...

Leino is back...yay.

Then it's been you who has jinxed the team all along! For shame.

Wow, I thought Porter was injured after that hit. Two periods of good hockey...we Sabres fans should count our lucky stars tonight. Lots of good things in this game excepting the PP.

Stop...shhhh...I was about to type something similar and thought better of doing so.

Uh oh, the Teacher is taking notes...Foligno scratched next game.

Foligno needed that right there.

If only they had a decent PP they'd be looking at 10th place.

Lots of Hab elbows flying.

The ratio of good-to-bad plays between each is not even close.

Nice. Sloppy shift, but they wanted that goal.

At this point you can put Pominville on any line and he's still going to keep making bad plays.

Pysyk looks real good.

Again, first period and they look like a competent team. Any bets on when they start to break down?

Agreed. Miller was hot, but he's an old salt and I think his comments towards Kaleta would have been moderated a lot more than they were had he been given an accurate quote.

Yup, and WGR550 is reporting it like there is nothing wrong with the situation. Harrington clearly set up Miller for the rant.

I don't disagree with what you're saying in the main, but a lot of what I'm talking about has changed with the coaches. Crashing the net, for this team, is a coaching directive (because the players don't do it naturally otherwise). Line combo changes to alter the dynamic on the ice during shifts comes from the coach. Sending Scott out to intimidate a player is a call the coach makes. Putting Ott and Kaleta out during a shift, or, playing them against the right players, is, you guessed it, a coaching move. And being generally physical on the boards, with this team, is something the coach has to remind the players to do. I can see, now, why it looked at times why the Sabres seemed like they were "thinking too much" under Ruff...because Ruff probably had to constantly remind them of the fundamentals, along with devising strategies for each game, not to mention drilling plays for every situation...because these guys NEEDED to be over-coached.

I am in the "it's an okay move" camp on this. The Sabre organization, we know, is screwed up royally right now. I think getting Grigs out of that hell and into a scenario where he can remind himself that he does have what it takes and them some is probably the best thing for an 18/19 year old psyche. It would be awful to Vanek-ize the kid and remove the fun and love of the game simply because Regier is incompetent, especially when he's so young.

That's not what I mean, though. I mean, for example, yesterday versus Ottawa when Scott was scratched - which is funny, because a lot of people were bitching about sitting Scott for that game when games prior people were bitching that he was being played. Today, scratching Kaleta. I haven't look at hits, but I don't really see that much hitting going on other than Ott. I don't see players "crashing" the net. I don't see players getting snuffed out at the blue line trying to enter the zone. When things got bad, Ruff would often try some gritty hockey to whip things up, and seemed to be okay with chaos on the ice (and behind the bench) as long as it did something to turn the Sabres on. Rolston isn't like that at all; he seems to prefer to keep things measured and in check, even when nothing is working.

Dead pool, April 15. Check it, yo.

The positive here is that you know what you like and what you don't like. There is no time for the negatives.

No, Cody, you HAVE to get frustrated. You HAVE to go down that road. Staying positive, telling yourselves it'll be okay, is just preventing you all, as a group, from reaching down to the dark truth. Once you hit the dark truth, and come to terms with it, then, and only then, can you fix the problems that plague this team.

That is true. Sometimes a lesson can only be learned the hard way. But, for those who want Lindy back, there is hope: once Darcy is fired, the best coach on the market over the summer will be said to be Ruff. The new GM could re-hire him.

Pominville: come on boys, let's get out there and do it. We can't afford to take shifts off and put ourselves in a tough spot. I mean, chuckle, we can't let in two goals in 30 seconds or so, we need to do a better job. But, we need to stay positive, and I'll need to take a look at it again, but I think we can find some positives to take away from this game and make a better effort next game.

Well, it would be easy to agree in one sense, but I think the timing is such that if Lindy were still the coach and they still kept sucking, the breaking point threshold for individuals on the team would still have been crossed, and we'd see the team slowly breaking down internally like they seem to be right now. Jesus couldn't stop that from happening if He were coach. What I am not liking about Rolston, is that he seems to be neutering the team as much as or worse than Ruff did. Perhaps this team is so confounding that any coach would make crazy decisions, because both Rolston and Ruff have made crazy decisions in trying to get this team to play like a NHL team.

Miller going after the refs, going after Kaleta, put him on the "Dead Pool list" for April 15. ROCK!