Taro T

They are gripping their sticks waaaaaay too tight. That stupid AZ loss put them into a 5 game losing streak by the time they played Vancouver and they looked like dog #### last night. Now they are setting themselves up to fail again tonight even though they are working (IMHO YMMV). Lather, rinse, repeat.

We are watching him slowly turn into Zemgus Girgensons w/ every shift.

Was going with beer, but ...

Uhh, aren't you forgetting something?

There likely are 8,000 STHers, but expect that includes 1/2 season packages too. (Doubt they count 1/4 season packages & definitely don't count mini-pack holders as 5-9 games don't come close to holding seasons.) So, there's probably 6,500-7,000 full STHers (maybe only 6k which implies Canadians didn't come back nearly as fully as expected) & then a lot more tix (1-4k more) are only sold in packages for certain seats. Which is how they can end up w/ ~5k people in the building for Detroit or AZ. Only 7k seats at most sold in total & really only 4k of those holding those seats actually want to be there. With a handful of single tix sales at box office prices. So, either the STHers sell their tix at a loss (ended up doing that for the Yotes game), show up to a game they weren't real excited to go to, or give the tix away (not always an option even w/ good seats), or just let the seats go to waste. (Did that last one twice last year.) Interestingly, it seems more seats are typically sold in 105 than in 117. Not sure if that's just random chance or people wanting to have a better chance of being on TV, the Sabres pushing it, people selecting seats at the bottom of the map rather than the top, or something else.

No, no, Mr. Titanic Captain, THIS chair needs to be HERE and THAT one should go THERE.

Did not seem like a full 60 minute effort. That's 3 times in only 16 games and twice in 4 games. Both are unacceptable. And can understand to large degree Granato's not railing on guys for mistakes. But would be perfectly fine with him ripping them new one's for lack of effort. And, he really needs to start bringing that on occassion. Honestly, him throwing a tantrum and bag skating them for good cause (or making them all hit the bikes before hopping on their charter last night - a bag skate is a bad idea on the morning of a btb) likely would get a better reaction than a Tortorella doing the same. Everybody expects Torts to go psycho every so often. But the nice science teacher losing his #### could get a reaction.

Sticking w/ Comrie. 😉 Though it is rather surprising that we are essentially 20% of the way through the season and there still hasn't been a single major called against them. This is not your grand daddy's NHL.

It's really frustrating that another D wasn't scooped up either around the time Lyubushkin was signed or just before the season started to alleviate somebody else's cap pinch. But agree w/ you that it is very doubtful that gets addressed until the offseason. So, basically, we need to see Samuelsson come back which'll be huge, Lyubushkin get healthy, and a commitment to starting to focus on the defensive aspects of the game. Granato claims teaching O is hard & teaching D is easy. Would be nice to see him actually demonstrate/prove that. He's got the O going pretty well off the rush, still would like to see 5v5 be better off the cycle. Liked that the PPs were actually moving the puck last night even though they didn't have much to show for that movement. So, he's still working on improving the O and there is additional room for more improvement. But for the love of all that is good & Holy, PLEASE spend some time on disrupting a cycle without losing track of a forward and work on the PK. Wonder if part of the problem w/ the PK is that they practice against the non-dynamic PP unit so when other teams actually WORK a PP they aren't ready for it. The other part of the problem IMHO is except for Asplund none of the regular PK Fs were in that role before either this season or sometime middle of last year. They just don't have enough experience w/ that yet. (Actually am OK w/ that aspect of the development of the players - Girgensons & Okposo probably each have at most 2 more years on this team. Somebody needs to know how to kill a penalty besides them.)

Would be interested in seeing those rankings taking ENGs out of the mix. Expecting that ranking drops quite a bit if they aren't included.

Which is likely a big part of the reason the St. Louis game is the debut of the alternate unis.

After Anderson had gotten the Carolina game in their 1st btb, he'd said he & the goalies (& presumably Bales) agreed that Anderson would get the 1st game of btbs because of the better rest & ability to stay closer to a routine & Comrie would get the 2nd game. Much like his boss, Granato has a plan & is sticking to it. Don't have an issue w/ that rotation, but don't like giving Anderson 2 games in a row (even with a day off in between games).

Not well before the start. It would've been roughly 7:02. The refs have just come out onto the ice. There'd still be a significant number of people not to their seats yet, but significant would be somewhere between 500-2,000; not 4-5k which still would've left the building only 3/4's full. Tuesday nights are a tough sell, especially without a "name" opponent.

How forking hard was it to "don't take dumb penalties?" Apparently pretty friggin' hard and they gave up 2 PP goals & a 3rd goal pretty shortly after killing off the 1st penalty. Those were the difference in the game. What an annoying game. Fortunately couldn't go tonight and gave the tix away. Feel bad for the kid that went to his very 1st NHL game tonight.

Yep. The organist is at the top of Section 120. (Near the goal line to the right of the Sabres goalie in the 1st & 3rd.)

Should be either next week or the one after.

When Samuelsson comes back would shut him down for a week. They need the guy he was prior to the western road trip. They'd still have 4 of the top 5 in the lineup.

Less offensive potential from the 4th line than w/ Quinn on it, but it should be very defensively sound. Bouncing Fitzgerald to the odd man out should make the D stronger. (Well, duh.) Considering guys like Power and Peterka now have 15 more games under their belt, this is possibly the best lineup they've put together. (Relax those of you protesting that Samuelsson is still out. The operative word is "possibly.")

On the night Jokiharju rejoins the lineup & Samuelsson starts full practices,we really believe that Sheahan replacing Quinn and Bjork getting to report back in painful detail about Hamilton's gastronomic excesses makes the Sabres worse than they were situated on Saturday night?

Not necessarily, no. And, yes, was expecting at some point all of Dahlin, Power, & Samuelsson are getting 25 minutes a night in the tough games.

Don't expect him getting 25 minutes when he comes back. But he will be back to that relatively soon unless the 2nd & 3rd pairings play significantly better than they did prior to his injury.

To the bolded, true. But we aren't even 20% of the way through the season yet. So, luck can still have a huge part of it. As can Power (& others) learning how Comrie reacts & vice versa also cause that bad puck luck to improve. And, to answer the question of how much have the friendly fire rebounds & deflections affected his numbers with 'well his advanced stats stink' is NOT an answer. Whether it should or should not be in a perfect world.

But does it actually account for the shots that go in off Power as a single example? When Comrie kicks the puck out right into Power's ankle & it's then in the net, the counting stats say Comrie faced 1 shot and gave up 1 goal even though he effectively faced 2 shots to give up that single goal. Even on the ones he keeps out of the net, he made 2 saves but gets credit for 1. And that 2nd "shot" is typically high danger though the 1st might not have been. So, are those plays getting put properly into those models? Don't know. But asked a specific question regarding those goals and the deflections off Bryson, Cozens, etc. Simply coming back w/ "well, the advanced stats say he sucks, so there's your answer" ISN'T an answer to the question on anything but a superficial level. How do those get accounted for in these advanced stat models? ARE they accounted for in the advanced stat models? The guess here is that they DON'T get fully accounted for in the "advanced" statistical models because they're too rare and also because not all deflections or rebounds resulting in friendly fire are created equally. We are told the models incorporate "puck luck" into them, but without seeing the model's parameters don't know that it is adequately addressed. The original question was simple. Going off into advanced stat tangents adds a lot of complexity & additional questions to it. And, it very well could be like faceoff wins. Yes, the majority don't matter, that initial puck battle is more important. But when there is a CLEAN faceoff win, it is supremely important and can be game altering. But the advanced stats aren't really all that advanced there because they can't / don't account for clean faceoff wins. There's the issue of defining them & also the issue of how seldomly they happen; you don't get reliable data from a single game nor even a chunk of a single regular season. Mittelstadt lucks into a clean faceoff win to Olofsson by bouncing the puck off his own ankle & all of a sudden the puck is in the net. Advanced stats don't attempt to measure that. Not convinced the goaltending stats actually measure those Power goals either.

All reasonable points. But there are 4 counters to that: 1. He has been working w/ the Sabres development staff for 3 years and has a familiarity and comfort level w/ Buffalo. And based on this, he claims to like the Sabres organization (though obviously not enough to sign this past summer). 2. Maybe being in daddy's shadow isn't where he wants to be. He presumably could've gone to Denver or other places closer to SoCal to play college hockey but chose Minny instead. Fitzgerald didn't bolt for the Devils & daddy nor the B's & home. It's not a given that the Ducks are his dream scenario. 3. Maybe he has faith in his own abilities and expects he'd be a key piece in Buffalo & likes the idea of growing with the rest of the Sabres core. 4. Saved the biggest 1 for last. Only the Sabres (or a team they trade his rights to) can let him burn a year of his ELC this year. Depending upon when Minny's season ends, he MIGHT be able to earn a year of service towards FA as well. Those are pretty big items in the plus column for going B&G instead of orange & whatever they're running w/ that particular night.

The Browns get to. 😉