GDT: 1/31/21 1pm ET, NJ Devils at Buffalo, MSG, NHL Network, WGR

[pi2000]

It's funny how they have one good game, get a win, and Ralph says that's a "confirmation of the system".... well what about the other 5 or 6 ***** games?  Those don't count?

Staal is done.   I'm already tired of him getting caught from behind and turning pucks over.  Him and Okposo would probably find some success in my beer league.

Can Ullmark play every game?  

If Hutton savea that breakaway 20s in, it's probably a different game script.   The boys see him make a big save and get fired up, completely different game.    But he wasn't even close, completely faked out, just tough to watch as a teammate.

 

[Curt]

4 minutes ago, #freejame said:

If I cared any less I wouldn’t be following the team a single iota. I’ve had a great day and still am. I bought 9 books for $64 dollars, made a giant lunch, had a bottle of vino and am listening to some great jams. I can fully break away my complete and utter disdain of the Sabres from my actual life.
 

I’m frustrated because there was a time when the Sabres were a part of my life that actually had an impact on me beyond these isolated feelings of frustration and anger. What makes me pissed isnt the Sabres being god awful, I dealt with that growing up pre-lockout and the last ten years. I’m pissed because the Sabres damn-near mean nothing to me. But I’ll step away from the board and my life will go back to being great and five weeks from now after doing this for another half of a season, all that will have come from it is Terry losing a fan who has been to hundreds of games and spent thousands of dollars and invested countless hours of his time and energy in this team. 

Glad to hear that you feeling great.

It is quite sad what the organization has become.  I also definitely don’t have the same emotional investment in the outcome of the games as I once did.  I don’t get angry about it, but it’s definitely not as fun as when they were good.

From a talent standpoint I honestly believe that they are in decent shape.  Good enough to be right in the playoff race.  They just never seem be able to sustain good play for any length of time.  I thought they would be better than last season, and I still hope that they are, but results have been very mixed.

[Brawndo]

Krueger isn’t going anywhere, His Salary is 3.9 Million per year and he has a year remaining after this one. 
 

For reference Barry Trotz makes 100k more per year. 
 

With a condensed schedule perhaps playing a 37yo Center on back to back days isn’t the best idea. 
 

 

 

[Broken Ankles]

11 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

Krueger isn’t going anywhere, His Salary is 3.9 Million per year and he has a year remaining after this one. 
 

For reference Barry Trotz makes 100k more per year. 
 

With a condensed schedule perhaps playing a 37yo Center on back to back days isn’t the best idea. 
 

 

 

This is so true. Same for KO. I thought player tracking was something Krueger was looking into this season.  

[nfreeman]

15 hours ago, Pimlach said:

I assume you mean Eichel, Reinhart, and Dahlin as the core?
 

Trading them will probably lead to another disaster and more lottery picks in search of the everlasting generational talent.  (Orr, Gretzky, Lemueix, ... ).  I advise against trading Eichel or Dahlin, and actually I think we get closer to full capability and performance from 23 than we do from 9 and 26.  Those two guys should be leading and making plays and helping this team grow; instead we just split games with the Rags and Devils.  We are talented enough to be on a four game home win steak, instead we did not even get a regulation win.  

Another excellent post.  Sometimes I think you are indeed old Punch, watching over this team with a gimlet eye from the great beyond.

I completely agree with not trading Eichel or Dahlin.  They need a goalie, and they need Risto and maybe Cozens to be the heart and soul leaders.  But when those things happen, they'll need elite or near-elite pieces, and that's what they have in Eichel and Dahlin.  In the meantime I sure hope Eichel isn't going to take his lead from ROR and try to mope his way out of town.

Separately:  IMHO if this team misses the playoffs it will due to 2 factors:  goaltending and not getting what they need from their top guys.  This is 2 games in a row with bad goals late in the 3rd period that affected the outcome.  And production from Eichel, Hall, Skinner and Dahlin is a core part of what this team is supposed to be.

As for Hall. I think the problem isn't laziness or lack of intensity.  I think by nature he's the complete opposite of the cynical floater -- I think he wants it really bad, is feeling the pressure and is panicking, and as a result he's pressing so hard that every decision he makes with the puck right now is wrong.

I think Eichel will be better when Reinhart returns, and I think Hall and Skinner will find their mojo again.  But I really want them to bring in another goalie.  They really could miss the playoffs by 5 points and have it completely attributable to Hutton.

 

 

 

 

 

[PerreaultForever]

Coming in later and reading over all these comments the one thing that can be agreed upon is that there is enough blame to spread around that there is pretty much at least one or two people here putting the blame on pretty much everybody on the roster and in management and in ownership. Some say this guy some say that guy etc. but I think only Reinhart got a pass cause he didn't play 🙂  (there's few others but you get the point). 

We go through this every year and you can argue forever but at some point you need to consider the constants year to year (at least since the tank). I think a complete tear down would mean several more lean years, but is there any real way to erase the baggage for the guys who have been here? idk. 

 

[Radar]

6 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

Coming in later and reading over all these comments the one thing that can be agreed upon is that there is enough blame to spread around that there is pretty much at least one or two people here putting the blame on pretty much everybody on the roster and in management and in ownership. Some say this guy some say that guy etc. but I think only Reinhart got a pass cause he didn't play 🙂  (there's few others but you get the point). 

We go through this every year and you can argue forever but at some point you need to consider the constants year to year (at least since the tank). I think a complete tear down would mean several more lean years, but is there any real way to erase the baggage for the guys who have been here? idk. 

 

We could certainly rid some baggage but it's been so many years of this I think rather than look at rosters you have go ask about coaching we've had or not had and who is making the coaching decisions. This roster on paper is better than their records over some of these years. My opinion is we've not had a coach since Ruff that I've cared that much for.

[triumph_communes]

Whoa some people need to back away from the ledge. 
 

The play from a 7D and backup goalie both starting in one game as the only reason we lost is not worth going short on the team. 
 

 

Kruegers only fault is playing those two players. Lindy rode Hasek into the ground every season. Lindy played his backup in this back to back.  Fault there is on Kevyn.

 

You can blame Krueger for Irwin over Borgen though

Edited February 1, 2021 by triumph_communes

[Sabre fan]

I simply cannot believe how bad they played...they get absolutely NO mileage out of a combined salary of what?... 33 million (Eichel, Hall, Skinner and Okposo) the coaching is absolutely brutal and not using players to the best of their abilities on on the coach...Lindy's team outplayed and out worked the Sabres wanted it more and deserved the win more...sick of temper tantrums and excuses...truly is a sad state of affairs

Edited February 1, 2021 by Sabre fan

[JohnC]

12 hours ago, #freejame said:

If I cared any less I wouldn’t be following the team a single iota. I’ve had a great day and still am. I bought 9 books for $64 dollars, made a giant lunch, had a bottle of vino and am listening to some great jams. I can fully break away my complete and utter disdain of the Sabres from my actual life.
 

I’m frustrated because there was a time when the Sabres were a part of my life that actually had an impact on me beyond these isolated feelings of frustration and anger. What makes me pissed isnt the Sabres being god awful, I dealt with that growing up pre-lockout and the last ten years. I’m pissed because the Sabres damn-near mean nothing to me. But I’ll step away from the board and my life will go back to being great and five weeks from now after doing this for another half of a season, all that will have come from it is Terry losing a fan who has been to hundreds of games and spent thousands of dollars and invested countless hours of his time and energy in this team. 

Was that a red or white vino? Did you drink the bottle by yourself or did you share it with someone? If you drank it by yourself I would kindly recommend that you limit your intake. 🍺

I agree with you that this team (franchise) can be frustrating. When it builds up I step back and then cautiously return after the exasperation has been depleted and the tank has been refilled with more positive energy. Just don't get too carried away with the ups and don't get too carried away with the downs. 

Edited February 1, 2021 by JohnC

[fiftyone]

3 hours ago, triumph_communes said:

Whoa some people need to back away from the ledge. 
 

The play from a 7D and backup goalie both starting in one game as the only reason we lost is not worth going short on the team. 
 

 

Kruegers only fault is playing those two players. Lindy rode Hasek into the ground every season. Lindy played his backup in this back to back.  Fault there is on Kevyn.

 

You can blame Krueger for Irwin over Borgen though

We lost because our 7th D and backup goalie weren't good. The team that beat us played their 4th goalie, two defenseman that couldn't crack our lineup in recent seasons (Tennyson and Kulikov) and were missing two of their top three centers (Hischier and Zajac) and maybe their best defenseman (Vatanen). 

You can say people are overracting, but you can't see that we lost because we were shorthanded or our backups were in. 

Edited February 1, 2021 by fiftyone

[Stoner]

39 minutes ago, JohnC said:

Was that a red or white vino? Did you drink the bottle by yourself or did you share it with someone? If you drank it by yourself I would kindly recommend that you limit your intake. 🍺

I agree with you that this team (franchise) can be frustrating. When it builds up I step back and then cautiously return after the exasperation has been depleted and the tank has been refilled with more positive energy. Just don't get too carried away with the ups and don't get too carried away with the downs. 

What ups?

[JohnC]

1 minute ago, PASabreFan said:

What ups?

The situation is not a disaster. But it's not good enough. Whether a team such as Jersey is better than us is not the issue. What you saw yesterday's game is a team that out hustled us, was quicker and played with a verve that we don't consistently play with. Jersey's backup goalie was demonstrably better than ours. Washington's backup goalie played like a #1 goalie when we played them. From a broader view I agree with @tom websterthat this team is better than what we had. But that shouldn't be the issue. Are we as good as we need to be in order to be a playoff team? I'm not sure?  

[Doohicksie]

21 hours ago, Let's Go B-Lo said:

He got to it and then stopped to take a breath from his portable oxygen tank, make some 430 dinner reservations, and look around for his rascal scooter.

Yeah, I just checked the replay and saw that.

[LGR4GM]

6 hours ago, triumph_communes said:

Whoa some people need to back away from the ledge. 
 

The play from a 7D and backup goalie both starting in one game as the only reason we lost is not worth going short on the team. 
 

 

Kruegers only fault is playing those two players. Lindy rode Hasek into the ground every season. Lindy played his backup in this back to back.  Fault there is on Kevyn.

 

You can blame Krueger for Irwin over Borgen though

The Sabres were caved in for every metric we can show including simple things like shots, goals, and chances. They lost that game because they are lazy and poorly coached. 

[erickompositör72]

51 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

The Sabres were caved in for every metric we can show including simple things like shots, goals, and chances. They lost that game because they are lazy and poorly coached. 

Did not get the sense they were lazy. I got the sense their game plan just wasn't working, they were getting frustrated,  and they made some bad decisions (perhaps as a consequence of the aforementioned).

 

Is the "game plan not working" fixable? Was it a match-up thing? Or is it systemic/are they just susceptible to being consistently out-coached?

 

These are the big q's in my mind; Hall/Eichel/Skinner "getting going again" could hinge on these things.

Edited February 1, 2021 by erickompositör72

[LTS]

2 minutes ago, erickompositör72 said:

Did not get the sense they were lazy. I got the sense their game plan just wasn't working, they were getting frustrated,  and they made some bad decisions (perhaps as a consequence of the aforementioned).

 

Is the game plan not working fixable? Was it a match-up thing? Or is it systemic/are they just susceptible to being consistently out-coached?

 

These are the big q's in my mind; Hall/Eichel/Skinner "getting going again" could hinge on these things.

I see a lazy team pretty much every time they touch the ice. They are sloppy, have been sloppy, and they generally play like they don't care. They lose more puck battles than they win simply because they aren't even there to contest the puck.

I've counted at least 4 times this season, and 2 in yesterday's game, where Ristolainen backed off the blue line rather than pinch. In every case he's had at least one forward in good defensive position to cover his pinch.  Each time he looks hesitant, like he wants the puck but somewhere in head is a coach saying something about his system.

This team is not on the same page. They are missing little plays.  That's usually a coaching issue that manifests itself in the players.  I'd love to see their practices because it appears as though this behavior is tolerated in practices.  I didn't want to say too much after a few games but this is continual. 

If I cared enough to spend more time breaking them down I could probably get more technical.  But I don't care.  I joked in the beginning that 1pm games give me an excuse to be lazy... I'd rather scrub the toilets in the house than watch the team I saw yesterday.

What I am seeing this year is finally putting me over the edge with this team.  I've not had faith in ownership, I don't have faith in KA, and while I was reserving judgement on RK it's definitely not trending in the right direction.  I've long had concern about Eichel as a player and definitely as the "C". Hearing that he demanded to stay out on the PP2 unit over Tage Thompson in the first game against NJ concerns me.  First, TT had no clue out there, so Eichel is not wrong, but that's a coach's call. The other thing that concerns me is him putting the team on his back, like a "C" should, but then crumbling from the weight of it.  

There are flashes of what this team could achieve if they stepped it up, but I just don't see it happening.  I don't think they have the right pieces, the drive, the leadership to turn it on.  I'd love to be wrong, but 10 games it certainly feels like more of the same.

[LGR4GM]

1 minute ago, LTS said:

I see a lazy team pretty much every time they touch the ice. They are sloppy, have been sloppy, and they generally play like they don't care. They lose more puck battles than they win simply because they aren't even there to contest the puck.

I've counted at least 4 times this season, and 2 in yesterday's game, where Ristolainen backed off the blue line rather than pinch. In every case he's had at least one forward in good defensive position to cover his pinch.  Each time he looks hesitant, like he wants the puck but somewhere in head is a coach saying something about his system.

I see defenders make the wrong reads constantly and you see the hesitation. I am 100% convinced this entire "stay above the puck" mentality is the reason we see so many peripheral shots and so many defenders not being fully utilized. They gotta stay above the puck. 

[erickompositör72]

13 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

I see defenders make the wrong reads constantly and you see the hesitation. I am 100% convinced this entire "stay above the puck" mentality is the reason we see so many peripheral shots and so many defenders not being fully utilized. They gotta stay above the puck. 

And they've all reportedly "bought in"

[PerreaultForever]

8 hours ago, Radar said:

We could certainly rid some baggage but it's been so many years of this I think rather than look at rosters you have go ask about coaching we've had or not had and who is making the coaching decisions. This roster on paper is better than their records over some of these years. My opinion is we've not had a coach since Ruff that I've cared that much for.

I'm not going to argue that we've had great coaching, but we've had several different ones with different styles and different systems. They have all been lauded when they arrived and run out of town later. If the results are the same, even with these changes, don't you have to look at the things that didn't change? 

[Radar]

2 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

I'm not going to argue that we've had great coaching, but we've had several different ones with different styles and different systems. They have all been lauded when they arrived and run out of town later. If the results are the same, even with these changes, don't you have to look at the things that didn't change? 

The players have changed. I'm looking back further maybe but we've changed players over the decade.

 

 

 

[pi2000]

2 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

I'm not going to argue that we've had great coaching, but we've had several different ones with different styles and different systems. They have all been lauded when they arrived and run out of town later. If the results are the same, even with these changes, don't you have to look at the things that didn't change? 

They haven't had a real coach since Bylsma.    Yeah I know, everybody thinks he sucked.     We'll, he got a post-tank dumpster squad in Jack's rookie season to 81 points, then Jack gets hurt , they finish the next season with 78 points and he gets run out of town because a 20 year old Eichel doesn't see eye to eye with him.    

Since then it's been Phil Housley with 0 years of pro head coaching experience, and now a soccer team manager, with a whopping 48 games of nhl coaching experience 6 years ago.   

But hey, all the players REALLY like the guy.   

Maybe they can hang a banner "2020-21 Most Liked Coach"

[#freejame]

9 hours ago, JohnC said:

Was that a red or white vino? Did you drink the bottle by yourself or did you share it with someone? If you drank it by yourself I would kindly recommend that you limit your intake. 🍺

I agree with you that this team (franchise) can be frustrating. When it builds up I step back and then cautiously return after the exasperation has been depleted and the tank has been refilled with more positive energy. Just don't get too carried away with the ups and don't get too carried away with the downs. 

Red (bordeaux). A bottle of wine is far from excess. This team is trash, sober or intoxicated. Like I said upthread, this team does nothing for my day to day level of happiness, which is the problem. I am divorcing myself from the love of my life. You either get it or you don't. There will be outburst and there have been. But one day I'll wake up and have no desire to visit this board or spend an hour reading about the team or watch a game and a significant part of my life will be gone and I will probably be better off. But hey, the Bills showed me it can come back. Wake me when we have our Allen. 

[PerreaultForever]

2 hours ago, Radar said:

The players have changed. I'm looking back further maybe but we've changed players over the decade.

 

 

 

The core, the stars, the so called leaders (at this point) are still the same.  

[JohnC]

41 minutes ago, #freejame said:

Red (bordeaux). A bottle of wine is far from excess. This team is trash, sober or intoxicated. Like I said upthread, this team does nothing for my day to day level of happiness, which is the problem. I am divorcing myself from the love of my life. You either get it or you don't. There will be outburst and there have been. But one day I'll wake up and have no desire to visit this board or spend an hour reading about the team or watch a game and a significant part of my life will be gone and I will probably be better off. But hey, the Bills showed me it can come back. Wake me when we have our Allen. 

You have a greater tolerance for vino than I do. A bottle of wine would render me incoherent and incapacitated. 

As I said in a prior post when following a team becomes an aggravating experience it's time to take a break. I, like everyone else, do get frustrated. I haven't reached the no mas threshold yet. But I can certainly understand others getting there.