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I’ll be sure to close F’ntastic Friday on Good Friday

Wishing people Happy Thanksgiving sucks. Happy Thanksgiving.

The numbers match the eyes. He’s been very good and everything he was always supposed to be.

Hold on to your drumsticks.

Well its Thanksgiving morning. Reading the thread it feels more like Thanksgiving mourning. Blame UPL, Timmins, Power, Tage, whoever and whatever - it was a team loss. It was another game that they looked not ready and unwilling. They are just not a hungry team. The Sabre sit last in their division and last in their conference on this celebratory day. They are only 6 points out of the final playoff spot but the hard part is they have to pass 8 teams in the standings to get there. The cannot seem to get a winning streak going, two games is not a winning streak. They need to start winning at a pace of 2 out of 3 games over the next month to crawl up the standings. Otherwise things will look very bleak by Christmas.

Is that your complaint? That the thread is open on Thanksgiving? Because thats a pretty decent and ironic one if it is...

Watch the highlight again. Tage had good positioning in front as there were two Penguins on the left of UPL down low. There were also two Sabres much, much closer to Rust. Benson dives and whiffs on the puck. Byrum is next closest and offers a lame attempt at a shot block. Offering us a glimpse of his poor defensive skills. Tage was not great overall, but this goal was less on him than others.

On THANKSGIVING?!?!? Since when is this thread open on Thanksgiving?

Really wanted Lyon to get the start last night, but knew it would be UPL between the pipes. And UPL's defenders can point to things that his teammates did to put him in the point that he had to make saves, but that's kind of the entire point of the position. If nobody makes a mistake, you are going to face only about 5 high danger chances per game. But people make mistakes, it's a very quick paced sport and your opponent is taking away time and space, and the good goalies bail their teammates out more often than not. And if the game situation is removed, UPL didn't give up any "bad" goals. Each of the shots that beat him had a factor that made it more challanging than a normal save; but NONE of them were of the "well, Hasek could've stopped it, maybe, but mere mortals didn't have a chance" variety. Yes, the 1st goal was tipped, but the shot was from nearly 10' above the circle and Bryam's stick was at or outside the circle too. If UPL's entire body isn't moving towards the far post, he very likely makes that save even though it was deflected. Yes, his teammates didn't help him on the 2nd goal, but he's the one that overreacted to the initial shot that went wide, which led to him having to overreact when the puck bounced off the boards into his skates which led to him dropping his stick. Once he dropped his stick, he was toast, but he didn't need to be. Stay square and plan on closing the 5 hole with his legs rather than his blocker and that play continues. But he continued the overreaction and tried to make the save with his blocker which delayed the closing of the 5 hole. Yes, his teammates made a poor line change on the 3rd goal and Power didn't step up into the deflector in time to keep him from directing the puck at the net, but UPL only had to move 1/2 way across the crease to get in front of that shot. It wasn't labelled to the far post. If he isn't fully commited to the shot on a 3 on 1, he makes that save. It wasn't a mini 2 on 1 that he should expect his D-man to be able to prevent the shot from the pass, but it was a mini 3 on 1; he has to be cognizant that there's a good chance he's facing a shot from his left side and can't 100% commit to the puck carrier being the shooter. But, when the game situation is included in the evaluation, all 3 were goals that the team really needed him to figure out how to make that stop. The good news is that UPL didn't give up any WTF Specials. The bad news is, all 3 of those goals came while the outcome of the game was still in doubt. The 1st came on only the 3 shot his teammates let get through to him in a scoreless game late in the 1st; the 2nd came literally 30 seconds after his teammates had tied the score; and the 3rd came as time was dwindling when already trailing by 1. That 3rd goal made it an almost certainty that they'd have to pull the goalie at the end and they had given up 8 EN goals this year and have scored 0 6v5 goals this year. That stat is now 9 against 0 for. He isn't looking confident from the get go in any of these games. He's overreacting and fighting to make the 1st stop. He's seemed to be settling in in the 2nd period but he's still isn't looking confident when the game is getting tight. No idea how they give him confidence in himself. That has to come from within. And the shame of that is they set him up to be in a spot to believe in himself and get the team to believe in him too which is that feedback loop that gets him rolling (at least until he runs out of gas 1-2 months later).

Just think, Power is two years of perpetual beatdown younger.

Agree. We seem to get goalied a lot. But, we never seem to do the goaliing, at least when UPL is in net. We don’t need a perfect goalie, but at least one who has the ability to steal some games here and there. This isn’T UPL.

Please note it's November. This stuff isn't fixed but fluid.

🤷‍♀️

I spent some time yesterday looking at McKenna. I'm beyond concerned by his 2way game. This board already loses its mind when a guy does a weak fly-bye on the backcheck or along walls and holy bleep is that McKenna. Offensively, dynamic, skilled, amazing. Defensive, lacks scanning, doesn't get position on checks, his board game fails unless he can get the puck on his stick with room. If Buffalo were say, Colorado or Carolina, I'd take McKenna but Stenberg, Belchetz, and Lawrence really feel like guys who will be better rounded in the NHL. But who's better Ovechkin or Tkachuk?

I was a bit curious if terry got then at a price lower than valuation, but not really.

Remove Roswell from the title and that's our other 364 days of the year.

All the talk in the Penguin game thread about goaltenders needing to steal a game here and there. Islanders outshot the Bruins 45 - 14 last night. Boston wins 3 - 1. Swayman 44 saves.

I don’t want either of them anywhere near Team USA at this point. It’s gotta be earned, not given.

Brisket is better. But happy thanksgiving anyway!

Colorado and Dallas are wagons. Must be fun to be a fan of those teams.

Bump

Statistically regarding UPL. And yeah, I know defenders of him are going to say stats aren't perfect. I agree, they aren't, but they are what we have other than our 'eye test'. Looking at his play a little differently..how many goals does he actually allow vs the 'exected goals' allowed for each game? Expected goals being statistically the quality of all shots he took translated into a league average of how many goals would/should be scored. (again, it may not be perfect but its probably the single best stat we have) And yes, last night might be an indication of the fact the stat isn't perfect, the expected goals allowed doesn't take into consideration blatant bad plays by the defense. But over the course of a period, a game or even a series of games, the number tends to 'even out'. Vs Pitt: 3 goals allowed, 1.09 expected goals allowed Vs Car: 1 goal allowed, 2.71 expected goals allowed Vs Chi: 3 goals allowed, 1.86 expected goals allowed Vs Col: 3 goals allowed, 2.97 expected goals allowed Vs StL: 2 goals allowed, 0.67 expected goals allowed Vs Wash: 3 goals allowed, 2.02 expected goals allowed Vs Tor: 4 goals allowed, 1.58 expected goals allowed. So with the exception of the Carolina game, he has allowed as many, more more goals compared to the quality and quanity of the shots taken against him. Ellis has a a negative expected goals above average stat right now, just like UPL does. The difference is most of Ellis' bad number comes from one game that brought his whole season down. UPL is just pretty consistently below average.

Sure, but goalies let in goals all the time, and players don’t need to turn the puck over. Lindy Ruff’s teams have failed to make the playoffs in 7 of his last 10 years as a HC, and over those years have consistently been at the bottom of the league in defensive and goaltending metrics. The teams he coaches simply do not play with a repeatable and sound structure that players can reliably fall back on. And here we are, dead last in the East on Thanksgiving, with a team that struggles to play with any consistency or structure. It is fair to criticize UPL as it has been a year now since he was consistently good (and for most of that year he has been bad). It’s hard for me to point the finger at individual players though. In my view, it is far more likely that UPL eventually becomes a good goalie on another NHL team (or under a different HC), than it is that the Sabres become a playoff team with Ruff as HC.

It is more that it is a "good indicator" Every year, at least two teams per conference that were NOT in a playoff spot by american Thanksgiving make it in. Last year Montreal was in dead last and rallied to make the playoffs. Do I think the Sabres will do that this year? Not really - but it could happen, I suppose.