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That is literally what going to happen Saturday. They haven’t won in Raleigh since 2016.

The Sabres are making me not care again. This lasted for two games. The best part is, they should come out playing on Saturday,l like their seasons are on the line, but they are probably going to fall Flat on their faces

It’s too early for Scotch.

Thanks for reminding me about the UPL tripping penalty, which killed any chance of a comeback since we played 2 of the last 3.5 minutes in our end killing that penalty. That was dumb and dirty. It was childish and selfish. The Blues are a bad team and yet they knew how to finish a road game and preserve a shutout. Coaching matters. I just want to see if Colton Ellis can play in the NHL. Give him some games then decide on a #2. Why is this so hard?

There are no trap games for the Sabres. There are no should wins. Both of those terms assume the Sabres are the demonstrably better team, and they haven’t shown themselves to be demonstrably better than any other teams in the league in 15 seasons.

...and i didn't even start this thread.

Get your steps in and suck up leaves. Retired guys can relate.

Oh, I thought it was last night. Felt bad for you guys to have to watch that game last night.

Yes. Trap game. The Blues were playing bad, they were embarrassed the night before, so their coach took action. Montgomery said his players should be breaking other players legs to get to the puck first. He did not rest them, he skated them. Remember when Terry flew to Montreal, give his inspirational speech, cancelled the practice, and fly back to the big boat only to have his charges lose 5-1 to the Canadians? As I recall the Sabres cancelled at least two practices during that winless streak of 13 game (11 loses and 2 OTLs). Instead Montgomery skated his team in between a back to back. They worked on fundamentals, and then he benched two significant players. Put good ol' Joe Hofer in net, who knew he had a SV of 1.000 versus Buffalo, and who knew he would pitch a shutout? I did predict the Blues would try hard to slow the Sabres down, limit their scoring chances, control the neutral zone, and wait for the Sabres to leak. Looking at the Sabres depleted roster and all the factors leading up to this game, a Sabres let up was exactly what I expected from this group. The Sabres coaching staff was completely outmatched putting out a jumbled mess of forward lines and another night with a totally impotent PP. Remember that recent game on TNT? The praise that Ellis got, the positive vibes the Sabres created for one night with the National media. Fast forward to now. Since that night the Sabres have a bunch of "celebratory" OTL's that are keeping them alive for now. That Ellis kid has not played another minute since that night either. UPL is back and he is making a lot more clams than both Colton Ellis and good ol' Joe Hofer. That's the way it works in Sabreland.

well there goes that theory on UPL

UPL sucked but even if he was perfect that would have gotten us a tie game. This scoring drought is what is killing us. Very frustrating.

It actually takes a lot of talent and effort to be this bad for this long. Here's to you Terry, Kim, Kevyn...........!

I think you are giving too much credit to Adams having anything resembling a plan. He’s been winging it with terrible results.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t do it or it’s difficult but what do you propose the Sabres do with UPL? NHL contracts are guaranteed. So they’d have to find a trade partner or pay him $5 million to be Rochester’s goalie. I doubt anyone is going to trade for him and Pegula has demonstrated that he isn’t interested in paying people who aren’t with the team. Adams basically hitched his wagon the UPL, he may have to entice a team to take UPL by linking him with an actual asset to get a deal done. So do we want to give up Jiri Kulich to get UPL off the team? Just spitballing what I think would have to happen.

Generally I find myself on the optimistic side of things until it’s too late into the season and the writing on the wall is abundantly clear. This one we dominated the analytics, dominated the third period especially, had a lot of good chances and rung a lot of posts in a night where shots just weren’t falling. They’re still missing 4 guys out of their top 9 and are essentially skating an AHL roster in their absence. I tried sleeping on it, but with this one that stuff just doesn’t matter to me for some reason and feels and sounds like excuses. You’re playing a team among the basement on the NHL, on a back to back where both goalies played, and sitting one of their top players. If you truly want to believe that things have changed, that’s a “must win” game. I don’t care if shots just weren’t falling in this one, I don’t care that they won the analytic battle, I don’t care about the excuses. Getting shut out by a goalie coming in with 5 GAA and .830% is inexcusable. Tage & Dahlin desperately need to show up, all the smoke and rumors about this being unacceptable to them and the dire need to turn it around to keep them happy and here without another rebuild. The brutal fact on the team this season is that the secondary talent and the system has been there, we’re only 5-4-4 with .500 point % BECAUSE of them right now, not in spite of them. The stars need to start being stars, the hustle and secondary play has been there for this team to be successful. I guess there’s not much to do aside from wait and hope they find themselves in a (brutal at that) 4 game road trip. Oh, and let’s get UPL the hell out of a Sabres uniform and never back in one.

We'll tell you in a few weeks when it happens 😂

The palm trees and taxes tax is really the Sheevyn Tax(ation of Trade Routes). How much better off would the franchise be now if --- when Pegula wanted to cut costs --- he had brought in an experienced GM who said "I can save you some cash here and there, but we can win with Eichel/Reinhart/Dahlin/Thompson/Ullmark" instead of saying, "they're a rotten core, we need to remove top skill performers and build around the D-man who is only 20 years old."?

Duff can prepare his speech for the End Of Season Dinner. Should be scheduled soon.

It has to be so demoralizing to see the kazillionth example of hockey decisions that are not about winning.

without the dinner and nice gifts

I just cut my lawn again, North of Buffalo.

Couldn’t watch live. Watched the recording. If Ruff and his staff feel any urgency to win games like this one, against an inferior team that played the previous night, had to travel, and had a practice session in the morning, they failed to convey it to the team. The Blues out skated, outplayed, and wanted the win more than the Sabres. Sure, we were missing parts of our top lines, but two of our top scoring forwards failed to perform with only 2 SOG apiece. We can’t win if we don’t score. UPL was not sharp and his tripping penalty with a few minutes left was careless and beyond stupid. How will Ruff respond to this team failure? How will Adams respond? How will the players respond? Big road trip ahead.

So how was the meet up, the pub, the food, the talk? Never mind on the game.