Taro T

They went to the net a lot last night; but too often there were 2 guys there and the 3rd F &/or the D either couldn't find a way to get the puck there as well or they puth the puck in Allen's glove. Shot selection: hmm, maybe shoot anywhere other than high glove side? Occassionally, sure. But the puck went there far too often last night.

Shooting glove side was definitely an issue last night. Seemed everything was going there and Allen was on his game.

He's 8-3-1 all time vs the Sabres w/ a 2.20 GAA. He's had a couple of real stinkers against the Sabres, but he typically is a brick wall, unfortunately. Was hoping the Skinner goal would get him off his game, but it wasn't to be. Another game where the Sabres had stretches where they dominated play but simply couldn't find a way to get the puck into the net. Comrie played well and deserved a better fate. Haven't watched much of the replay. On the 1st goal Comrie can't kick out that large of a rebound. Frustrating that Olofsson was a mile away from the shooter. That really was the only bad play of his that stood out; unfortunately, even though it was his only major lapse, it ended up in the Sabres net. Not sure why Power was still out there after the 3rd Habs goal. His blocked shot after the icing in the 3rd let the Habs get fresh bodies onto the ice with no chances against right off the initial faceoff even though the Habs were gassed. Eventually, that shift for the Habs got them the goal. (And that was sooooooo frustrating, because Granato actually tried to take advantage of a tired opponent after the icing. The Jost line had started going out before the icing, but Granato pulled them and put the Mittelstadt line out along with Power and Jokiharju. It should've gotten some serious chances, especially with the clean faceoff win; but Power blasted it into the forward's shin pad and so much for that.) He also was the reason that Tuch had to take the crosschecking penalty that led to the Habs lone PP goal. 3 bad plays consecutively left Tuch with no other options. And then Power committed late to blocking the pass to Pearson from below the goal line meaning he both missed the pass and left him clean to get a 1 timer off with Comrie necessarily moving. It was easily one of the 3 worst games Power has played for the Sabres. When he's that far off, Granato HAS to ease his load. Except for still having a propensity to score on his own goalie, Clifton has been playing better than he did the 1st 2 games. Maybe let him slide up into the top 4 splitting up Dahlin and Samuelsson so that Connor and Henri don't end up a thing. (They've been horribly bad in limited time together; but have been ok/good when not together.) Too bad Tuch couldn't get close enough to Gallagher on the 2nd goal to crosscheck him away from Comrie. Might've had a better fate. Would like to blame that 2nd goal on Comrie for not covering the puck, but that's been a weakness of his game as long as he's been a Sabre. The D or Tuch has to help him out there. Cozens and Thompson will start burying their chances. They're getting too many to not do so. Both started slowly last year and then exploded. They'll do so again. But it's painful waiting for them to both break out. Greenway has been very good so far this year. Even though he's not scoring, he's forechecking very well and is their best F on the PP. Well, they go back on the road, which is where they seem to play better. Keep up the effort level they showed last night and keep the game a "simple road game" and they could start getting the ship righted. Hoping either Levi is back, or UPL has the horseshoe lodged properly. Either would be welcome.

Expect it is an attempt to draw in those in the younger crowd that have been said to only want to catch the highlights of games. Find it interesting that they're doing it in the middle of the week. Guess they really are trying to beat the NBA with their own weapons but somehow expect it to end up the way it normally does when the Coyote takes on the Roadrunner.

Eyeballed the attendance at puck drop in the 6k's, but by the 2nd there were probably 8k in the building. It looked like an October '22 crowd initially. There was about a 50/50 split of Sabres and Habs fans. Yes, the attendance was dismal last night. But am curious just how much the new policy of not selling tix to out of towners until close to game time kept the attendance down. Heard speculation that part of the low attendance was the box office price being high, but they were in the middle of the adjustable pricing range and the same as the cost of the Aisles game on Saturday. Really believe it was more due to not selling to out of towners when they were looking for tix than the price being too high for a Monday. Know that people had a hard time selling the tix even on the resell market as a guy with a pair of singles in the front row up top couldn't sell either even at about 90% of his price. Don't know, but expect that the no out of towners buying tix policy until close to the game date also extends to the resale market as both are listed through Ticketmaster. If that is the case, that resale tix aren't available either to out of towners, wonder whether that will have the side effect of causing the tix for those games to get listed on secondary resale websites rather than Ticketmaster's? Which would ultimately shoot the Sabres in the foot to a small degree as people won't know inherently which games are only being sold locally and which can be bought from anywhere so they may list ALL their extra seats on a secondary website. Personally, would rather see the barn close to full even with 70% of the fans wearing Red and Blue than have it less than 50% full with an even mix of fans. That was jarring seeing so few people in the barn at puck drop.

Welcome back! Disagree about moving Levi to Ra-cha-cha. His stats, including 1 game that he played through while injured, are comparable to Comrie's and UPL's career stats. When healthy, he is significantly better than either. Also, disagree about moving Comrie and keeping UPL. Agree that UPL has more upside, but the goal is to win this season and Comrie gives them a better chance of doing that as the backup because he has the mentality to be the backup. UPL, in his play and in his statements, doesn't have that same makeup. Yes, in 2-3 years they may be missing out on something good; but Adams has put his eggs in the Levi basket and he should be something better. So, UPL wouldn't in all likelihood be getting a starter's action in Buffalo anyway. Can't see keeping him around on the theory that they might get something valuable for him in 3 years; especially when he'll become a UFA in 3 years. My 2 cents.

Shouldn't you be on the phone with tech support? Less than 12 hours until you can't watch tonight's game.

Define "value." Expect that Adams could get a 4th rounder or so for him. (Remember, Johanson garnered a 6.) Also expect Adams wants at least a 2nd for him. So, no, don't expect he'd've moved by now if he had "value." He simply doesn't have "enough" "value" at this point.

See @Brawndo's post right above yours. 6 games or 14 days, whichever comes 1st.

Those 3 ARE upgrades on the PK. No doubt. But they still were playing a passive box in the Rags game and looked like the PK was going to be a repeat of last season's PK (excepting for the fact the GT should be better than it was last year). Can't speak to how they played the PK on the Island as was watching the game in a bar and couldn't really focus on details, but vs Calgary and last night they were pressuring much better. That is a tactical change and goes beyond just different personnel. Am actually ecstatic that they've altered the tactics. A passive PK is a short PK because it way too often ends with the puck in the net. Though the PP has only scored once this year, they have been generating chances the past 2 games as well as they are for the most part moving around much more than in the past. (Though there was one point in the 3rd period last night while they had the lead but went back to old habits. They were moving the puck from the blue line to the half walls and both the bumper and the netfront skater had both drifted towards the blue line also. They were on the PP and didn't have a single player within 25' of Varlamov.) If they will continue to force the PKers to vacate their diamond and create new passing lanes, the PP WILL start clicking. And just to bring all 3 phases of the game into this post, in his postgame comments, Granato was asked about the D joining the rush tonight and he pointed out that THAT was made possible by the F2 going hard to the net. And in their own end they weren't letting guys have an easy path to Comrie's face. Even in transition, they weren't giving the Aisles space. Really hoping this wasn't a 1 game aberation (they played this way in all 3 phases some last year, but rarely did so consistantly through a several game sample), because the way they played last night, they'll win a lot of games if they can continue to play that way.

You're missing an option. In his best Denis Lemieux voice: "trade me right ####ing now." "Now, hang up the phone." Hangs up the phone.

They're trusting their goaltending. Which allows them to pressure. That limits the chances against, but when they do give up a chance it's seriously legit; and both Levi and Comrie have been coming up big when the PP manages to find that opening through the pressure.

Umm, beat the Habs and they're at an NHL 0.500. 😎

Not going back to read the thread, so much of this has likely already been stated. Why couldn't Johnson have chastised them a week and a half ago? They really took care of their own end much better than they had the 1st 4 games. They also were driving to the net, a lot. Even Olofsson was found there. And he, like the rest of is teammates, had a very good game. The 4th line did a great job of setting the tone at the start of the 1st 2 periods. That 2nd period was by far their best period of the season. For those that don't like Mittelstadt getting time on the "1st line," don't know how to break it to you; those top 2 lines were both generating a lot of chances and we'll probably see them again at least through the next couple of games. Cozens finally managed to get away from being snakebit in regulation. Thought getting the OT winner would get him going, but he still was having pucks hop around on him when he was in great spots. Now that he got this one, am looking forward to him going on a bit of a tear. Playing with Thompson and Greenway, he'll keep getting those chances. The D were very solid tonight and kept the front of the crease pretty clear. Comrie looked very good and deserved a better fate. Thompson couldn't get the puck out of the zone which led to the scrambly play which led to the icing which led to the faceoff loss which led to Clifton elbowing the puck into the net. Hopefully Clifton doesn't get a complex from scoring his 2nd goal for the Aisles this year. Other than that, he played well. Could go on with the superlatives, but leave it at a good game. Play like this on Monday, and they'll be 3-3 heading into Otterland.

Well, there, and in their own end at 5v5. Expecting they'll figure it out. But, there isn't a lot right now to hang one's hat to demonstrate why that'd be more than simply hope. That can start to be remedied tonight.

That was my preference heading into the season. Never going to happen as long as Granato is the coach. Skinner won't be removed from the top PP unit regardless.

Not sure of the exact origin of that nickname, but remember reading an SI article about Dom from that timeperiod. The SI writer was bound and determined to make "the Blank Czech" a thing. Fortunately it didn't stick. The Dominator was too perfect a handle. But reading that article was like reading a @matter2003 post about Zach Benson. Just give it up, dude. It's not happening.

Probably because he's trying to gut through whatever it is and he's telling the coaches he can do it. And they're listening to him rather than trusting their eyes. (The downside to being a "player's coach," yes, these guys will go through a wall for the coach, but sometimes the coach has to be willing to tell him no, the next guy is going to get that opportunity and at least right now, the coaches aren't doing that even though from the outside looking in, it sure seems like it needs to be said.)

The schedule gets more compressed after we get out of October. (Not as significantly as in past years, it's good to have no Olympic break in the middle of the season and to be back to a full length season now that post-pandemic schedule compression seems to be a thing of the past; but still it does get more compressed.) Levi won't be getting 4 straight games once we start seeing btb's coming on the schedule and multigame road trips. But this is a stretch of 5 games in 10 days with only a 1 hour-ish flight each way disrupting the routine. Without catching the injury, he should've been able to handle that load. (Any NHL starter should.) Fully expect that they wouldn't have played Levi all the 1st 4 games of the season had they been 2-1, but 4 games in 8 nights is what he'd be expected to play if they were in the playoffs. It isn't horribly excessive. But hopefully, it is putting in crystal clear focus just how bad a decision it was to run with the 3 headed monster without either making an offer to a FA that went back to his old team simply couldn't ignore or trading away some of the precious prospect pool. They clearly don't trust Comrie nor UPL to win a must win game. With that being the case, don't know what the answer is at this point. Nobody is going to just give the Sabres an easy mulligan to fix that error. But a bright side to this situation is that this team has been through these stretches before without getting their spirit broken. Adams really did assemble a group that has the character to keep perservering regardless of how ugly things may seem nor how quickly those outside the room are ready to throw in the towel. Who knows, maybe this is that game that UPL has the horseshoe firmly lodged in his butt. Win an ugly game tonight and then sneak out a win against a bad Moe-ray-all team that plays the Sabres well and they're back to 0.500 heading into Otterland.

What do you mean "going to end up?" Take that phrase out, and you nailed it.

Dinosaur (only been to the Ra-cha-cha location) has very good ribs and brisket. Lived in TX for a while, thought it compares very favorably. A lot of people in Ra-cha-cha prefer Sticky Lips to Dino. Not one of them, but that is good too.

Housley was brought in as an assistant coach on a team that already had a great corps of D-men and he didn't f' it up. He didn't make that D great. That D made HIM look better than he was. Adam Gase didn't make Peyton Manning. Peyton Manning made people believe they saw things in Gase that simply aren't there.

And last year the Sabres started IIRC 7-3-1 then followed that up with a 2-9 stretch after the D started dropping like flies. The team looked very good for long stretches after that though they still had 3 more losing streaks. The Sabres WILL play better than they have but they have to stop making the easily correctible mistakes like taking stupidly long shifts. Surprisingly, the PK has looked good so far. Hoping that stays the case when ComPL or UPrie get the start on Saturday. (The goalie is the best PKer.) The PP, though only clicking once was actually generating chances. Keep generating chances there and that will get better. But figure out 5v5. Frustrating start to the season. But at least there's a lot of hockey left to be played.

Which is another indication (not that we need it) that it was a colossal mistake to not bring in a goalie to tandem with Levi that they would trust to start in a winnable must win game.

Well, yeah, but they're REEEEAAAAALLY big. 😉