Taro T

And that is IMHO a big part of what in the end is going to leave Eichel as just another good player. (His not being a Getzlaf nor MacKinnon style leader will be the rest of it.) And also IMHO it is that tendency to be both injury prone & his ability to battle through injuries that a lot of guys might not play through that has & will continue to make his PPG lower than it probably should be. That year he got 82 in 77, he had a long stretch (~8 games) w/ almost no point playing through a leg injury. Last year he was playing w/ a broken thumb down the stretch and went very cold when his team needed him to produce something. Unless he can somehow get healthy, he's always going to produce less than his team needs & his fan expects. And like you say, you can't ignore his past 3 seasons, until he breaks out of @Thorny's term trajectory of those past 3 years, it's what should be expected. He could break out of that, but until he does, won't expect it. & don't believe he was ignoring them. Just distinguishing between the stages of his career.

Excellent documentary. Finally had a chance to watch it. Got goosebumps when they were sharing fan letters about how some of their music kept the, going when all was lost. Was never that low, but recall putting on Magic Power back in the day on many an occasion to get out of a funk. The Never Surrender album is so good to work out to. Have a reordered version of it for that. Would listen to the Just a Game album on the way to youth hockey playoff games. Good combo of energy & settling down songs. @SDS that fan event looked incredible.

Reminder, tonight's game at the NY Riptide will be on the regular MSG at 7:30PM.

And technically that is the 1st tie breaker. But will ignore that one until we're told the season is done & there are teams tied in the standings that don't have the same # of points. And like you said, that 1st tie breaker supplanted points as being the statistic used to rank teams in '20.

Yep. And though there may be fine points people want to argue with, really can't lose the forest for the trees. The man just gets it. And his players certainly seem to trust him implicitly.

Good thing. Otherwise he might've been bitten by the moose. And mind you, moose bites can be painful.

Maybe they think he's Brian's brother?

It is. But if the Sabres win in regulation they're on to the next tiebreaker ROW.

They tend to go as Vinc goes. When he's off, they seem to get there themselves. If not for the late goal in the 2nd Q waking them up, this could've been a much different game. The 3rd was amazing, as they held the ball for about 11 of the 1st 13 minutes. They chased the starter Higgins (who came back in the 4th) which was a huge turnaround as they couldn't score to save their lives after the Buchanan goal in the 1st. A PP was their only other tally & they were getting great scoring chances but Higgins was a wall. Earlier this year, they played very well vs Halifax and then destroyed a bad Georgia team in Georgia. They barely got past that same squad the next week at home. Vinc has generally been good, but wasn't against Albany nor tonight in the 1st 1/2. Expect he'd like some back from last week too. The team really misses Fields & Frasier too.

Saw posted elsewhere they gave it to Barkov. God forbid they actually put a D-man on the roster.

Bandits started the night ok getting the games 1st goal from Buchanan but then had a devil of a time scoring though they dominated play in the 1st. Outshot the Wings 18-9 but were trailing 3-2 at the break. 2nd quarter was a disaster for the most part as they were in the box pretty much the whole quarter. They were down 6-2 and down a man with 24 seconds left in the half when Filly took a dumb penalty and allowed the Bandits to score a contested goal w/ 0.4 seconds left. That goal sparked them to a 7-0 run and didn't give up another goal until there was less than 2 minutes to go in the 3rd. That quarter ended 9-7. In the 4th, Filly scored a quick one and thought they'd tied it up but the shooter had stepped in the crease before getting the ball & the goal was disallowed. Bandits scored the next 3 then Weiss got an empty netter. Filly got one in garbage time. Final 13-9 good guys. They play at the Riptide tomorrow at 7:30. The game will be shown on one of the MSG's, probably the one that shows Aisles games, but not positive which one.

Really? You don't say? Now where might we have seen that before? Oh, right in this thread about 10 posts higher.

At least you're honest.

Did you read your own link? * Based on Vivid Seats sales data. Emphasis mine.

Yes, they are. But the site is tracking where people go to see games live. For many counties, the data is more representative of where the residents find it most economical to watch their favorite team, whether it be the home team or the visitor. They are representing that the data tells which team people of various counties are fans of. Pretty sure that is NOT what they are actually measuring.

Wouldn't say that nearly all of NYS is Sabres territory. It's a heck of a lot easier & cheaper for a Rags fan in Syracuse, as an example, to buy a ticket in Buffalo to watch their beloved Rags play rather than getting into MSG. Believe the data is accurate. But don't believe it says what they are trying to say it says.

My expectation is that he won't get over 70 games AND be up towards the top of PPG players. He is a tough mofo and has played through a lot of injuries. He could absolutely do so again. That year he ended up 10th in scoring he had an ~8 game nearly pointless stretch battling through a leg injury. Just can't see him going relatively injury free for a full year without making some major changes to either his playing style or his training/conditioning regimen. Hope for his sake he can. Don't need him to personally fail. Don't need him to excel either, definitely not until after the Sabres have used that pick this offseason. Liked watching him. Like watching Tuch too. There's a reason this kid usually avoids these threads. You & @dudacek having a solid discussion was like a flame to a moth though.

Early on he was tracking to be MacKinnon, slightly better actually. And watching him play was one of the few bright spots of being a Sabres fan. But then the injuries got the better of him. Just don't believe he'll ever at this point have another season where he both plays 70+ games & plays at a high level in the vast majority of them. It's a shame injuries have gotten the better of him, but until he has a year where he finally shakes them & gets back into the top 20, won't expect it will happen again. So, when the effect of injuries is included, it's a no brainer the Sabres are better off w/ Tuch +.

It certainly does. Surprised he didn't want Samuelsson too. Once you hit ludicrous might as well go on full goon bull loony.

It's possible; not likely, but possible. And an interesting theory. Would expect if it was beneficial for either it's more likely in Skinner's case as he was never defensively sound in the NHL pre-Krueger either. (Not that he's great at that end but at least he's not a tire fire.) But Dahlin was very good in his own end in Juniors & also played with a mean streak. The biggest thing that helped him in those areas after becoming an NHLer was gaining man-strength. At 18, he was willing, but couldn't move guys in his own end & his shot wasn't particularly hard, but it was accurate & he was a very good, exceptional actually, passer (when not wearing down, towards the end of his rookie year he took a SMALL step back). Even w/ that he still had one of the best sub-20 campaigns ever.

Which means he won't be a Housley. The term you're looking for is Potvin. 😉 Power could be our Robinson.

Heading east would say it swaps to majority Rags somewhere around Seneca Falls/ Auburn. There's some Sabre fans in Syracuse (Alex Tuch being the most famous example) but would expect it more downstate in their favorite hockey team by the time you get there. Get a fair # of Pens fans in the southern Finger Lakes region. Some old school Habs fans still down in Ithaca and a fair # of Bruins fans in Ra-cha-cha from the pre-79 ties but Ra-cha-cha is firmly Sabres territory.

Well, 1999 WAS 24 years ago. 😉

Peterka is often the last one off from that line. (Might simply be the other line LWs getting off late too and him getting a full shift, but he is pretty consistently still out w/ the next line briefly ala Skinner.)

True. But they beat each of their teams only scoring 3 goals in each game. Their 1st 3 games all year they were held to 3 goals in a W. The team has picked up its play since sending Hinostroza down and are winning games they weren't winning earlier this year. So, they were brought to reality, but reality is they can win against better goaltending too. And really don't believe it's just a coincidence that they played shutdown style D in the 3rd against the Aisles & most of the game vs the Jets but were loose horsey against the Ducks & Blues. Play fast & loose when you can & bear down when you have to.