Taro T

Bandits raised their 3rd consective and 7th overall Championship Banner tonight before taking on the Georgia Swarm. Gave up a goal on the 1st shot less than a minute in, but then the Great Dhane scored on the Bandits' 1st shot to tie it back up. Georgia got the next one but then the Bandits got their act together. They led most of the rest of the 1st half, but Georgia got a couple of late goals to tie it at 8 through 2. Georgia got another quick goal at the start of the 3rd to take their last lead of the game. Bandits scored the next 4. Final was 15-11. Smith had 4. MacKay had a pair. Pretty sure Byrne had a pair. Nanticoke with one or 2. The Captain had a very uncharacteristic goal - it looked like one you'd expect Buchanon to score coming out of the corner and then driving to the net. Robinson had an empty netter to close out the scoring. Don't recall who got the others. One of them was by one of the guys that had been a Bandit a few years ago and his name is drawing a blank right now (it's late, this kid is heading to bed very soon). Frasier who's now playing for a team out west was on the floor for the banner raising ceremony, which was cool. He's been a big part of the 3 championships. Cloutier is also gone. Martin retired. They replaced him with DeSnoo. Brought in a couple other veterans. Spanger is still out from the injury he suffered down the stretch, but has been practicing, so he's close to being back. Next game is at home on the 13th vs Halifax. Nice start to the season. Let's go Ban-dits!!!

He played very well tonight. Only gave up 1 goal he had a chance on and he never should've been in the spot to have to make that save. Personally would play him on Monday and expect Ruff will do so. But, with 3 goalies, unless he gets a shutout Monday, would come back with 1 of the other 2 in the one after that. Had Lyon not gone nearly 4 weeks between getting any action, he probably would've been better. And if he steals 1 of the 1st 2 goals against or doesn't give up the 3rd one, maybe that horseshoe lodged firmly up Allen's arse gets dislodged.

Why not get both?

Well, in fairness, how often are they going to turn it over while Minny's worst players are on the ice? 😉 Mind numbing brain fart by Tuch on that 2nd goal, and it's 100% on Tuch; but Ellis should've had that one.

They call Dahlin often for his reverse check when he's got the puck. It'd be just like that.

As an FYI, the Bandits will be raising the banner tonight at 7:30PM also. Expecting that'll be on ESPN+.

True. BUT you are supposed to be in control of yourself and your equipment. Meier decided to go into that engagement backwards which is why his elbow was up at Samuelsson's head level. There was nothing malicious there, but you can't elbow guys in the head intentionally or unintentionally. And he didn't just catch his head, he was coming in with a full head of steam and Muel was unable to return. It should've at least been a 2 minute penalty and because of the exploding nose and the potential concussion issues, personally expect it should've been a major.

Right after hydro, nuclear is what SHOULD be the go to source for power. MHO.

It certainly seems that he's already found his next GM. Just need to pull the cord.

Yeah, it sure seems that Kekalainen is the GM in waiting. Would really like them to just tear off the band-aid now, so he can start putting his imprint on this team now rather than waiting until July 1. Not the ideal GM but on paper should be significantly better than what they've had post-Regier. And, would really like to see them give Leone and his crew a shot at running the Sabres on an interim basis too. Bump the Sabres coaches, minus Ruff, down to Ra-cha-cha and see if they can keep what Leone has been doing going. And if Appert and crew don't want to move 60 minutes down the Thruway, so be it. Just expect it'd be hard to find an entire AHL coaching staff if they can everyone in Buffalo and don't really want to torpedo that team. IF Appert and the rest are as good as Adams believes they are, they should be able to continue the success there, right? Know none of that'll happen, but we're into the Christmas season (just ask anyone working retail 😉 ) so why not let Sabres fans get an early Christmas present.

But, that's the issue. Neither ref called anything on the play.

Don't worry @PASabreFan, we've got your back.

Which is why Gates no longer considers anthropologically induced global climate change to be the most pressing issue facing the world. He needs more power to run the AI he (and others) are trying to build and windmills and solar farms ain't gonna "git 'er dun." It's ALWAYS about the Benjamins.

$27; no STH discount. They seem to hold 24 oz. The line about 5 minutes into the 1st period still stretched to the main concourse (nearly 1/4 of the rink long). So at least 200 people still in the line, maybe even 3-400.

Tone and Volume.

Passes the eye test. There are times that Byram and Timmons play well together, and it's even a significant portion of the time they're out there; but when they go bad they're Messy-Balls bad and unfortunately those times are significant portions of time too. For the most part, am ok (not good, but ok) with those 2 together when they're at home and they can more or less control which lines they're deployed against. But really don't like them on the road. Still would rather they had a more defensive defenseman up as an option, especially on the road, so they could break up Timmins and Byram, keep from putting Byram and Power together (who are even worse overall than Byram-Timmins via the eye test) and still give Byram somebody defensively responsible to help him out when they can't control matchups.

Ironically, the same reasons that the PK is working well - guys that are outnumbered getting into passing lanes and using active sticks to intercept or at least deflect passes rather than manning up on someone and trying to take the body are likely the same reasons that overall they seem to be giving up more goals 5v5 to date. When you're outmanned, taking the body on someone gives the other team an even more substantial edge. 5v4 becomes 4v3 or 3v2 when guys play an individual man. Getting in the passing lanes, especially when you have really big bodies (most of the PKers) or reeally high hockey IQ guys (like Benson), tends to limit scoring chances when you're down a man or 2. Throw in better goaltending than you've gotten in the past, and the PK ends up fairly effective. But at 5v5, taking space away from a guy or actually manhandling him will be more disruptive than simply trying to take away a passing lane. Still would prefer Wilford gone, but if they could limit his duties to ONLY running the PK, might not hate him sticking around. And, that he doesn't seem to understand, or at minimum he can't convince his troops (aka coaching them), that different situations require different tactics to be successful is a fairly damning reason to get rid of him. And personally expect having Wilford as a coach limits how much physical play Power will add to his game. He plays the way Wilford seems to want him to play. Tough to learn to add other tools to your toolbox when those aren't taught/emphasized.

Saw an article that said that's always been his middle name. Expect that in Namibia it's about as big a deal as having a last name of Satan in the republics making up the former Czechoslovakia.

Bowman didn't care unless it was the night before a game and they were out past curfew. That's a big part of why McKegney became a Nordique.

OK, sorry, misunderstood why you'd posted that. And with the caption to the photos/videos being "this is the accountablility the Buffalo Sabres organization holds their players up too [sic]" thought you were echoing that tweet's view that somehow players must pay a penance for having the audacity to lose a hockey game. 100% want Lyon between the pipes tonight. Expect Ellis will be his backup, pretty sure he hasn't even dressed for the last 3.

Are we seriously getting upset at a player going to a bar AFTER a game? Especially one where he is not likely to get the following start and very likely won't be the backup that night either? There are a lot of things to be critical of UPL's play this year and the past one; but really can't see giving him flack for relaxing after work, especially on one of the "biggest" nights for people going to bars that there is.

One additional point, if the play was SO close to being legitimately onsides that ALL of that went wrong in the evaluation of it; then the offensive team did NOT gain the type of advantage from having had the puckcarrier over the line early that the offside rule was put in place to eliminate. Again, personally am ok with carrying the puck into the zone after you have already entered the zone presuming the puck carrier is in control of the puck.

Again, you are looking to take away a rarely seen play because of the POSSIBILITY of questions POTENTIALLY arising from a significantly even rarer play. That doesn't make sense IMHO. Clearly YMVs. As to your 1st group of Qs. No, the play is not onsides because the puck was NOT carried into the zone by a player in possession of it before at least 1 offensive player was inside the zone. It's pretty clear / cut and dried. And then to your 2nd group of Qs. No, it is not ruled a good goal should the linesman have missed the offside and there is a challenge of the goal. In order to get to the point of the Sabres (per your example) getting screwed by that goal being deemed to have been legit, you need the linesman to miss the offside and you need those reviewing the play to miss the offside as well. Considering how rare that play is when it's cleanly played in a game, am ok with the risk that not only the puckcarrier will lose the puck before it fully crosses the blue line, the linesman is so mesmerized by the move that he doesn't realize the puckcarrier lost the puck, a goal is scored before the defending team has gotten the puck out of the zone or there was a stoppage in play, the coach and his team don't recognize that the puck was lost before it crossed into their zone OR they do recognize it but somehow none of the 4 officials nor anyone in TO reviewing the play manage to notice that it was offside. That is a LOT of things to go wrong in the evaluation of a single very unique play, any single ONE of which going RIGHT will result in no goal being scored. Am ok with those odds. My 2 cents.

How many empty netters did they give up to this point last year? They've given up 9 so far this year. Almost an extra 0.4 GA/game to this point. How many OTL's last year? 4 this year. Not nearly bumping up the GAA like the ENs are, but still, they didn't lose many in OT the past few seasons.

He IS figuring it out. But whether he fully gets it remains to be seen. And whether he does or doesn't will make his contract either be a slight overpay or a huge bargain. And don't expect he'll ever ragdoll people. That was beaten out of him at a very young age.