GDT - Thunder Bolts & Lightning @ Sabres - November 28, 2022 - 7:00 PM (EST) - MSG and WGR

[Crusader1969]

45 minutes ago, Zamboni said:

If you value an ex NHL goalies opinion …. Biron mentioned about 3 of those goals were more or less on UPL alone.

I’d love to know which ones.  Cause I remember some of the best goal scorers in the league being left alone in high danger positions 

I’m not exonerating him from the loss but it’s more than “blame the goalie”

[LTS]

1 hour ago, LGR4GM said:

I should be more angry but...  we get another defender and switch out Mitts or Olofsson... we might be cooking. 

It's gotta be both of them frankly.  Starting with Mitts though.

57 minutes ago, SwampD said:

It’s amazing to me how many times all five Sabres are looking at the puck on the ice in front of the net, and have no idea where opposing players are.

And on the game winner, why didn’t Dahlin go to the puck carrier and Tuch peel off to cover Stamkos. Not the greatest defense there. Of course, it would be nice to have the goalie make a stop there.

To your first comment, this is youth that needs to learn more awareness. They are bad at it.

To the second, if you watch the replay from the angle facing the net (not broadcast) you will see Dahlin look to his right before the shot occurs.  Why?  Because the 3rd Tampa player was alone on that side of the ice.  Why?  Because Tage Thompson was not hustling back to cover the play. My read is that Dahlin decided that if he stepped up on the shot then Stamkos would dish it off and it would be 1 on 1 with the goalie. Training being what it is, in a 2 on 1, although this was not a very obvious 2 on 1, the D takes away the pass and the goalie has the shooter.  Stamkos picked a corner. Lots could be said about UPL there, but it's still a great shot.

Until the Sabres control their crease they will continue to lose. Once teams establish a hard forecheck on the Sabres they struggle, especially one line in particular. They also began overcommitting on the PK leaving players open, like Point in the bumper position.

It sucks to lose the game, but this team is a few players away and a year of experience away from being excellent. I don't blame UPL for most of the goals, if indeed Kucherov's shot hit Hagel in the knee and deflected, Perry's goal (that pass cannot happen), the scrum in front, Point's goal is tough even because he has to commit to the one-timer from Kucherov and you expect your PK to take away the bumper.

The real key now is to improve the D one step, and build an actual 3rd line. But this year is not the year..  people don't want to hear it and will keep complaining. The plan is the plan and unless something unbelievable comes along I don't see them deviating from it.

[Crusader1969]

Last point of the night. 
id like to see Mitts with someone other than Oloffson before he is completely given up on

Though, not sure who that would be who would replace OloffsoN   Definitely not breaking up either of the top 2 lines 

Is Rousak the first in line from Rochester ? 

[Contempt]

17 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

You sound insane and hostile.

Chill out or keep quiet.  

1 ignored user ever, now +2 in two days. Not you, the tinfoil hat guy who probably has an election to refuse to certify somewhere.

[grinreaper]

2 minutes ago, HumanSlinky39 said:

This year, absolutely. But there's a pretty damn high ceiling with this current core, especially as guys like Cozens, Quinn, JJP and Power continue to develop. That doesn't even count the plethora of prospects in the pipeline. KA gets a lot of guff for not going out and addressing immediate needs, but he's done an incredible job of building a core and stocking the farm with more promising assets for down the road.

I think the Sabres have a top notch core with a high ceiling. The pipeline is full and if they all turn into the players that people hope for then the Sabres will have more players than positions for them. I think right now they are evaluating who will be their future core. If that premise holds true then they'll most likely have to trade 1,2 or 3 of them for a star or two. I heard somewhere today that Adams has indicated that he might have done some evaluations and a move could be in the cards. We need some better goaltending and a defenseman or two. I would venture to guess that he's going to try to make some improvements but in no way will he mortgage the future to do so. 

[sabresouth]

22 minutes ago, grinreaper said:

Not yet but he certainly needs to work on his game and improve or he'll be riding the bus to games. I remember when Ryan Miller first played for the Sabres and performed poorly. The guy was basically in tears after a game. It was good that the team didn't give up on him. Will UPL become a GT like him? I doubt it but until Comrie comes back there aren't a lot of options. Maybe GMKA can find one in a trade but I'd guess he's been trying that and the cost is too high. 

The cost is to high? I say losing countless games over the past three years is to high a cost. The goalie is arguably the most important position on the team. KA should have addressed this position a long time ago 

[Huckleberry]

13 minutes ago, Crusader1969 said:

Last point of the night. 
id like to see Mitts with someone other than Oloffson before he is completely given up on

Though, not sure who that would be who would replace OloffsoN   Definitely not breaking up either of the top 2 lines 

Is Rousak the first in line from Rochester ? 

Asplund and VO used to match pretty good together.  I think casey is toast though.

[Contempt]

7 minutes ago, sabresouth said:

The cost is to high? I say losing countless games over the past three years is to high a cost. The goalie is arguably the most important position on the team. KA should have addressed this position a long time ago 

Praise be the word of the Lord.

[Andrew Amerk]

7 minutes ago, sabresouth said:

The cost is to high? I say losing countless games over the past three years is to high a cost. The goalie is arguably the most important position on the team. KA should have addressed this position a long time ago 

Once again…who is this magic savior goalie that people think is available? 

[Brawndo]

15 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

This IMHO is where the game was lost. As someone pointed out upthread, the Mitts-VO line was on for both 5 v 5 goals against, including the killer with five minutes left that changed the game from a 5-3 happy victory to a vulnerable 5-4 nail-biter.  

DG has to know that Mitts and VO get caved in consistently and cannot play together. It’s obvious to everyone here. He needs to swap Mitts and Jost, so that both Mitts and VO are playing with two guys whi can drive play. 

 

Jost should not be moved off the 4th Line, He has not been a play driver recently. 
Mitts should be dropped to the 4th Line without a doubt. 
 

They should run a Asplund-Krebs-VO Line for a few games, Asplund and VO have worked well in Rochester and Krebs is more defensively responsible than Mitts. Asplund’s Forechecking and Krebs Playmaking might help VO at Even Strength, Vinnie can sub in on this line. 
 

The Fourth Line should be Jost, with Okposo, Zemgus and Mitts on a rotation. With the former being scratched more than Mitts. 
 

 

 

[grinreaper]

5 minutes ago, sabresouth said:

The cost is to high? I say losing countless games over the past three years is to high a cost. The goalie is arguably the most important position on the team. KA should have addressed this position a long time ago 

He did address it in a way that he thought would fit their plan. So far it looks like he didn't do a very good job. Let's hope that when Comrie gets back that he'll have a full compliment of defensemen and the team continues to play like they have in the last 4 games. Something has to happen with the 3rd line. The other 3 lines appear to work really well with each other and breaking them up to change the 3rd line might cause more problems than keeping them together and limiting their minutes.

[Brawndo]

15 minutes ago, Crusader1969 said:

Last point of the night. 
id like to see Mitts with someone other than Oloffson before he is completely given up on

Though, not sure who that would be who would replace OloffsoN   Definitely not breaking up either of the top 2 lines 

Is Rousak the first in line from Rochester ? 

Mitts has pretty much tanked every line He has been on this year it’s time to move on 

[fiftyone]

19 minutes ago, Thorny said:

The math isn’t being fairly represented by breaking down each individual goal, this is what people misunderstand when it comes to math and sample sizes. 
 

Say, for argument, UPL had only a 25% shot to make any one of the 6 saves. If you break it down individually, you can make a case for how realistically we couldn’t have expected a stop as he only had a 25% shot on each. But if you get *6* chances with 25% odds, looking from the perspective of the data set as a whole, one would be CORRECT to assume and predict that at least one will go our way. This is why I said the thing about: if the total against is high enough, there’s assuredly blame to go around for the goalie 
 

Just because it’s very unlikely on any *one* spin that a roulette wheel comes up on #4, if you spin it 500 times you can expect it to land 4. 
 

if it somehow didn’t, it would be a statistical anomaly, it wouldn’t be a case of “well what did you expect? Which one spin do you think should have hit?” No, it’s that, when the spins are all viewed in totality, the math changes 

hope this makes sense 

I get the math, and agree with the bolded.

My point is that it's pretty easy to blame the goalie when you lose 6-5. UPL isn't the answer now and may never be and that's fine, but all goals aren't created equal and 4 of those tonight were no doubters, never had a chance. 

To your point about the math.. had he made one of those saves and the sabres won 5-4, that really doesn't change much about his game tonight. They had too many high danger chances and scored on a bunch of them.

[sabresouth]

6 minutes ago, Andrew Amerk said:

Once again…who is this magic savior goalie that people think is available? 

I don't know,  but he's had three years to find him. That's more than enough time. 

[Thorner]

1 minute ago, fiftyone said:

I get the math, and agree with the bolded.

My point is that it's pretty easy to blame the goalie when you lose 6-5. UPL isn't the answer now and may never be and that's fine, but all goals aren't created equal and 4 of those tonight were no doubters, never had a chance. 

To your point about the math.. had he made one of those saves and the sabres won 5-4, that really doesn't change much about his game tonight. They had too many high danger chances and scored on a bunch of them.

Agree. 

[Contempt]

21 minutes ago, Andrew Amerk said:

Once again…who is this magic savior goalie that people think is available? 

Vitek Vanecek seems to be doing quite well. He's been available at least twice.

Alexandar Georgiev has also been pretty spicy

they also had Ullmark on the actual team, but who knows maybe he wouldn't have signed any any circumstances.

 

Edited November 29, 2022 by Contempt

[PerreaultForever]

Lessons in losing. 

As I predicted they ran the goalie. I honestly can't remember a Tampa Buffalo game where they didn't run the goalie at least once. At least this time there was a little bit of a response, even if it wasn't adequate (imo). 

They didn't play badly, and Tampa almost fell into the trap (game) but the PK was no match for their PP and as they always do against us they often owned the front.

Yes we need better goaltending, but this game was not the goalie's fault. 

It was funny listening to the announcers talk about Elliot like he was some sort of all star problem for the Sabres and not as the washed up has been veteran back up he is. 

Jost love should stop too. He made some good plays, but also gave the puck away a lot and I can see why he got waived. Not a smart player. 

The rookie line was pretty good though. Or the ELC line for those who prefer a more rigid definition of rookie 🙂

 

[Broken Ankles]

1 hour ago, Taro T said:

Granato seemed to be (except for the late Stamkos goal) matching lines.  Are we FINALLY out of "development" & into "let's act like other NHL teams" by matching lines & unbalancing the forwards ice time when they don't deserve to get balanced ice time.

Power, even w/ the assist, did not bring his A game.  Fully expect he'll bounce back in Detroit.  And still nearly won it had the puck settled down for him.

UPL.  He needs to get his movement under control better & take away the bottom of the net.

The PK.  They'd been pressuring the past couple of games and looking good.  This one they gave way too much space.

 

On Granato, help me understand HOW after going up 5-3, you Ice your worst line? Clearly struggling defensively is Mitts and Olofsson yet they are out there for the faceoff.   It’s a failing decision right? 

We saw so many growing pains with Dahlin his rookie/sophomore year, we must expect some bad nights with Power.  

UPL…

PK - we have the Matt Ellis of NHL Penalty Kills. 

[SwampD]

1 hour ago, SwampD said:

You really don’t think that Kucherov didn’t know what he was doing when it saw an opportunity to hit the goalie?! Really. He did it cuz he knew it would work. Dahlin had nothing to do with him hitting the goalie.

I hate quoting myself, but this isn’t exactly true. Dahlin definitely didn’t bump Kucherov hard enough to for him to hit UPL as hard as he did, but being the cagey vet that he is, knew he that once Dahlin touched him, he had a free shot at the goalie.

Dahlin has to be smarter than that. It’s not the first time he has hit guys into our goalies.

[GASabresIUFAN]

1 hour ago, Crusader1969 said:

Last point of the night. 
id like to see Mitts with someone other than Oloffson before he is completely given up on

Though, not sure who that would be who would replace OloffsoN   Definitely not breaking up either of the top 2 lines 

Is Rousak the first in line from Rochester ? 

Mitts and VO were very good in the second half of the season 5 on 5 and Mitts for his career has scored most of his goals and assists 5 on 5.  Something is clearly wrong.  Maybe part of it is bad defense and goaltending.  I'm not sure the forwards could have done anything to prevent the 2 goals scored when Mitts and VO were out there.  That said, they aren't creating enough in offense to offset any mistakes made on defense.    

One option is to try Krebs in the middle between Mitts and VO.  Krebs is a playmaker.  Maybe that responsibility will get all of them going? 

 The other option is to find a physical player to create space for VO and Mitts to find opportunities.  I'm not sure who that is? Girgensons maybe?  It might look something like the following:

Skinner TnT Tuch

JJP Cozens Quinn

Girgensons Mitts VO (or Mitts Girgensons VO)

Asplund Jost  KO

If DG goes this route, send Krebs down?

Edited November 29, 2022 by GASabresIUFAN

[Gatorman0519]

Strange.  We are one of the highest scoring teams this year yet in the basement because we give up a lot of goals.  That says a lot about what is wrong.

[Refuting]

23 minutes ago, Gatorman0519 said:

Strange.  We are one of the highest scoring teams this year yet in the basement because we give up a lot of goals.  That says a lot about what is wrong.

Because they score 45797335543 goals once every 5 games 

[SABRES 0311]

1 hour ago, SwampD said:

I hate quoting myself, but this isn’t exactly true. Dahlin definitely didn’t bump Kucherov hard enough to for him to hit UPL as hard as he did, but being the cagey vet that he is, knew he that once Dahlin touched him, he had a free shot at the goalie.

Dahlin has to be smarter than that. It’s not the first time he has hit guys into our goalies.

I agree Dahlin did not hit him hard enough to crash UPL like that. I think that’s why Dahlin went right after him. He knew Kucherov took a “free” shot. Everything has a price though. 

[PerreaultForever]

1 hour ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Mitts and VO were very good in the second half of the season 5 on 5 and Mitts for his career has scored most of his goals and assists 5 on 5.  Something is clearly wrong.  Maybe part of it is bad defense and goaltending.  I'm not sure the forwards could have done anything to prevent the 2 goals scored when Mitts and VO were out there.  That said, they aren't creating enough in offense to offset any mistakes made on defense.    

One option is to try Krebs in the middle between Mitts and VO.  Krebs is a playmaker.  Maybe that responsibility will get all of them going? 

 The other option is to find a physical player to create space for VO and Mitts to find opportunities.  I'm not sure who that is? Girgensons maybe?  It might look something like the following:

Skinner TnT Tuch

JJP Cozens Quinn

Girgensons Mitts VO (or Mitts Girgensons VO)

Asplund Jost  KO

If DG goes this route, send Krebs down?

If one looks at this objectively, no matter how you shuffle it you have one top NHL line, one line of raw talent that still makes errors but shows signs of being consistently good one day and 2 lines of mix and match garbage. 

[Berg]

About our problem at the gate, only the lazy did not say.
But this problem is even more exacerbated when the team plays non-aggressive. 6 goals out of 25 shots is a direct result of too soft defensive play.