GDT GDT: Buffalo at Tampa Bay 7:30 pm ET, 1/12/2017

[North Buffalo]

what bs game tpegs needs to complain to Bettman officiating horrible.

[Sabel79]

That one hurt.  Could have had it. 

[Tondas]

Had we played physical from the beginning, we could have beaten these rat bast@rds.  Hopefully, they take out their frustrations agains the Hurricanes.

[Randall Flagg]

Okposo had Reinhart in the middle moving and gave it to stationary ROR, who had to give the puck away. 

play from this team tonight. Absolute trash. Totally outclassed and embarrassed. Played stupid and gooned around, stuck with their coach in the dead puck era. 

I've been a huge fan of Gionta this year and of his play outside of the first thirty games of last year and the tank year. But ROR needs to tear the C off his chest and Jack needs to go off on him, because that was beyond unacceptable. If Jack Eichel took that penalty I'd bench him the next game. Jack Eichel. That's how bad that was.

[Beer]

F! Kane was a liability all game, he got a goal but was a f'ing liability

[North Buffalo]

no wasnt Kane hit goaltender in chest swiping at the puck, make up call because Bishop complained.

[TheAud]

Reminded me of an NFL game, the officiating was so bad.

[North Buffalo]

what a turd of reffed game wow that sucked

[Claude Balls]

Had we played physical from the beginning, we could have beaten these rat bast@rds.  Hopefully, they take out their frustrations agains the Hurricanes.

Yup! These guys never get physical until they are behind. Play like the Bruins did the last time they won the cup.....physical and nasty from the opening face off.

[Thorner]

The worst was that ref skating up to Bishop that basically was saying "I got you" and started checking his face for blood. Wasn't even close to getting him in the face. Do your job.

Edited January 13, 2017 by Thorny

[Randall Flagg]

Why is Bishop allowed to mouth off to the refs when he takes a penalty, but Kane isn't?

[Tondas]

It's a racist world.

[Claude Balls]

Gio gets the xtra 2, but Pacquette gets nothing xtra for having his hands taped? Total !!! Not to mention Kane getting 74 minutes for hurting the refs feelings.

Edited January 13, 2017 by Claude Balls

[Randall Flagg]

Preemptive apology to the posters that hate the fire-the-coach talk all the time. That’s what this post is about, so stop here if you’re not interested.

 

It always gets said after they win that they were battling hard and doing the things they need to do. When they lose, it gets said that they didn’t compete, they didn’t do the things they were supposed to do. Dan says this, his assistants say it, the players say it, the fans say it.

 

But they played the same game against Tampa, against Philly, against Winnipeg, against the Rangers, Hawks, Hurricanes, and everyone else. The team has only truly not shown up to play once or twice this season, and this is the case for most hockey teams. Once in a while NHL teams are clearly mentally checked out, and the rest of the games are decided by a jumble of luck, strategy, and talent.

 

Our players were skating as hard as they could, and doing what they could to get Tampa off the puck. Their system is just woefully inefficient whenever the defense they face is up to the task of making a quick, smart play to get away from the forecheck. Which we’re finding is roughly 25 out of 41 games. This number changes a little bit each time I bring it up, but as t goes to infinity (or 82, rather) it will converge to some number below 50% of 82, well below what is needed to make the playoffs.

 

It is known that possession correlates more strongly with success in hockey than any other measureable stat, and coaches nowadays look to maximize possession. They build strategies from the moment their team gets the puck aimed with maximizing their time and success with the puck. Different coaches do it different ways. Ours employs a low-chance stretch pass, meant to induce an at best 50-50 battle at the other end. It puts a very low ceiling on our possession, our ability to score, and our ability to win games. It amplifies perhaps the most glaring weakness of our team, defensive zone coverage, by making them do it more often.

 

They didn’t have their minds on the beach and the bikinis. They had a rush in the second that was executed perfectly. The stretch pass was taken and then dumped into the zone, the wingers were chugging along to get it, and before we could blink Tampa took that dump in and rammed it down our throats. I’m not sure if our forwards were even back to the neutral zone yet by the time the puck was in our net. I was embarrassed to watch it.

 

They’re doing exactly what they are told, and I truly believe that guys, like Jack, know it is not going to bring them success. He didn’t tell me this himself, and this is total speculation on my part, which is a big part of things like message boards. But I really think that Jack sees it.

 

I wrote some of this during the second intermission. In the third, the shift on Kane’s goal was beautiful. The coach and the fans will say that we need to see that level of aggression and determination all the time. This is an impossible task. These guys are humans. You can’t rely on shifts like that to win. No human could play a whole game like that without breaking down. It’s not how you do 82 games without burning out your best players by game 50, which is what we did last year and what we are seeing with Ristolainen right now. Coach a better system so these guys can go 90% for most the game and still score goals and win games, like every other team in the league. That shift is not sustainable and you’re an idiot if you think that is the only way to win games, Dan.

Look for more of these struggles in Carolina. It’s the NHL, so anything can happen on any given night, but aggregate statistics and matchups suggest that we are in for another beatdown at the hands of a team with very good, mobile, and efficient defensemen. Or goalies that can negate dump and chase, like Bishop. Lucky for us, I guess, is that we get Dallas, Toronto, and Detroit after that, teams whose defensemen will panic and cough the puck up. It just baffles my mind that people think that it is a good idea to rely on another team’s mistakes for all of your chances, instead of building and practicing and playing to create your own. Because when you do that, it’s not as if other teams’ mistakes stop. You just get more good chances. You then become a good team that wins games.

 

Even if we rip off 10 wins in a row, Dan Bylsma needs to go for this team to have any real success. Even if Jack/Sam go nuts in their development and we make the playoffs this year, or next, or the one after, Dan’s system will place a cap/limit on what this team can do that is much lower than the sum of the potentials of the players. I will want Dan fired even if we storm back and make the playoffs THIS season, which would be an amazing feat. But we won’t need to worry about that happening. Too many teams know that what we do is laughably ineffective and have been gearing up to stop it and counter in ways that are effective. Please fire Dan ASAP.

 

I can’t stress enough that the team isn’t “not showing up for the games that count.” The games that count and are important have been against teams that make everything we do ineffective, and we’ve not once adjusted, even though message board posters can predict that we’ll need to beforehand.

Edited January 13, 2017 by Randall Flagg

[Norcal]

What a in bish

[Randall Flagg]

Cody Franson may have been the best Sabre tonight. Between him and Matt Moulson.

I'm glad it's a quick turnaround before the next game, we all need to get the taste of this one out of our mouths. 

 

The three most embarrassing moments of my Sabres fandom have come at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning, and concern us being idiotic goons and only priding ourselves on outhitting them because we can't sniff their jocks when it comes to playing hockey. It happened tonight, and it happened several times over the past 4 seasons. We act like idiots and have to kill penalties when we should be trying to tie the game. But character and grit and grind em down. They're laughing at us, their fans are laughing at us, and the NHL is laughing at us, because it's beyond pathetic. 

Edited January 13, 2017 by Randall Flagg

[CallawaySabres]

Brutal slip in standings outside this game too

[Doohicksie]

Cody Franson may have been the best Sabre tonight. Between him and Matt Moulson.

 

I'm glad it's a quick turnaround before the next game, we all need to get the taste of this one out of our mouths. 

 

The three most embarrassing moments of my Sabres fandom have come at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning, and concern us being idiotic goons and only priding ourselves on outhitting them because we can't sniff their jocks when it comes to playing hockey. It happened tonight, and it happened several times over the past 4 seasons. We act like idiots and have to kill penalties when we should be trying to tie the game. But character and grit and grind em down. They're laughing at us, their fans are laughing at us, and the NHL is laughing at us, because it's beyond pathetic. 

 

The refs were the ones acting like idiots.  Those penalties were not for real offenses.  I have no idea what they were thinking, especially when they let all the Lightning clutching and grabbing go.

[Randall Flagg]

The refs were the ones acting like idiots.  Those penalties were not for real offenses.  I have no idea what they were thinking, especially when they let all the Lightning clutching and grabbing go.

I hated the call on Kane at the end, and the interference being let go all game from both sides, but Gionta and Foligno were absolutely being idiots. Gionta especially. 10 times out of 10 a player that does that gets called. Total lack of maturity and situational awareness, and unacceptable for even the most green rookies, let alone the captain. 

[North Buffalo]

Cody Franson may have been the best Sabre tonight. Between him and Matt Moulson.

I'm glad it's a quick turnaround before the next game, we all need to get the taste of this one out of our mouths. 

 

The three most embarrassing moments of my Sabres fandom have come at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning, and concern us being idiotic goons and only priding ourselves on outhitting them because we can't sniff their jocks when it comes to playing hockey. It happened tonight, and it happened several times over the past 4 seasons. We act like idiots and have to kill penalties when we should be trying to tie the game. But character and grit and grind em down. They're laughing at us, their fans are laughing at us, and the NHL is laughing at us, because it's beyond pathetic.

 

. You are nuts, did you even watch the game.

[Randall Flagg]

. You are nuts, did you even watch the game.

Yes, Rob Ray pointed out several times that we were outhitting them by a boatload. Meanwhile, we were getting our handed to us in the game of hockey.

[North Buffalo]

No sabres played a crap first but the double minor was total bs. Tampa was high sticking slashing the whole game nothing called. So What Gionta got that call. Jack played like a wimp along the boards. Not impressed. Didnt get his shot through. His shift changes were way too early and ill timed letting his D out to dry a number of times while Foligno and Gio battled. Kane skated hard all game Fedun and Falk were the best pair and Bogo and Franson sucked getting the puck out. That being said Sabres played a tough game against a very good skating Tampa team and should have started hitting earlier.... the end was a result of frustration over bs ref calls all game long. PS this team especially the younger guys need to skate all game especially Jack.

Edited January 13, 2017 by North Buffalo

[Huckleberry]

 

 

I'm on the same bandwagon as Randall now, lets fire this coach already.

[nucci]

Wouldn't be Buffalo sports if we didn't want to fire the coach after every loss

[TrueBlueGED]

Wouldn't be Buffalo sports if we didn't want to fire the coach after every loss

Every loss? I want to fire him after every win. After every practice, even!