Taro T

Don't know about that. But in the Bills bye week, they play FLA, Detroit, and TO. Blow those 3 games convincingly and our long national, er, neighborhood, er SABREhood nightmare might mercifully start to end. Not rooting for any losses, but expecting there's a reasonable chance this might work out. 😉

Sadly, doubt anyone even told Pegula the Sabres were playing today. He is certainly down in ATL getting ready for "a Monday night party." They need to stop playing the same day the Bills play if we're ever going to get any traction.

Pleasantly surprised by Bryson today. He was in the right spot often today and broke up several plays; he still had issues getting the puck to a teammate, but he was not an issue today from the eye test. Thought Johnson played pretty well too. Really liking the effort Doan brings. And was absolutely shocked, but Quinn tangled with an Av near the Avs net in the 2nd and actually got the better of the Av. Heck, the Av's helmet got knocked off somehow. Really disliked the call on Dahlin for the 1st interference call on him. Htf do you "interfere" with the puck carrier? Pretty sure that's officially known as a "check" which, last we checked, was still legal. Also, not surprised Tuch got called for embellishment. Live it looked like he took a serious dive; but watching on replay it looked like the Av didn't just get his stick in his legs but also got his hip into him and the combination of both seemed to be why he got knocked down so "easily." But they still are wasting some incredible goaltending by Lyon. We got the version that Detroit THOGUHT they were getting when they signed him to that multiyear contract. Maybe they can start scoring more than just one on Wednesday. The Otters are another bad team like Buffalo. Should be a good game. (Of course, expected that to be the case against the Rags too.)

Don't know what's up with Thompson, but it LOOKS like he's intentionally trying to get somebody fired. Didn't get back to the car in time to hear his interview and GR's discussing it made it sound like he still is trying and expects things can get turned around. But just everything he does just seems off. Even that goal he scored was simply throwing it towards the net; it wasn't a shot he expected to have work. Most all his shots are going into the goalie's crest, unless he's shooting at an open net and then it's going wide or over the net. His passes are off, he's taking an extra half second to get shots off. Tuch doesn't seem right either. Realize the 2 of them combined with Dahlin to score the goal, but Dahlin's the only 1 of the 3 that has looked pretty much like himself so far. And he had that horrific pass to Nikushin that set Makar up for the winner which totally changed the flow of the game. Until that play, the Sabres were getting the best of the play and seemed like they'd actually get a lead sometime in that 2nd period if they could just keep it up.

Wonder if getting a 5 on 3 and having about 45 seconds of PP to start the 2nd would've been enough to get the PP off the schneid. When Malinski threw the puck over the glass, it should've been a penalty. The puck was well over the glass and was going to land in the crowd until Kelly reached over the glass and knocked the puck back into the bench area with his stick. Have NEVER seen that happen before. The puck literally was on its way to landing 2-3 rows behind the Avs bench and the guy just plucked it out of the air and back into "no harm, no foul" land. Incredibly quick thinking, but astounded that not one of the officials on the ice saw what happened.

Yes. One broke out with about 10 minutes to go in the 3rd and another broke out in the last minute of the game.

Not specifically talking about next October; just saying that when you inadvertently tank, which is what this season seems to be headed for (though winning the next 4 games could dramatically change that outlook), you can come out of it extremely quickly. Also, was 100% on board with Adams going away and most if not all the coaching staff as well. So, would've rather they not go through an inadvertent tank, but does it not seem that's where we're heading? (Kind of like when they kept Housley around 1 year too long. And Housley repaid the favor of being dead coach walking by giving Skinner top line minutes down the stretch to get him to 40 goals which resulted in him getting his ridiculous contract.) Personally, would rather they rip the bandaid off now, rather than wait until May to do so. And whatever happens, happens. But do you honestly expect ownership to be on board with that anytime soon (barring something truly horrific like a 1-10-1 October)?

Cool. Won a game. Fully expect the wheels to fall off any day now, but at least won't go o-fer. Big dreams are for the perpetually miserable as they rarely get reached. Set your sights much lower, and you likely won't be disappointed. 😉

The fiip side of accidental tanks is they're often due to either injury, severely aged rosters, or incompetent coaching. At least 2 of which, if not all 3, can be cured by the time puck drops the 1st time next October. Should this turn into an inadvertent tank, it has 2 of those as the root causes plus an incompetent GM. Get a competent GM, get competent coaching, and you likely "luck" into better health as well. There are a lot of good pieces on this roster. It isn't a full tear down at present, nor should there be a full teardown. There should be an add to. And tell Dahlin and Thompson they can expect to play out their contracts here in Buffalo; if they have the sads because of that they can get a puppy. The Sabres no longer send very good to great players out the door simply because they've asked to do so or have driven their car through a Tim Horton's. (Does anybody honestly think O'Reilly was traded because he l"ost his love for hockey" and not because he embarrassed the heck of the owners right after they gave him a huge contract?)

Not only that, but who exactly do they expect will be taking the kids to the game? School field trip with a busload of kids and 2 chaperones? How many of the kids parents work at banks or for the government? Even the NYSE isn't taking this banker's holiday. So, so, so on brand.

It sure does seem like they've quit on Ruff. Clean house. Now. Letting this fester through the entire season so everybody can be let go with no outstanding money owed will convert this from a single additional lost season into an additional 3-4 lost season affair.

Adams back, every single coach back, and ending up with $3MM in cap space after seeming to not get equal value in the Peterka trade lead to this off-season being extremely disappointing. Then not having Kesselring nor Benson available to start the year and losing Norris before the 1st game was over simply compound it. Lyon actually looking like the Swamp Cat version of himself with all the rest of that, even though it's a pleasant surprise, is simply a waste at this point.

Thought they had 4 chances in Beantown. If so, 0-8. Heckuva job there, Appie.

it was an interesting experiment. It failed spectacularly, but it was interesting. Now that there are so many schools with sports management programs, wonder if there'll be any case studies done on these past 5 years. Figure there have to be, right? Presumably they'll switch gears back to conventional wisdom next year; but they really need to make that happen now. They should hold the purge right after they get stomped by the Avs. Maybe if they (ownership) show the good players that they do get it and they will get them support then they won't all want to desperately be gone. This roster isn't that far away if they could add 2 or 3 pieces AND get NHL caliber coaching. Can Adams, let Jarmo or Karmanos decide how to try to make improvements for this season and if they're doing well let them stay on next year; if they aren't, well you have a clean slate to fix the FO and coaching.

With all due respect to the '74-'75 squad which couldn't win a game in Filly to save their lives but due to tiebreakers would have to win at minimum 1 game there heading into that series and as it turned out would've needed 2 wins there which was pretty much impossible back then, the 3 times the Sabres were closest to winning it all were '99, '01, and '06. Yes, Dallas was the better team overall, but there was a reasonable chance that Modano and Hull (and maybe even Niewendyk) would not be able to go in game 7. Take any of them out of the lineup and the Sabres have a great chance to win a game 7 if they can score 1 more goal in game 6 after they drop the puck at the Sabres blue line. In '01 they should've beat the Pens. If they did, they had Joisey's # that year, and beat the Avs in Colorado with Biron in net. So, they had a great likelihood of getting past the Devils and then could've won a long series versus the Avs. Yeah, in '06 they were 20 minutes away from facing a much weaker Euler team, but those injuries to the D and Connolly were killers. Had they been able to stay healthy rather than lose a D-man after every victory in the Semis, yeah, they definitely win that and then hoist the Cup by the end of the next round. It's an interesting exercise to think of which one of those teams had the best chance to take it all. The '93 squad needs mention too. Yes, they lost in the 2nd round to the eventual Cup champs in 4 straight. But all 4 of those were 4-3 games, 3 went to OT, and all 4 they had an injured Fuhr between the pipes rather than the best goalie that ever lived who, btw, was between the pipes when Brad May made Ray Bourque look like Phil Bourque. Each of those 1 goal games also had at least 1 bad goal given up by Fuhr. Get past Moe-ray-all and the Aisles were much weaker and then the LA series could've gone either way. The '80 team had the misfortune of winning their 2nd round too quickly, or so the story goes. They sat around for 9 days waiting for their next opponent and couldn't get back into the swing of things until they were behind the 8 ball facing a 3 game deficit. Thing is, the Aisles sat around for a full week too waiting for Minny and Moe-ray-all to finish their series. They had a chance to win it all, but they always had problems with the Aisles back then and the Phlyers too and even if they got past the Aisles, Filly would've been waiting there for them. Personally felt they were further from winning it all than any of those other teams mentioned here, and were farther than '89 and '07 as well.

Hamsammich didn't patent that. Andrea Kramer was nailing the 2 minute long non-question question on ESPN long before Hammy was contemplating a career in sports journalism. He's merely the cheap 3D printed knock off getting sold on E-bay to unsuspecting collectors. Good for Lyon on not running with Paul's set up. Wonder if he becomes Paul's new Reinhart?

It's rare for the top players to be good coaches. Toe Blakes are pretty much unicorns. Even Brind'Amours are fairly rare. How does Gretzky go about explaining to his team how to understand where the puck is going to be in 4 seconds and where all other 11 guys are now and where they'll be in a few seconds? Answer: he doesn't. You pretty much can't teach that. But the guys that have to bust their arses to get to and stay in the league are, along with former goalies, the guys that tend to be the best coaches and can fairly often translate to management as well. (Though studs seem to have better track records on the management side than the coaching side. There are more of them that make good than there are that make good coaches. Probably because a lot of management is schmoozing with their compatriots and they're the ones that as players were always getting the interview requests and attention so they're good at that part of the job.) Adams fits firmly in that guys who had to bust their arse to get and stay there. Probably should've moved back to the development side of things after running a rink rather than running a team.

Krebs didn't shoot it wide. His fumble of receiving the pass gave Swayman time to get across and get a glove on it. That needed to be a 1 timer. If it was, Krebs would've had the Sabres 1st goal of the year.

Have been very disappointed in Quinn's play so far this year. Seems he's picked up right where he started last year. A smidge harsh; he was absolutely beyond awful at the beginning of last year, this year he's just bad.

Zucker!

Far and away his worst game in years. He's back to baby giraffe level tonight.

A team starts out well but gets worse - the coach is a good motivator but not particularly good at the X & O's. Ruff used to be good at the X&O's. The crew taking direction from him are notorious for not being good at that. Heck, Ruff's predecessor didn't even try to teach the X&O's of D for a couple of years. And Ruff has ALL those same guys that worked for Donny working for him now. (Even Ellis didn't get canned, just reassigned to non-game day on bench duties.)

They've got something like 6 guys on IR and you want the regulars playing even MORE meaningless hockey? How about instead of playing more meaningless games, they get NHL caliber coaches who can run the sort of drills to get them ready to play hockey against actual NHL opponents?

Interesting. Used to be kids were just conceived there, not born there too. 😉

You're thinking of the team under Granato. Ruff had them ready to go in the 1st. Ruff couldn't get them to sustain that for the full 60. Now, it seems he can't even get that 1st period going well. This has the makings of a very long season.