GDT: Islanders at Sabres, Sat. 11/2/19, 7:00 pm

[Sabres Fan in NS]

1 minute ago, Claude Balls said:

Too many years of a garbage product will do that to a person. If it makes you feel any better, I'm all positive about the Bills so far ?. I'll be there in long johns cheering them on tomorrow.

You'd probably want to wear a bit more than that.  You have to keep Mr. Balls warm, eh.

[Curt]

16 minutes ago, Sidc3000 said:

Exactly. I’m so tired of tag lines like have patience and trust the process. How about win at all costs?  Is this too tough for these snowflakes hockey players. They can’t even play for a touchy feely coach like Krueger

They have been winning a lot.  Is nothing but a 65+ win season acceptable?  Just because Buffalo is now decent doesn’t mean they will win every game or won’t have rough patches.  smh

The Islanders are one hell of a good team, especially right now.  Even the best teams in the league have all they can handle against them.  They specialize is getting a lead and strangling the offense out of the game.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Curt

[Sidc3000]

4 minutes ago, Thorny said:

There's a reasonable chance it's just a bad stretch, and not the descent into futility we saw last season. 4 losses in 5, just don't want that to turn into 8 or 9 losses in 10. 

Having a slump is normal. 

 

1 minute ago, Scottysabres said:

Because players on the current roster are faltering a bit.

I have to laugh a bit about Tage.   People wanted him gone by the end of last season and said he was a dud. Failure of the ROR trade.  Now people want to actual call him up because he’s actually playing great. No one wanted to listen when I would say that he was thrown into into the Team too soon and needed time in Rochester. 

[Claude Balls]

1 minute ago, New Scotland (NS) said:

You'd probably want to wear a bit more than that.  You have to keep Mr. Balls warm, eh.

That's just the first layer. Besides, at my age just wearing tight long johns wouldn't be a very good look.

[...]

5 minutes ago, Scottysabres said:

Because players on the current roster are faltering a bit.

And Tage is the panacea?  That's insane thinking, right there.

[...]

IMHO, I should add.

[Sidc3000]

2 minutes ago, Curt said:

They have been winning a lot.  Is nothing but a 65+ win season acceptable?  Just because Buffalo is now d3 ent doesn’t mean 5hey will win every game or won5 have rough patches.  smh

The Islanders are one hell of a good team, especially right now.  Even the best teams in the league have all they can handle against them.  They specialize is getting a lead and strangling the offense out of the game.

I’ll be happy when they can win on a consistent basis. 

[darksabre]

I think most of us think this roster is deficient right? 

[CallawaySabres]

The cushion to 9th keeps dwindling

[Curt]

4 minutes ago, Sidc3000 said:

I’ll be happy when they can win on a consistent basis. 

Islanders lost 3 of their first 4.  Coyotes lost 3 of their first 4.  Capitals had a stretch of losing 4 of 5.  It happens.  They do need to turn it around here soon.

[Curt]

11 minutes ago, darksabre said:

I think most of us think this roster is deficient right? 

Deficient for what?  I think that’s the question.  For a playoff team?  For a cup contender?

They have exceeded expectations so far.  Most were pretty sure this was not a playoff team.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Curt

[Thorner]

17 minutes ago, darksabre said:

I think most of us think this roster is deficient right? 

It's certainly unbalanced. We have 11 NHL level D counting Bogosian. We need a hockey trade. 

6 minutes ago, Curt said:

Deficient for what?  I think that’s the question.  For a playoff team?  For a cup contender?

They have exceeded expectations so far.  Most were pretty sure this was not a playoff team.

Regardless of what people thought they'd be, in the hunt for the playoffs all season long should be the expectation.

[Curt]

1 minute ago, Thorny said:

It's certainly unbalanced. We have 11 NHL level D counting Bogosian. We need a hockey trade. 

Regardless of what people thought they'd be, in the hunt for the playoffs all season long should be the expectation.

Sure, maybe it SHOULD be the expectation.  But playoffs wasn’t the expectation of most fans.

[Thorner]

1 minute ago, Curt said:

Sure, maybe it SHOULD be the expectation.  But playoffs wasn’t the expectation of most fans.

Didn't say MAKE the playoffs was. 

If being in the hunt all year wasn't the expectation, the expectations for this management crew are way too low. 

Edited November 3, 2019 by Thorny

[sabremike]

27 minutes ago, ... said:

And Tage is the panacea?  That's insane thinking, right there.

Show me another player capable of carrying a lion:

#TeamMagicGiraffe

[calti]

the sabres in eternal rebuild...or is that the bills? like the twilight zone....

[carpandean]

33 minutes ago, sabremike said:

Show me another player capable of carrying a lion:

#TeamMagicGiraffe

Oh, great.  Now I'm going to spend the rest of the night wondering whether that giraffe got away ...

[sabremike]

1 minute ago, carpandean said:

Oh, great.  Now I'm going to spend the rest of the night wondering whether that giraffe got away ...

I don't know where the whole video is online but I can tell you he did.

Giraffe=The REAL King of The Jungle.

[Randall Flagg]

1 hour ago, Thorny said:

There are still lots of positives from our start. 

@Randall Flagg's stat about last game being our first against a team in the top 3rd of the standings is troubling.

I don't know what this team is yet. 

It took 40 games to know it last year. The only thing I'm comfortable saying I know is that they've given me no reason yet to move off of any preseason stance I had taken

1 hour ago, PASabreFan said:

Yeah, Sobotka is where offense goes to die.

He's certainly not where it goes to survive

This could be 15 minutes long, but I only felt like watching so many minutes of Sabres hockey after that game

I included those last two because they're typical of him - even the "chances" he gets...the first one wasn't even a shot on net, he shot it wide from 3 inches in front of the goalie, and the second was remarkably feeble and a goal if any other of the 11 forwards were in that place instead. 

Like, I get that people get annoyed about posters ragging on guys to the point of unfairness, nonstop, with little regard for the person behind the mask. I get the desire some have to root for the whipping boys for that reason, and that Vlad in particular is the magical coach's pet project, just like he was with the last coach, and we TRUST this coach. But he IS where offense goes to die, and for as long as he's here he will be the poster boy for the Sabres' systemic inability to generate offense in today's NHL, because his identity of pragmatically eating pucks on the boards, sticking to the point men as safety valves, softly shoveling passes into opponents skates or shots into goalies' pads, and being incapable of creating sustainable amounts of high quality slot chances shift in and shift out is exactly the identity the whole team assumes as the grind of the season wears on, for the better part of a decade now. There is no more fitting player, especially considering how each coach has used him (top 4 in ice time while we free-fell offensively last season, and a top six role this year). And sure, Skinner and Mojo could score goals together while he was their third, and he hasn't been bad in his own end, just like last season. But the Sabres still have an offensive chasm to cross in this league and he's still here, and while like last season we scored a lot of goals early, there's far too much time in a hockey season for October exceptions to become 19-20 realities

I'd never disagree with getting on Eichel and Sam for a game like tonight, but Eichel and Sam, here or elsewhere, will be key parts of good NHL offenses in their careers. And the reason ours died last year and is on a sharp decline already this season has been talked about here nonstop, but hasn't been fundamentally changed really, and so yes, people are going to complain about Sobotka, or Sheary, or Vesey, or Kyle, being where offense goes to die even on a night when our 100 point pace center can't score 

 

[Randall Flagg]

1 hour ago, Ogrish said:

SMFH

I could have watched porn for 2 1/2 hours and felt more productive.

Well, at least your spirit is a little more whole, or at least metaphorically speaking if you don't believe that kind of thing 

1 hour ago, SwampD said:

We won't be, though.

You're right, it'll at least take until December 10th ?

[Randall Flagg]

Trotz' teams are suffocating, so that has more to do with the lack of goals tonight than us. But it was discouraging that the Islanders had about 4 straight shifts late in the third that were exponentially more dangerous than we were with our goalie pulled. Since Dallas we are back to looking like the other team gets to play in their own zone with 7 defensive players, while we look like we have to play in ours with 4. 

This month is killer - at least the TB games are in such a bizarre situation that they may well be neutralized, and it's not like they've been great to start this year either. 

They have a bit of a mental molehill to get over, but I believe less with each passing game that there won't be an offensive zone mountain behind it. Dallas and the first week had me hopeful, but we need another good forward or two. I'm glad it sounds like Jason agrees this year. 

Edited November 3, 2019 by Randall Flagg

[...]

1 hour ago, Curt said:

Sure, maybe it SHOULD be the expectation.  But playoffs wasn’t the expectation of most fans.

Did you poll most fans?  How on Earth do you know this?

[Thorner]

27 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

It took 40 games to know it last year. The only thing I'm comfortable saying I know is that they've given me no reason yet to move off of any preseason stance I had taken

He's certainly not where it goes to survive

This could be 15 minutes long, but I only felt like watching so many minutes of Sabres hockey after that game

I included those last two because they're typical of him - even the "chances" he gets...the first one wasn't even a shot on net, he shot it wide from 3 inches in front of the goalie, and the second was remarkably feeble and a goal if any other of the 11 forwards were in that place instead. 

Like, I get that people get annoyed about posters ragging on guys to the point of unfairness, nonstop, with little regard for the person behind the mask. I get the desire some have to root for the whipping boys for that reason, and that Vlad in particular is the magical coach's pet project, just like he was with the last coach, and we TRUST this coach. But he IS where offense goes to die, and for as long as he's here he will be the poster boy for the Sabres' systemic inability to generate offense in today's NHL, because his identity of pragmatically eating pucks on the boards, sticking to the point men as safety valves, softly shoveling passes into opponents skates or shots into goalies' pads, and being incapable of creating sustainable amounts of high quality slot chances shift in and shift out is exactly the identity the whole team assumes as the grind of the season wears on, for the better part of a decade now. There is no more fitting player, especially considering how each coach has used him (top 4 in ice time while we free-fell offensively last season, and a top six role this year). And sure, Skinner and Mojo could score goals together while he was their third, and he hasn't been bad in his own end, just like last season. But the Sabres still have an offensive chasm to cross in this league and he's still here, and while like last season we scored a lot of goals early, there's far too much time in a hockey season for October exceptions to become 19-20 realities

I'd never disagree with getting on Eichel and Sam for a game like tonight, but Eichel and Sam, here or elsewhere, will be key parts of good NHL offenses in their careers. And the reason ours died last year and is on a sharp decline already this season has been talked about here nonstop, but hasn't been fundamentally changed really, and so yes, people are going to complain about Sobotka, or Sheary, or Vesey, or Kyle, being where offense goes to die even on a night when our 100 point pace center can't score 

 

This gets to the heart of why the presence of Sobotka remains so troubling. 

He represents the tip of our metaphorical iceberg. 

[LTS]

Much ado about nothing.  Surely didn't read the whole thread, but that game was awful, top to bottom.  One seriously fluke goal.  Both teams had chances.

The Sabres are much improved over last year, but they aren't where they need to be. I've no illusions.  The only thing that is messing with the plan is that Tampa and Toronto have been absolute disasters this year.  This leads people to believe the Sabres are something more than they are...

I thought Toronto would be better.. I would have never imagined the situation happening in Tampa. 

I dunno... I'm fine with tonight. I wanted them to win, but that was one of those absolute shite games that happen in a season. Last night was far worse. The Isles are on a tear of 9 straight now, so they've been rolling. Oh well, move on.  Crush Tampa in Sweden and people will feel better... maybe.

[Scottysabres]

2 hours ago, ... said:

And Tage is the panacea?  That's insane thinking, right there.

You asked why, granted, not to myself, but I answered in any event.

Tage could be called up and bust, Tage could not be called up and do a multitude of things in the AHL, Tage could...………...ah hell, you get the point.