carpandean

It's amazing that in the last 41 games, they have separated by another 41 points. It would be interesting to go back and check the widest gap between 1st and last over a season. It has to be in jeopardy. Edit: 2016-17 gap was 70, 2005-06 gap was 67, 2013-14 gap was 65. Currently, TBL-OTT are on pace for 66, but as I said, 41 of the 53 so far have been in the last 41 games, so ...

For fun, teams in the East since their respective 25th games (end of streak for Sabres): (As usual, relative to 95-point "playoff" pace.)

But ... he was traded to the Sabres after Jack Eichel was drafted and the goal went back to being the Cup. He was, in fact, part of a series of trade meant (by ExGMTM) to accelerate the rebuild after Jack was here. They just didn't work as expected. Last year wasn't a tank; they just way underperformed. (For the record, I didn't want O'Reilly traded and didn't think that he had to be after the interview. Just arguing against the point that he was expected to be happy tanking.)

I believe that most people who said that were assuming that the Sabres would use the cap space to go after a 2nd-line center. Clearly, that did not happen. ☹️

Who says these Sabres aren't consistent: Also, they have caught the 2011-12 Sabres and are chasing down (pun intended) 2015-16 and 2016-17. This could be the worst season in which we did not finish last since before the 2004-05 lockout.

Yeah, that call could have gone either way. What bothers me (philosophically) about the replay rule is that the goal was 17 seconds after the zone entry and, if I remember correctly, a Pittsburgh player had possession of the puck at one point after the entry, but failed to clear it. Technically, it's fruit of the poisoned tree, but at that point, it starts to get ridiculous to go back. It's especially irritating when it happens after the game has ended in a tie, so they threw out some strange shinny game (which would be followed by a skills competition, if needed), all to decide a point that didn't exist until the game ended in a tie. It's already a coin-flip based on different rules than the actual game, itself, for a nonsensical extra point.

Missed the game ... ? ... saw this thread ... ? ... got to the end ... ?

Unless you're suggesting that they lose out, then no, they are not. They already have more points than the majority of last-place teams since the 2004-05 lockout and still have 23 games left. In the last 5 games, they are a pathetic 1-4-0. Even if they continue that pace for the rest of the season, they will have more point than every last-place team since the 2004-05 lockout. Ottawa needs to make up 14 points in 23 games, but in the last 10 games ... the Sabres have GAINED a point (3-6-1 vs. 3-7-0.) In fact, if Ottawa keeps up their last 10 pace and the Sabres lose out, they would be basically tied (Ottawa's pace would give 62.8 points.) I'm not saying that it's impossible, but they are not "on pace" to do that (it's bad practice to project a trend from three data points, especially since they were 3-1-1 in the five games before those three.)

In the 33 games since the win streak, this has been the second-worst (tied with 2013-14) Sabres team over the same stretch since the 2004-05 lockout season, earning just 27 of a possible 66 points. Only 2014-15 was worse with just 18 of 66 points. In fact, they had two more points over the same stretch last year. If they continue on that pace, they'll finish with about 83 points.

I always laugh a little when a team that trade away a player for a pick posts that they "acquired a pick" (especially a late-round one ... next year), as though it were something big that they went out and got. Probably wouldn't have sounded as good to say: "OFFICIAL: #NYR sent Marek Mazanec packing to the Vancouver Canucks for a measly seventh-round pick in the 2020 NHL Draft."

Remember that less than two seconds earlier Sheary was almost at the boards on Howard's left side: He then cut across before making the shot. So, Howard was moving left-to-right with the play. Edit: for reference, here's his position about 1 second before the shot was released:

The screen hides the release, making it difficult to judge trajectory. Howard sees that Sheary is shooting and does what most goaltenders do these days; he drops down to cover the lower part of the net. It ends up squeaking in right next to his blocker just before he reacts and moves it out. Notice that he's still dropping down in the third shot, then moves his blocker in the fourth (one frame later on the video.) While I might like him to pick it up in time (if I were a Detroit fan), it's not so far out that I would call it a true softie.

Might have to throw in Beaulieu to get his attention. ?

So does he, apparently. ?

Anybody time that? Might have been record time. ?

Not only did the Sabres finally fall out of the playoffs (for equal games played), but they have also fallen below the 2008-09 Sabres. Oh, and they're just 5 points above 2016-17.

Even worse, it was a three-point game against Boston. ?

Is it bad that I kinda want to see Kassian get a hat trick? Maybe Lucic, too?

Fixed.

The game against Carolina was far worse than this one. The Sabres played well and had a very good chance of pulling one, if not two points. Yes, they made some key mistakes and the refs didn't help, but I thought it was a good game against clearly the best team in the league. It's only the context of the recent trend and coming off of that bad loss in Carolina that makes this feel worse.

Finally took the tree down on Wednesday. Took boxes of ornaments and lights to the basement and dragged the dying carcass out to the curb. This kinda feels like that.

I agree, in part because of the history behind it. It's been pointed out, though, that the lack of blue on the lower part of the current white jersey is largely due to the split stripes design. It was bad enough on the Reeboks, where the outer blue stripes was split with silver, but is just plain dumb on the Adidas, where they are split with white. Going with solid blue on those would help a lot: Note: the blue center strip on the bottom looks better when you add the blue pants with it: Edit: I just looked at the link and I see that they concept already fixes the two-tone blue/white stripes. Oops.

And because he had played center ... in Finland ... before being traded to another team, where he was moved to RW and finally became productive. ?