Taro T

Yes and no. Yes, you aren't going to win any games when you don't score any goals. BUT, how much of their offensive play (not the idiotic "plan" put together by Appert, but their actual play) was affected by knowing that UPL starting would almost definitely guarantee they'd need to score at least 4 goals to win the game? They hit 4 posts; do they perhaps shoot a little closer to the goalie if they aren't gripping the sticks tight knowing they have to get to 4 to win? Tuch is definitely gripping it tight. HE's their shorty goal scorer and when he was in the slot with a teammate coming up the ice with him on a nearly 2-on-1 which forced the goalie to keep from coming out high on him decides to try to pass it to the guy that is NOT a goal scorer to keep from either shooting wide again or getting robbed again for IIRC what would've been the 6th time in just over 2 games. If Lyon, or even Ellis, gets the start, does the team play a little looser expecting that a brain fart WON'T absolutely be in their net? When you have no faith in your goalie, you play differently than you do when you expect a save. And, right down, does ANYBODY here EXPECT UPL to make a big save? If nobody here (or at a minimum nobody posting here that doesn't live in NH 😉 ) expects a big save, why would UPL's teammates EXPECT the big save? (Especially after having seen the 1st 2 goals he gave up.) They finally went for it in the 3rd when they had no time left to try to sit back but by then the Blues goalie was on his game and even when they could get one past him, they couldn't get it heading inside the iron.

UPL ONLY gets going when there is no one in his way to the starter's role and everyone is pumping him up. He tends to run out of gas after 2-3 months, but he seems to be the Sally Fields of goalies - he gets into his grove when he feels the love of those around him. When he doesn't have it, he plays without confidence; and when you play without confidence you are slow moving across the crease on a breakaway where the shooter has limited options because he does have a chaser close by and when you play without confidence you flat out miss unscreened pucks from 40' away that should be easy glove saves and when you play without confidence you can't keep a leg along the ice when having to track a puck from behind the net to the front of it and can't get the leg back down onto the ice regardless of how slow the puck has been kicked at the net. He isn't moving ahead of Lyon unless Lyon really falls on hard times and he SHOULD be behind Ellis right now. This team needs wins to stay in the chase. They don't have the luxury of letting UPL play his way out of his own head.

They aren't wrong.

When the PP was on (for all of 1-1/2 games) but also when they were generating chances but not finishing, they had at least 2 of the 3 of Doan, Benson, and Zucker on the ice and at least 2 of them were near the net. They need guys with that mentality to be on the PP because they are never going to have close to 2 minutes of zone time because of the idiotic entry and the way they tend to let themselves get outmanned at the boards. Seth Appert is sliding soooooooo far up the list of most disliked people associated with the Sabres.

After UPL's 3 games, Ellis HAS to be the #2.

Hmm, granny on a trampoline. Woody considering a career switch to show runner for geriatric porn?

So, come out with their own hair on fire and wear the Blues out. No excuses for a loss tonight.

You mean besides Roloson (who completely changed his game) and Thomas (who was simply a unicorn)? None come immediately to mind.

Well, should he hit 1,000, they can clear the bench again. There's no true significant difference between 899, 900, and 901; but humans in general like round numbers, especially those with more than one 0 at the end. And nobody else in history has ever scored 900 goals in professional hockey at its highest levels prior to last night. It was a significant feat; and was treated as such.

The biggest thing working against them at this point is they're about to play their 10th home game with having only played 4 on the road. Their record at home this year is good (5-2-2), not great, but good and should they win tonight good enough. But they've been horrible on the road. Personally feel they've played better on the road after that 1st debacle in Beantown than the record indicates but they have to be 0.500 on the road to be on a playoff pace overall and they aren't anywhere close to that (0-2-2) and they'll have 6 more roadies than home games the rest of the way. They HAVE to figure out how to get W's on the road, or it'll be another doomed season.

Any word on what move was/ will be made to accomodate him on the 23 man roster?

Better the Blues than us. Would've stunk to have been there to see 2 record breaking goals against the Sabres. Gretzky's 77-79 was enough to see in person.

No data. Haven't looked that closely at that as it's only relevant for about 1 week out of the year.

Heck, winning 20% of them gives you the NHL 0.600 pace you need to essentially guarantee a playoff spot. So, yeah, getting to OT helps.

Not sure if the 30 day clock starts at the day he was claimed or the day the season starts for claims made before they start playing. So they MIGHT not quite be there yet.

Is it in the NFL? Serious question. And the reason for asking is that teams routinely change salary to bonuses during the season to free up additional cap space and it SEEMS to be pretty close to a $1 in vs a $1 out (minus the prorating of a hit that would fully hit this season now getting spread over 4 (or however long the contract is for) seasons giving $0.75 worth of relief for $1 worth of converted money. Don't recall seeing a team convert salary to bonus just before the deadline and becoming able to bring in a significanlty more expensive player with that newly freed cap space. Though don't pay nearly as much attention to the details of NFL cap transactions, so maybe that's just having missed some like that which have actually happened.

Agreed. No data on if he's been practicing since then, but he has not dressed for a game since then. Ruff does continue to say he's willing to play all 3 and will play whichever one on any given night he thinks will give them the best chance of winning. (And with that said, we haven't seen Ellis dress in about 2 weeks.)

Samuelsson and Greenway have both been significantly more physical than they've been in past seasons. Don't know if it's due to Ruff harping on physicality ordue to guys like Doan, Dunne, Timmons, and Benson setting the example and shaming the others into playing more physical. Probably a bit of both.

Well, when you actually send pressure, there almost always is SOMEBODY open. The key is, to have that breakdown happen to the side of the field you're chasing the QB away from or at a minimum far down his progressions so that you get to him before he can look to that receiver. Would MUCH prefer they step up the pressure on Mahomes than play like they did on 4th and 17. 2 guys actually getting pressure and a 3rd doing jack gave Mahomes a week and a half back there and enough time for Rice to finally get open. They usually don't pressure Mahomes in the playoffs and they usually get 2 stops the entire game whether they needed those stops or not. They have Josh Allen. Pressure Mahomes and the couple of times that he makes you pay for not getting there, let Josh Allen go clean up the mess and get the score differential back to where it had just been.

Yep. Granato was all about puck possession in OT and trying everything you could to get the other guys tired and then, and only then, taking a shot at actually scoring in OT. And it was a pretty successful concept. Ruff doesn't seem to care about possession as much as he has the skaters be more aggressive and go for the win when they can. So far, it's backfired in 4 of the past 5 games, and the only reason it didn't fail in the other game is the exhausted OTers did a good job of not allowing anything in close and UPL was lights out in OT. Take either of those away and we're likely looking at 5 points in the last 5 rather than 6 out of the last 5. And the skaters were more aggressive tha they'd been under Granato last year too.

Well, per UPL, YOUR expectation ain't happening, as HE expects to get the start tomorrow.

As expected. But it would've been nice for them to give Ellis that start against his old organization.

@tom webster, we'll likely have 3 for Union.

Improving the coaching would help in that regard. The same guy drawing up schemes for the PP and late in the game seems to be the same one drawing up the schemes for very late in the game (aka OT) as well. You (usually) can't fix stupid, but you can fire it and put someone better in its place. 😉

Well, yes, it would be good to not have Georgiev around. But why would you rather have Ratzlaff sitting on the bench in Ra-cha-cha rather than playing in Springfield or elsewhere? He's in Jacksonville so he can get the bulk of the starts. That is NOT going to happen if he's paired with Levi.