's not compare Miller to Hasek. It is unfair to Miller. Miller is nowhere near the level of goalie Hasek was. Hasek was at one point the best player in all of hockey.

[deluca67]

Boucher outplayed him, Bobrovsky and Leighton were equally worthless.

 

While the Flyers were good, in 4 games out of 7, Miller had a below 0.900 SV%.

 

Anyone will tell you that won't win you many hockey games, especially in the playoffs.

 

In the three games in which he stopped at least 9 out of 10 shots, the Sabres won, no getting around that.

 

Worth 6 mill? I don't think so.

4 wins - 1 loss 2.10 gga and a .934 save percentage. Not bad for $925,000.

[SwampD]

The 6 or 7 gift goals the Sabres received are the only reason this series went seven.

 

You are correct, put Miller on the Flyers and they do probably win the Cup. You can say the same for the Caps as well. The problem is there is a Salary Cap and teams can't load up like that. That is where the entire discussion of moving Miller is spawned from. Do you tie up $6 mil in a goaltender or do you spend it elsewhere. The Flyers decided to spend it elsewhere and it paid off in this series. Despite the gift goals they gave up they had enough talent up front to beat the superior goaltender.

 

Also,

 

Let's not compare Miller to Hasek. It is unfair to Miller. Miller is nowhere near the level of goalie Hasek was. Hasek was at one point the best player in all of hockey.

I really don't see it paying off for them in later series, though.

 

On an unrelated matter, Carcillo trying to make Miller flinch right after Miller hit him behind the net,.. that may have been the gheyest thing I've ever seen on the ice,.. ever.

[Weave]

Who are his bosses?

 

 

Regier will not change. He believes in puck moving defensemen first....if they can play the body as well, terrific. Miller is your guy. You still have $27 million tied up in Vanek, Pominville, Roy, Boyes, Hecht, Gaustad.....and Pominville and Roy are coming off serious leg injuries. Again....who is the leader? Gaustad on a good day? Montador was your most consistant dman for the first 60 games of the year and fell apart late. Leopold is Leopold. Sekera was exposed as the defensive liability he is when physical play is involved. Butler improved but would have been given away the first half of the year. Myers MAY turn into a top 10 defenseman in the league, but he needs someone to show him how to do things right. Grier is retiring, and Niedermayer will probably try and suck another million down and float for 7 months. Kaleta has become totally unreliable and can't stand up to a physical game without breaking down. Stafford is closing in on 30 and hasn't figured it out when it matters. McCormick is fine, but he's like mudflaps on a Prius. Connolly may have saved us with that concussion the other day. I swear Darcy had the 2 year $5.9 million deal ready to go.

 

Here are the pluses:

 

Weber, Gerbe, Ennis, Enroth, Gragnani (maybe)

 

Miller, Vanek, and Roy coming off injury is a push

 

I can take or leave Mancari and Butler......but after that, there is no value left on the team.

 

These guys put in a decent effort the last 30 games, but as we see....that wasn't enough to win 1 series, let alone 4. I just don't see the turnover coming, or the right type of players coming in, fast enough to make this a real contender.

 

I really am not excited about this offseason given what I have seen from Pegula. I hope it works out in the end, but I can see the excuse train getting rolled out again, a marginal defenseman coming in to replace Montador, and Darcy looking from within for "toughness" from his forwards and overpaying a token 2 way center in FA in the Hecht/Pominville/Boyes mold.

 

I hope everyone has a good offseason and thanks for being good sports. October is a long way away, not just for hockey. Everyone be safe, and no matter what gets thrown at you......remember what's really important and keep your cool.

 

You put it out there with more cyncism than I probably would have but I can't really argue with any of the main points or the general tone.

 

Beside Myers, Miller, and Vanek, who on this team even makes the Philly squad? We really are a team deficient in talent.

[Claude_Verret]

 

Philly is indeed loaded and a better team than the Sabres on both offense and defense. The Sabres needed to play their best to win. I thought they shrank from the moment tonight, just like most of the Boston series last spring (but not like most of this series vs Philly). From the opening puck drop, all the passes were off. They were tight, squeezing the stick, etc.

 

It was asking a lot, but still -- they were capable of a much, much better performance than the one we got. Gaustad, who I've been praising highly this series, played with his regular linemates and had a lousy game. Ennis and Stafford played with an NHL center who's been playing pretty well lately in Niedermayer and were terrible. Vanek played with the injured guys and was invisible.

 

I thought they missed Kaleta tonight more than they missed Pommer or TC (although they definitely missed those 2 as well). There was no fire from anyone.

 

 

My thoughts exactly. Passengers everywhere on the Sabres last night.

[Weave]

I really don't see it paying off for them in later series, though.

 

On an unrelated matter, Carcillo trying to make Miller flinch right after Miller hit him behind the net,.. that may have been the gheyest thing I've ever seen on the ice,.. ever.

 

Carcillo was among 4 or 5 players that did their damndest to get the Sabres off their games. And he was effective. He drew several retaliatory penalties and had Miller and Weber looking for him in scrums. He is a classic "whatever it takes" kind of guy. Noone on our squad was as effective at getting the opponent thinking about them. We could use a Carcillo-type.

[SwampD]

Carcillo was among 4 or 5 players that did their damndest to get the Sabres off their games. And he was effective. He drew several retaliatory penalties and had Miller and Weber looking for him in scrums. He is a classic "whatever it takes" kind of guy. Noone on our squad was as effective at getting the opponent thinking about them. We could use a Carcillo-type.

I agree with all of that. He is what we want Kaleta to be, but it still does change my point. Three dudes having a circle jerk at center ice would have been less ghey than his little mock charge at Miller.

[deluca67]

I really don't see it paying off for them in later series, though.

 

On an unrelated matter, Carcillo trying to make Miller flinch right after Miller hit him behind the net,.. that may have been the gheyest thing I've ever seen on the ice,.. ever.

It will depend on their health. If Pronger gets healthier and Carter can return I wouldn't be surprised to the Flyers in the finals again.

[deluca67]

You put it out there with more cyncism than I probably would have but I can't really argue with any of the main points or the general tone.

 

Beside Myers, Miller, and Vanek, who on this team even makes the Philly squad? We really are a team deficient in talent.

I would say deficient of top tier talent. They have some talent on the blueline and players like Ennis and Gerbe are nice third line players. It will be interesting to see where the Sabres go with Stafford. If they treat him like a "top six" forward and waste valuable cap dollars on him it will be greatly disappointing and a sign that despite Pegula not much is really changing.

[Weave]

I would say deficient of top tier talent. They have some talent on the blueline and players like Ennis and Gerbe are nice third line players. It will be interesting to see where the Sabres go with Stafford. If they treat him like a "top six" forward and waste valuable cap dollars on him it will be greatly disappointing and a sign that despite Pegula not much is really changing.

 

 

OK, deficient in top tier talent. I'm good with that change.

 

For the last 4 years alot of us have been saying that this team has #2 forwards playing as #1 forwards and #3 forwards playing as #2 forwards. The Flyers showed me all series long that this is still the case. If we get some top line and top D - pairing talent we can shift all the others back a line and be competitive when it counts. The problem is prying top tier talent away from another team (and fitting it under our cap as well). The FA market will have a lot of bidders for very limited bodies.

[Sabre Dance]

 

Also,

 

Let's not compare Miller to Hasek. It is unfair to Miller. Miller is nowhere near the level of goalie Hasek was. Hasek was at one point the best player in all of hockey.

 

If you look at the number of wins as a Sabre, Miller is right up there with Hasek. Miller's other stats might not be up to Hasek standards, but the team in front of Hasek was probably better.

[DumbPuck]

OK, deficient in top tier talent. I'm good with that change.

 

For the last 4 years alot of us have been saying that this team has #2 forwards playing as #1 forwards and #3 forwards playing as #2 forwards. The Flyers showed me all series long that this is still the case. If we get some top line and top D - pairing talent we can shift all the others back a line and be competitive when it counts. The problem is prying top tier talent away from another team (and fitting it under our cap as well). The FA market will have a lot of bidders for very limited bodies.

 

Weave, do you see any single person in our current roster who would be considered somebody to start on a "real" top tier first line? I think Ennis is the only person with the skill and capability to be a part of a real-top tier line. When I think top-tier line I think St. Louis, Stamkos, Lacavallier top-tier. I could see Ennis on a line like this ... but nobody else from our current roster.

[Sabre Dance]

Carcillo was among 4 or 5 players that did their damndest to get the Sabres off their games. And he was effective. He drew several retaliatory penalties and had Miller and Weber looking for him in scrums. He is a classic "whatever it takes" kind of guy. Noone on our squad was as effective at getting the opponent thinking about them. We could use a Carcillo-type.

 

I thought that was Kaleta's job. I guess it helps that Carcillo isn't injured every other month...

[Weave]

I thought that was Kaleta's job. I guess it helps that Carcillo isn't injured every other month...

 

Even early in the series when Kaleta was healthy he wasn't as effective as Carcillo. You didn't see Kaleta in Boucher's or Bobrovsky's face and drawing penalties for it. You just didn't see any of Philly's stars reacting to Kaleta. The only guy on the team that really got under anyone's skin in a meaningful way was Gerbe. Philly had Briere, Carcillo, Hartnell, and Richards all getting reactions and drawing penalties. Heck, Carter got hurt trying to take out our star defenseman.

 

And we had Gerbe.

[nfreeman]

Again, it completely comes down to who was playing with who. Vanek's team this series could barely get the puck out of their own end. Briere was playing on a team with four players who had more than 60 points this season. The Sabres had ONE player with more than 60 points -- Thomas Vanek.

 

Briere's goals this series mostly came from rebounds after the Flyers had been cycling the puck and controlling the play in Buffalo's zone. There weren't many times this series where the Sabres were dominating the Flyers in their own end. (Did they ever?) Had Vanek been on the ice for the Flyers there instead of Briere, I'm pretty sure he would have been able score there as well. A significant number of his 200+ career goals were scored in exactly this way.

 

So if you switch Briere for Vanek, Vanek would rack up more points from playing with better teammates against a weaker, less experienced team. This seems like an incredibly simple concept.

 

Big swing and a miss on your "hat tricks against Tampa Bay" line. We went over how most players get their points against weaker teams on this board weeks ago. That's a poor argument.

 

We have a huge sample size comparing Vanek over his first 6 seasons to Briere over his first 12 (!), and Vanek comes out better in points/game and +/-. But for some reason you've decided to throw out ALL of that data so that you could compare each player in THIS series, while simultaneously discounting the fact that they were playing with different teammates and against different teams. That's why your argument sucks and your anti-Vanek posts remain incredibly tedious and boring.

Correct. But the point of the discussion is which player delivers when it matters, ie in the PLAYOFFS. I didn't "throw out all that data" and just focus on this series. I focused on data that was most relevant to the discussion. The numbers I provided were CAREER PLAYOFF stats -- not just for this series. Based on that data, Briere is the superior player when it matters, and it isn't close. Yes, Vanek's playoff numbers would probably be a bit better if he played with better players, but in order for him to approach Briere's productivity, Vanek would have to come close to a 100% improvement. That's pretty far-fetched.

 

My point is not to slam Vanek, although I think he's well overpaid and overrated by many on this board. He's a good player, although not elite -- I don't think he's a top 30 NHL player. It was simply to rebut your initial statement that Vanek is a better player than Briere, which I think is complete nonsense.

 

I ask again: if the Sabres had one playoff series to win their first cup, who would you rather have? I'll applaud your team spirit if your answer is Vanek, but I think just about every NHL GM would say Briere.

[Captainkirk001]

The only upside is not having to deal with a Caps series while living in SE VA. The bandwagon fans in these parts still think there's a halftime in hockey and that icing is something you do for a muscle strain.

 

Hilarious....I live in Northern VA, and those fans are what makes me despise the Caps...

[thesportsbuff]

If Pegula cares about more than just the bottom line Vanek should be bought out and Miller should be traded. Vanek is the most one dimensional player I've ever seen. Stand in front of the net and hope for a tip/rebound, or skate it in and do one of two things: fire a slapshot, or try the same deke and get stopped 99/100 times. Vanek had some big goals on the powerplay, which is good, but he'll never be a Danny Briere or Mike Richards who are dangerous from ALL OVER the ice at ALL times of the game, and not just standing an inch in front of the goalie on PP or scoring on breakaways.

 

As for Miller, he was the backbone of the team I agree. Can't criticize him for the series loss... even tho he did let in a few stinkers, but the way phillys goalies played, it doesn't even matter what ryan gave up-- we should have won. I won't even bother saying what I think about Miller because it doesn't matter at this point, he's obviously going to be back next year, but think about the return we could get for Miller and Max... oops I mean Ennis? Between that trade and free agency we could have our own Briere/Richards next season (lol doubtful).

 

anyway we have all off season to discuss this ###### now so it's been nice posting with you guys all year long... probably won't be as active as I have been but I'll be around.

[Wyldnwoody44]

Pommers, cut a tendon, out 4-6 months.

I was on rotation at ecmc Monday working in the ortho clinic .....pommers cut his peroneal longus which sucks but is much better than a brevis tear....he should be back by the season start....im still dissappointed but the boos has helped.....ill be here this summer to banter : )

[Figster]

If you look at the number of wins as a Sabre, Miller is right up there with Hasek. Miller's other stats might not be up to Hasek standards, but the team in front of Hasek was probably better.

 

 

Hasek did play with a better Sabre hockey team in my opinion, but I'm still not happy with Sabre Goaltending/Ryan Miller.

 

The Flyers beat us with sub par Goaltending...Sabres looked/played horrible last night...

[thesportsbuff]

Hasek did play with a better Sabre hockey team in my opinion, but I'm still not happy with Sabre Goaltending/Ryan Miller.

 

The Flyers beat us with sub par Goaltending...Sabres looked/played horrible last night...

 

No way did Hasek play with a better hockey team than the 05-06-07 Sabres, where Miller got the bulk of his career wins/playoff wins.

[Lanny]

If you look at the number of wins as a Sabre, Miller is right up there with Hasek. Miller's other stats might not be up to Hasek standards, but the team in front of Hasek was probably better.

The team was not better in front of Hasek, it's not fair to Miller to make the comparison. Hasek was an all time great, a Hall of Famer, Miller just isn't. Miller's good, I wish the Sabres were paying him less, but I feel he was the equalizer in this series and gave the Sabres an opportunity to be in it.

[Figster]

No way did Hasek play with a better hockey team than the 05-06-07 Sabres, where Miller got the bulk of his career wins/playoff wins.

 

 

I was referring to our current team, but yes, I get your point. Many of Millers wins did come with a better hockey team.

[thesportsbuff]

I was referring to our current team.

 

Oops, I meant to quote the guy that you had quoted. Sorry