darksabre

lol *****in Mark Davis

Eichel needed to be better there. Miller had to take his guy and Dahlin had to take his guy. Need your forwards to pick up the trailers.

Goalie gear is chaos. It's a cult. There are people out there scouring every piece of in game and post game locker room footage to try to catch glimpses of what each goalie is doing, especially custom mods. Goalie Gear Nerd actually just launched their site today.

Great work by Vesey

It's funny, watch the goalies tonight. The flat face Brians that Lehner is wearing are the bouncy pads meant to kick pucks out in a controlled manner, whereas Hutton is wearing soft pads (CCM E-Flex, what I wear) that are meant to deaden rebounds and keep the puck close to you. Keep an eye on Hutton kicking rebounds out wildly compared to Lehner.

Part of the "first stop" thing is definitely rebound control. You want your goalie to make that initial save and either swallow the puck up or control the rebound in a manner that is predictable for his defensemen. If you have soft pads that let the puck stop in front of you then as a goalie you need to be covering that puck up. If you prefer pads that kick the puck back out then you have to use that to kick the puck to open ice or direct it to the corners.

Yawn

Everyone I know who has a CX-5 likes it. It's probably one of the only crossovers out there worth a damn style-wise too. I just paid my car off 10 months early so I'm pretty happy about that. Probably just going to hang on to it now that it's paid off. No one really makes anything that I like/want at the moment anyway.

Amerks games used to be really good for concessions. I'm sorry to hear that it changed.

The only change I really would like is better food and more beer options. I was blown away by the offerings when I saw a game in Anaheim a few years ago. It made the whole experience better to know I was getting my money's worth from the concessions. I don't feel that way about KBC's offerings.

I actually think the Risto-Montour pairing works relatively well in terms of the eye test. It gets a little scary at times, but for the most part it seems to function okay. I don't think I like that pairing costing the team ~$10 mil next season though. This is probably why Pilut is coming up. They want to see if he can fill out one of these pairs and make one of Risto, Montour, McCabe or Miller expendable.

You're going to get your wish, for better or for worse, when most of the UFAs don't come back and Botterill has to trade picks and overpay free agents to get enough players on the roster for training camp.

I don't get why people get upset about season ticket prices. If you own season tickets I assume you live in a house with champagne drinking fountains and 17 bathrooms. Seasons too expensive? Fire one of your man-servants.

The only other thing I'll say about Risto is that most teams have players like him on their roster. He's durable and that isn't to be taken lightly. Imagine if the 05-06 team had Risto? The only real reason for the Sabres to move on from him at any point is if he becomes too expensive.

Here's the thing about Risto: he's not great, but he's not terrible either. He's tremendously middling. I'm not sure if the Sabres would be better without him, but I'm not sure they'd be worse either.

This whole thread is politics

Joe Thornton

One of those games where you're allowed to blame it on the bounces.

Really sucks to lose this one given the effort. Goalies were the difference tonight.

It's wild to think that Eichel is playing this well while hurt with something mysterious

Honestly that goal was Hutton's fault for getting too squirrelly

Czech kid Colorado picked up a few springs ago. He was undrafted and playing in the K and the K wouldn't release him to come to the NHL.

He's a full right goalie so that adds some complexity to things. Glove where the blocker should be.

Colorado is good but their goalie hasn't had an easy night. He's been quite strong.