The Stanley Cup Playoffs 2023: Second Round GDT.

[\GoBillsInDallas/]

9 hours ago, SDS said:

There is a game six on tonight. And please use this topic to talk about the playoffs that are going on.

9 hours ago, pastajoe said:

It’s game six; Vegas is up 3-2 in the series.

9 hours ago, SDS said:

I know. Just a brain fart. I was multitasking.

 

[Flashsabre]

6 hours ago, Quint said:

 

My question is how is everyone here going to react when Eichel turns out to be MVP of the Stanley Cup winning team this year?

Not bothered at all.

The situation here was never going to work with Eichel, Reinhart, Risto etc driving the bus.

They were great players but the mix was never going to lead to success. I would make those trades 10/10 again.

Those guys went to teams with established cultures where they just had to blend in. Good for them but the culture and system Adams has built here is much better for the Sabres future success.

If Levi And Kulich hit like we think they will then that is a tremendous trade for Reinhart. Eichel for Tuch, Krebs, Östlund And Greenway is also great considering the situation they were in.

[Dr. Who]

10 minutes ago, Flashsabre said:

Not bothered at all.

The situation here was never going to work with Eichel, Reinhart, Risto etc driving the bus.

They were great players but the mix was never going to lead to success. I would make those trades 10/10 again.

Those guys went to teams with established cultures where they just had to blend in. Good for them but the culture and system Adams has built here is much better for the Sabres future success.

If Levi And Kulich hit like we think they will then that is a tremendous trade for Reinhart. Eichel for Tuch, Krebs, Östlund And Greenway is also great considering the situation they were in.

Agree with everything except the first sentence. I'm for Dallas, then Seattle, not for Vegas. Don't mind Florida. Carolina kind of irritates me, but they're a solid team. Just don't like Boston boy and I don't want him to win the Cup before us, so that is likely how it will play out.

[LabattBlue]

F Vegas and F that masshole Eichel. 

[OverPowerYou]

Go Stars I guess? The lesser of the 4 evils 

[Gatorman0519]

Eichel looks like he is an elite playoff performer. It’s a shame we could not make it work. Shows just how bad of a dysfunctional organization we have been versus a team like Vegas. No other way around that. 

[Randall Flagg]

7 hours ago, thewookie1 said:

I honestly hope someday we can get a guy who needed a change of scenery to be great. Perhaps we do already with Tuch.....

Eichel's success infuriates me, but I also honestly think the drama and the new scenery made him grow up. You can just see how much more mature he looks game to game; he doesn't mope around or look disinterested every other shift. It effectively makes me unsure how to see him going forward in the playoffs. Essentially I know that he'd of likely never achieved this maturity with Buffalo regardless of if we got better with him or not. Unlike when ROR left for St.L, I genuinely think present Eichel was never in the cards here as he is growing up finally. I think last season finally humbled him and the many vets on the team effectively put him in his place.

Pure unadulterated cope

[Doohicksie]

I saw the complaints about the late start but that doesn't even begin to describe the bitch slap the NHL got from ESPN on this one... as they were telling viewers the game could be seen fullscreen on ESPN2, the first goal was scored.  Brutal.

And... pretzels???

[inkman]

9 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

I saw the complaints about the late start but that doesn't even begin to describe the bitch slap the NHL got from ESPN on this one... as they were telling viewers the game could be seen fullscreen on ESPN2, the first goal was scored.  Brutal.

And... pretzels???

This is the least surprising thing ever 

[Eleven]

1 hour ago, Wyldnwoody44 said:

I'm more annoyed about Mark Stone being allowed to play than I am about Eichel playing like Eichel. 

Same here & I agree w/ the posters who recognize that Eichel's defensive development began here.

[klos1963]

8 hours ago, thewookie1 said:

I honestly hope someday we can get a guy who needed a change of scenery to be great. Perhaps we do already with Tuch.....

Eichel's success infuriates me, but I also honestly think the drama and the new scenery made him grow up. You can just see how much more mature he looks game to game; he doesn't mope around or look disinterested every other shift. It effectively makes me unsure how to see him going forward in the playoffs. Essentially I know that he'd of likely never achieved this maturity with Buffalo regardless of if we got better with him or not. Unlike when ROR left for St.L, I genuinely think present Eichel was never in the cards here as he is growing up finally. I think last season finally humbled him and the many vets on the team effectively put him in his place.

He was mature enough here and his game was very good. 

Just because he wanted out, who could blame him,  doesn't make him immature and he wasn't moping.

People make it out that he wasn't a good Sabre and try to make him look bad because he got sick of the organization,  but he was an excellent and still hasn't hit his prime yet. 

It also appears that he was correct about his neck surgery and the Sabres were not. 

 

[Porous Five Hole]

1 hour ago, OverPowerYou said:

Go Stars I guess? The lesser of the 4 evils 

After ‘99, there’s just no way I can get there.  To me, the Panthers are the lesser of two evils. 

[Doohicksie]

7 hours ago, thewookie1 said:

You can just see how much more mature he looks game to game; he doesn't mope around or look disinterested every other shift.

I wouldn't be surprised to find out Eichel's neck injury was hampering his play for quite a while before he was traded.  Looking at his injury history the first two I see that were Upper Body were in January, then again December, 2019.  He just missed a few days with each.  I wonder if it was bothering him prior to that but he tried to work through it.  I'm no Eichel fan but if he's been dealing with neck pain back that far (or even further back) I could see where the constant pain would lead to him taking shortcuts or not putting full effort, trying to save himself for big impact plays.

If he was playing injured before he missed time and felt that he wasn't getting good care from the medical staff (whether or not he was, if he was in pain it would color his judgment), he might have been feuding with the team's management for some time.  I could see a situation where "there ain't no good guys, there ain't no bad guys" but if Kevyn was aware of what was going on I could see where he wanted to move that problem out of the room.

It could also explain why he was always looking up to the rafters at the end of a play.... if it relieved the neck pain....

[Doohicksie]

15 minutes ago, Porous Five Hole said:

After ‘99, there’s just no way I can get there.  To me, the Panthers are the lesser of two evils. 

At this point I've got nothing against the Stars.  I have a problem with the league and its officiating, but the Stars were trying to win a Cup, same as the Sabres.  The bad taste has more to do with officiating that with the other team.

That said, of the teams remaining I think my preference would be Panthers, Stars/Hurricanes, Seattle, VGK.

[Stoner]

4 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

At this point I've got nothing against the Stars.  I have a problem with the league and its officiating, but the Stars were trying to win a Cup, same as the Sabres.  The bad taste has more to do with officiating that with the other team.

That said, of the teams remaining I think my preference would be Panthers, Stars/Hurricanes, Seattle, VGK.

It was fine.

[Doohicksie]

23 minutes ago, klos1963 said:

It also appears that he was correct about his neck surgery and the Sabres were not. 

My feeling is the Sabres, Kevyn specifically, leveraged the neck injury to move Eichel out.  Even if Eichel was "right" (whatever that means in what might have been a very complex situation) I can still see why Adams wanted to move on from a core that to date had not brought any success.  He felt more comfortable leveraging key pieces of that core in their prime to bring in the kinds of players he wanted.  He attempted to flip the frustrated Tankfruit for good vibes, and spread the talent more deeply through the lineup.  I'd say he was successful.

1 minute ago, PASabreFan said:

It was fine.

What was?

[OverPowerYou]

56 minutes ago, Porous Five Hole said:

After ‘99, there’s just no way I can get there.  To me, the Panthers are the lesser of two evils. 

I don’t understand peoples hate for the hurricanes. It’s not the hurricanes fault that the Sabres had so many defensemen hurt 

[That Aud Smell]

22 minutes ago, OverPowerYou said:

I don’t understand peoples hate for the hurricanes. 

for me, it's mostly this

[inkman]

1 hour ago, Porous Five Hole said:

After ‘99, there’s just no way I can get there.  To me, the Panthers are the lesser of two evils. 

17 minutes ago, OverPowerYou said:

I don’t understand peoples hate for the hurricanes. It’s not the hurricanes fault that the Sabres had so many defensemen hurt 

[inkman]

1 hour ago, Porous Five Hole said:

After ‘99, there’s just no way I can get there.  To me, the Panthers are the lesser of two evils. 

 

25 minutes ago, OverPowerYou said:

I don’t understand peoples hate for the hurricanes. It’s not the hurricanes fault that the Sabres had so many defensemen hurt 

I don’t understand this mentality at all. Cup thieves?  WTF is that supposed to mean.  Those teams didn’t deserve the cup?  Laughable.  Sounds like man baby fan bois that can’t handle reality.  Grow the ***** up.  Life sucks.  Deal with it. 

[That Aud Smell]

1 minute ago, inkman said:

I don’t understand this mentality at all. Cup thieves?  WTF is that supposed to mean.  Those teams didn’t deserve the cup?  Laughable.  Sounds like man baby fan bois that can’t handle reality.  Grow the ***** up.  Life sucks.  Deal with it. 

I don't think it's a mentality, nor is it something to be taken seriously. It's just a radio person looking to drive engagement. But not with you, it appears.

[Porous Five Hole]

1 hour ago, Doohickie said:

At this point I've got nothing against the Stars.  I have a problem with the league and its officiating, but the Stars were trying to win a Cup, same as the Sabres.  The bad taste has more to do with officiating that with the other team.

That said, of the teams remaining I think my preference would be Panthers, Stars/Hurricanes, Seattle, VGK.

Brett Hull has been wiping Sabres faces in it since then. It’s cool you have a softer spot for the local team. I don’t think Buffalo (by and large) agrees with you.  

[Dr. Who]

1 hour ago, Doohickie said:

At this point I've got nothing against the Stars.  I have a problem with the league and its officiating, but the Stars were trying to win a Cup, same as the Sabres.  The bad taste has more to do with officiating that with the other team.

That said, of the teams remaining I think my preference would be Panthers, Stars/Hurricanes, Seattle, VGK.

I more or less share that order of preference. I was in grad school at the University of Dallas for the 1999 Stanley Cup Finals. I have a friend from Edmonton, so we'd gone to root for the Oil in one of the nosebleeds earlier in the year. I previously had liked the Minnesota Northstars, so I had no preexisting animus. Fortunately, I have always been a brooding, melancholic fella, so no one noticed any difference in my behavior after the No Goal experience. I tried to explain to my roommate about the hockey, but he was a farm boy from Iowa and couldn't comprehend how all that was further proof that the universe was conspiring to screw Buffalo, NY out of championships. I know a few Catholic priests. Now that we actually might start to be good again, I'm wondering if there is a variant of exorcism that might work. 

[mjd1001]

16 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

Well ya, but isn't that just a long way of saying they made smart decisions and built the right way? 

When these 30ish year olds are getting too old their draft choices could be ready to step in. Isn't that the way you're supposed to stay competitive?

We tore down but the difference is we chose to build back up with almost entirely young players or picks and added little in free agency. As a cap floor team we could have spent a little more and been a little better (and we didn't need to be a lot better to make the playoffs).

Yes it is a long way of saying just that.  The advantage an expansion team has is they are going to have a huge list of those late 20-year-old guys avaible to pick from that existing teams don't.  If they do things the right way, they can be playoff-competitive a lot quicker than a team rebuilding from nothing.

[Taro T]

11 hours ago, Thorny said:

Still drawing a blank on 19/20, eh? 

he was changing then. He had changed then. The easiest thing is to just admit that season happened. He was still young, that’s usually when the development DOES happen 

waaay improved defensively. Even traditional stats like plus minus back that up. And that was on a not good defensive team. His post game interviews were *significantly* improved that year, which I’ve tried to mention 10s of times. He wasn’t all the way there, but it’s not like he became a new player this year. What we saw was expected upscale relative to supporting cast improvement, coaching included. It’s not like he didn’t further mature this year, but that’s still expected given traditional development curves and the experience of coming of age as an NHLer

Still wonder how different the path would've been had Reinhart also been on a LT deal when Adams was taking over.  If Eichel knew his buddy wouldn't be able to bolt in a year (or 2, depending on whether we're talking about the 1st time Eichel said 'if you're rebuilding, maybe you should trade me' or after the debacle post-Covid season), would he have been more receptive to the changes that were coming?

The die has been cast and those guys are gone, but said back then that with the right additions/changes THAT team could've become contenders themselves.  The success that Reinhart & Montour and Eichel are having lends credence to that.  Especially if O'Reilly had been given the leadership reins rather than getting punted.  At least this team is likeable and seems poised to finally break the streak (and 5 years sooner than the Bills broke theirs).

Not expecting Florida to be able to get past the Canes, but that should be a great series.  On paper, Vegas should be able to beat the winner of Dallas / Seattle but expect Dallas will make it 2 expansion teams in a row they eliminate if they can get past the 1st one.