GDT: 3/9/21 Sabres @ Flyers 7:00 pm ET MSG Krueger's last game?

[Eleven]

6 hours ago, Kruppstahl said:

The Caps definitely have a solid fanbase, though when we were last good (around 2006) there were pretty bad, and the arena was pretty empty.

Back in those days, I used to be able to get the best seats in the house 15 minutes before game time at the arena window.  But as the team improved, the fans came back more and more, and for many years now it's hard to get a ticket.

I think it is this way in every market.

 

They were in the finals when I lived there.

[Radar]

43 minutes ago, bob_sauve28 said:

Goaltending is the problem with this team. Sure, it has other problems, but goaltending, goaltending, goaltending 

Agree. Also think we're not as good as a team as individuals on paper would suggest. This is a collection of individuals but not a team who seems to mesh together. There's a lot more work to do than maybe most of us thought. 

[bob_sauve28]

37 minutes ago, Radar said:

Agree. Also think we're not as good as a team as individuals on paper would suggest. This is a collection of individuals but not a team who seems to mesh together. There's a lot more work to do than maybe most of us thought. 

I really believe decent goaltending gives a team time to jell. This team has not had that and it shows 

[inkman]

6 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

This is the third straight time we've done this. For some reason the Sabres, no matter who the coach or GM can't seem to figure out that D men require slow and steady development and aren't ready for big minutes right away. I suppose it comes from being so bad we get desperate and can't wait but it's just dumb.

Borgen is ready now (pity he got injured) but we semi broke Jokiharju too and Bryson will be next. I like what he brings, but he's not ready and I can see it happening again. Such an idiotic organization. 

Bryson has NCAA and 2+ years of professional experience. 

[Doohicksie]

9 hours ago, Gatorman0519 said:

4 regulation wins in 24... how does Ralph still have a job? 

I hope the answer later today becomes, "He doesn't."

[nucci]

17 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

I hope the answer later today becomes, "He doesn't."

what else has to happen? I still think Pegula's don't want to pay 2 coaches again

[PromoTheRobot]

16 hours ago, Pimlach said:

The Sabres played that smart.  All that coming out of the zone and resetting when they could change players and Philly couldn’t.   We just didn’t shoot, so we could not score.  I don’t know why they didn’t shoot, they had chances but no one has a quick trigger except for 68.  
 

Another disappointing game.  Bad ending. Just not tough enough or good enough.   Elliot got them again. 

Disappointing, sure. But honestly the best effort I've seen in weeks. The problem is still defense more than goaltending. I thought JJ was solid and he should be the #1 going forward. (Over Hutton, not Ullmark.) The offense had a pulse without Jack  We just can't stop making mistakes on defense.

6 hours ago, bob_sauve28 said:

I really believe decent goaltending gives a team time to jell. This team has not had that and it shows 

Chicken or the egg. I say defense, you say goaltending.

Edited March 10, 2021 by PromoTheRobot

[Thorner]

Actually missed this one. Gonna read through the thread now.

Another loss. *Andre Benoit nickname*

[BuffalOhio]

You just had to know that when the Flyers made it 4-3 that they'd win the game.  

 

I said to myself, the Flyers will win this in OT.  Wasn't far from wrong.

 

Bryson is what we all thought Dahlin would be.  Kid's a keeper.

[Thorner]

13 hours ago, pi2000 said:

Dahlin with Jokiharju 🤦🏻‍♂️

Good intuition 

[miles]

I have pretty much stopped watching the sabres at this point, which hasn't happened to me before. Even on nights where there is nothing to watch. 

I watched 5 minutes of this game and realized I didn't care if they won. 

I now spend most of my evenings watching reruns of the family feud. 

[LGR4GM]

1 minute ago, BuffalOhio said:

You just had to know that when the Flyers made it 4-3 that they'd win the game.  

 

I said to myself, the Flyers will win this in OT.  Wasn't far from wrong.

 

Bryson is what we all thought Dahlin would be.  Kid's a keeper.

Bryson got 3 years of college hockey and 1 full year of AHL hockey before we saw him. He's 3 years older than Dahlin and hasn't been developed by Steve ***** Smith one of the worst defensive coaches in the entire league. We are really seeing how bad and how low the Sabres are at developing players, considering they are ruining Rasmus Dahlin. 

But yes, Bryson and Dahlin should become friends because Bryson is how Dahlin needs to play. High event, edge of your seat hockey. 

[bob_sauve28]

9 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

Disappointing, sure. But honestly the best effort I've seen in weeks. The problem is still defense more than goaltending. I thought JJ was solid and he should be the #1 going forward. The offense had a pulse without Jack  We just can't stop making mistakes on defense.

Chicken or the egg. I say defense, you say goaltending.

You just have to have decent goaltending. Since Ullmark has been gone we have lost every single game. We won games with him in net. 

 

 

[LGR4GM]

The Sabres under Krueger have been so ***** focused on making Dahlin a shutdown defender they have completed destroyed his offensive game during the years they should have developed that offensive game and brought his defensive game a long far more slowly. 

[inkman]

19 minutes ago, BuffalOhio said:

You just had to know that when the Flyers made it 4-3 that they'd win the game.  

 

I said to myself, the Flyers will win this in OT.  Wasn't far from wrong.

 

Bryson is what we all thought Dahlin would be.  Kid's a keeper.

I thought Dahlin would be 10 times the player Bryson is and there in lies the problem.  We thought he was going to be at HOF level from the get go.   As we’ve seen, our expectations needed to be tempered.  At this point, I’d be thrilled with Alexei Zhitnik level of play.  

[Cal Naughton Jr]

[Thorner]

11 hours ago, Pimlach said:

Hall had no finish tonight.  He played ok but not finishing. 
 

Dahlin, he just continues to refuse to make a play.  So many times he made moves to get in great position to shoot and he does not.  Instead he passes to someone who losses the puck. 

These two guys just don’t do enough. 

Shootouts are a nightmare.  Johansson has yet to make a save.  No one on Buffalo has a shoot out but Eichel, and he is not there.  

We talk a lot about the negative impact, how Krueger is ruining Dahlin - and I think Krueger’s impact is overstated in this regard. 

A bigger deal to me is the absence of a positive impact. It’s not absurd at all that a 20 year old dman, even “generational” ones, need active help in their development at these key, young years, especially one transitioning to a new country. We are failing him right now.

The mistakes are his. But that we are leaving him foundering by himself is precisely the issue 

 

9 hours ago, Randall Flagg said:

Thought Cozens was pretty impressive. That wasn't what it looked like when Luke Adam or Mikhail Grigorenko or Casey Mittelstadt had to step in between wingers like that (and the matchups they draw) for a full game. More than once, with wingers vacating the zone despite a Philly forecheck, this guy came all the way down BELOW the goal line to help his defender out. Dylan Cozens, the pressure release valve. And the line produced 2 ES goals. Very nice performance for a kid who has played less than 20 NHL games. He really does do the little things, and his speed is such a sight for tired eyes. 

Seems to me like Philly was being coached about our board work tendencies. They always had a guy between the board battle going on and the point man ready to pick anything off. To the Sabres' credit, they took advantage of the space this opened up underneath, and got more unique looks from juicy areas than we've seen in probably 7 weeks. 

I have no interest in getting rid of Reinhart and a lot of interest in signing him.

Jokiharju with his best game in a while I thought.

Dahlin is severely broken. I worry about his value as an asset, both on the ice and in the offseason. Is he ever gonna learn how to defend?

Bryson is entertaining as hell, and will make watching games this year so much easier. The added bonus to this is that it keeps bad defenders on the bench and allows him to continue to develop - you can see his game and his confidence growing by the day. 

I know it was just a 4th line, but we have nothing in our bottom six that is remotely capable of what the LOG line was doing last year. PART of that is Zemgus being out, but a huge part of that is also Larry's absence. I skimmed through some offseason threads, and people were predictably dismissive of that, predictably assuming that anyone can do what they did off the bargain bin, probably better. (inexplicably, considering our non-LOG 4th line track record in the last decade). But it sure is fun watching a tank-level 4th line struggle through minutes hampering every single defense pair and every other forward line that now needs to try and slow momentum and get the puck back before trying to score, isn't it? We didn't have to create this, I always warned that this team was incapable of putting a 4th line together until LOG, and they showed us exactly why we shouldn't have taken that play for granted. What an abomination Rieder - Eakin - Okposo is. It's not in the top 4 reasons why we suck this year, but it's probably top ~6 and has non-negligible effects on the reasons above it. 14 ES minutes of opponents exhaustedly trying to follow the cycle each night, outscoring other teams' top lines by 8 goals (Larry was +8 in this usage) turned into like 10 minutes of 2013-14 hockey each night. Disappointing. There was no reason to do this for a team that gave Eakin a bigger contract for longer than what Larry signed for. The third line is still a mess (like whatever frankenstein combo we could muster between Veseys and Simmonds and Shearys last year) but we also threw a wrench in something that works just because we could. Go Sayberz

 

I know of one guy who harped on annoyingly and endlessly about Larsson...

Edited March 10, 2021 by Thorny

[Carmel Corn]

35 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

Bryson got 3 years of college hockey and 1 full year of AHL hockey before we saw him. He's 3 years older than Dahlin and hasn't been developed by Steve ***** Smith one of the worst defensive coaches in the entire league. We are really seeing how bad and how low the Sabres are at developing players, considering they are ruining Rasmus Dahlin. 

But yes, Bryson and Dahlin should become friends because Bryson is how Dahlin needs to play. High event, edge of your seat hockey. 

Yes...that would be nice...just wondering if Dahlin has Bryson's speed?  Steve Smith has demonstrated that he CAN'T coach with two different HC's and needs to be gone!

Edited March 10, 2021 by Carmel Corn

[Thorner]

28 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

The Sabres under Krueger have been so ***** focused on making Dahlin a shutdown defender they have completed destroyed his offensive game during the years they should have developed that offensive game and brought his defensive game a long far more slowly. 

For the sake of being optimistic, I’m not too worried about Dahlin’s offence once we have him playing on a cohesive team in a cohesive system, quite yet. 

Hedman didn’t even crack 30p until his FIFTH year. 

Krueger is probably right about his confidence thing re: Dahlin. And I’m not even saying Ralph caused it. But he sure as heck doesn’t actually know how to help him out. 

Who knows if all Krueger’s motivational jargon even gets through to him 

Edited March 10, 2021 by Thorny

[Mustache of God]

15 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

Why the ***** would we move him upstairs?!?

Sometimes you need to sit out a few games to watch from upstairs to really think about your impact on the ice. After 3 games he'll be fine. 

[Scottysabres]

3 minutes ago, Mustache of God said:

Sometimes you need to sit out a few games to watch from upstairs to really think about your impact on the ice. After 3 games he'll be fine. 

This is a Post of the Year top candidate. Gold!

[dudacek]

The lasting image of this season for me will be Rasmus Dahlin slightly to the left of our crease, locked in table hockey pose, staring out at the blue line as the puck goes past him to an uncovered player who whacks it into the empty net.

That, or the Eric Staal glide and lean.

Edited March 10, 2021 by dudacek

[Torpedo Forecheck]

2 minutes ago, dudacek said:

The lasting image of this season for me will be Rasmus Dahlin slightly to the left of our crease, locked in table hockey pose, staring out at the blue line as the puck goes past him to an uncovered player who whacks it into the empty net.

That, or the Eric Staal glide and lean.

If you haven't seen Staal's statistics  don't look.

7 blocks and 9 hits in 24 games (15+min game), playing to a MINUS 14, 55% OZS.

[nucci]

2 minutes ago, Torpedo Forecheck said:

If you haven't seen Staal's statistics  don't look.

7 blocks and 9 hits in 24 games (15+min game), playing to a MINUS 14, 55% OZS.

he didn't want to come here and it shows. I'm sure he's hoping for a trade

[Scottysabres]

Just now, dudacek said:

The lasting image of this season for me will be Rasmus Dahlin slightly to the left of our crease, locked in table hockey pose, staring out at the blue line as the puck goes past him to an uncovered player who whacks it into the empty net.

That, or the Eric Staal glide and lean.

"The Dahlin film?"

"And so we see, at 3:26 of the 1st period, the Defenseman is clearly stancing for a hockey table pose. The netminder clearly looking to the center blue line. At 3:31 of the period, the 1st shot is taken, bouncing off Montours shin guard, he will later in the film be scene limping off to the bench. Now at 3:33 of the film, the shooter, clearly positioned behind the blue line knoll, fires a second shot, Dahlin the goes BACK and to the LEFT, BACK and to the LEFT as the puck flies by and in to the net. This was clearly the kill shot, and since the 1st shooter was above the face off dots in the center, the second shooter was the Defenseman following up, entering the kill zone from behind the blue line knoll. 3 rushing down, 2 shooters, and if there is more than 1, then by definition, you have a conspiracy to commit a hockey table pose."

 

🙂