darksabre

Really didn't deserve to get to OT but I'm glad JoJo got to see a shootout. Now he knows what he's got himself into.

Who knew Lazar had it in him

That zone possession happens because Eichel dumped it in to himself lol

Colin Miller really needs to let those bombs go more often.

This team is just sad. Just incredibly sad.

I feel like it's less about Risto and more about the rest of the team though.

I'm trying to remember the last time a Sabres team started a game in a manner that could be described that way. It feels like they've been the worst team in the league at getting their feet moving for about a decade now.

It's just nice to see goalies coming up through the farm. It's the lifeblood of any good hockey team if you can develop these guys.

Chicago is only interesting to me in the context of "how can Buffalo take advantage of their cap issues" in the off season. I'm not sure I want to use our cap space to take a bad contract, but if it gets us a good player as well... Both their goalies are UFAs....

You never told us you did commercials

I'm mostly joking, but man, it's weird that he's doing this kind of stuff at 34 when he should be losing a step. But maybe he's just got that dad strength or something.

Johansson, Johansson, and Johanssen, your DWI attorneys.

There's no way he's not using PEDs, right?

Sure. Which is kind of my larger point, which is that we should expect him to bounce back next season.

I think the trick with Skinner is that he's probably going to bounce back from this season. It just seems to be the way things go with him. The team is garbage this year anyway so it really doesn't matter. But next year perhaps we get normal Skinner. The year after maybe we get exceptional Skinner. There could be another slump year like this in the next 6 years or so, but if this team gets better perhaps we can live with it?

I think that's probably part of it too. But like I said, Skinner has always been like this. He's had seasons exactly like this in Carolina.

There's a much simpler explanation and it's just that this is who Skinner is. If you look at Skinner historically, he has had other seasons like this. And it has tended to be on teams that were not good. Which thing begets which, I don't know for sure. But Skinner has always been inconsistent season to season. Now, changing directions towards the conspiratorial, part of me wonders if Krueger somehow believes that Skinner, at 27, still has more growing to do as a player; that he can develop more consistency in his game, and that this demotion of sorts is his way of basically forcing the issue on Jeff. Perhaps Krueger looked at his roster and wrote this season off in October just like the rest of us and decided that the best thing for this team was to get Olofsson as much development as possible on the top line and see if Skinner can become a more dependable player. Whether or not Botterill wanted it this way is anyone's guess, but Krueger must have a reason for this, right?

Your first mistake is thinking that Buffalo tanked "correctly". They did not. They didn't have a farm system with some depth players ready to make the jump, they didn't keep any of the vets that you need during a tank recovery. Now they're playing catch-up because they didn't set themselves up for success.

The Sabres are boring too.

Agreed. The whole "kicking motion" rule is meant to stop players from swinging their skates around near the goalies during scrums around the net. That play was definitely more "directing the puck" than it was "kicking motion". His whole body was moving forward.

"Blackjackets take it back again" Rick's already moved on to the casino for the evening.

I think he was trying to bounce it off the goalies leg pads to generate a rebound for whoever that was going to the net. Unfortunately he doesn't have a hard enough shot.

My favorite Sabre shot selection is the point shot into the shin pads that is so hard it ricochets back up the ice, over the blue line, and onto the stick of an opposing player who has cheated up ice and now has a breakaway.

I'll give erod credit for one thing though, he actually managed to shoot from a high scoring area, which the Sabres are consistently bad at.