BetweenThePipes00

Thanks, Smell. ... I did see your greeting last time I posted ... It's good to be remembered. I am trying to find time to be here more often ... but it keeps turning into once a week. Life, man.

I put this in the same category as any "the refs screwed us on purpose" claims: We all agree they are bad at what they do, but somehow they became amazingly adept at secretly pulling off coordinated conspiracies directed at one city's teams .... what are the odds? The NHL screws up SO many simple things ... yet we're supposed to think a quirk in possibly the most COMPLICATED thing they do was done on purpose? To punish the franchise for doing something that has been done before many times? (How did they punish the Pens for taking for Lemieux? Oh right, only 2 Cups.) If they wanted to punish the Sabres, wouldn't it be easier and more effective to, say, go to USA Hockey and tell them to give PGH or STL the World Juniors? Like I said, the schedule is complicated ... sharing buildings with NBA teams/concerts/the circus/etc ... The Kings had a 5-game trip through the Eastern time zone in November, are in a separate stretch of 11 of 13 on the road now, and have another 10-of-12 on the road stretch in Jan/Feb ... I wonder who they pissed off ....

This reminded me of a thought I had during the Detroit game ... people seem to be expecting this team to play to the absolute best of its ability just because it has a legit level of NHL talent for the first time in like 3 years. I think that is unrealistic at this point. I am sure some will accuse me of making excuses for them, but so be it ... This is what I saw in the Detroit game, especially early (the one they lost in a shootout Dec. 1 - http://www.nhl.com/gamecenter/en/boxscore?id=2015020362): One team that totally trusts its system and each other, playing fast and loose and reacting without thinking ... and then another team that was a half step behind, not always sure of what the right play was and chasing the game. Eventually the Sabres got up to speed but Detroit was always the same ... With the exception of Larkin, every guy at that Detroit team has been playing that system for YEARS ... even the young guys, they have been in that same system from the minors under their current coach. Ten of the 18 Sabres skaters were new from last season and they are all in a new system with a new coach. Eichel and Reinhart were not even playing pro hockey ... some would argue the guys on the team last season were not playing a pro hockey system. That makes a difference. I believe we saw that again last night in Calgary ... yes, they overachieved to make the playoffs last season but they were not as bad as their start this year, either. Legit NHL coach, lots of young talent up front, strong D, together for more than a year ... of course they are going to have their crap together more than the Sabres. Don't get me wrong, I am NOT saying "The talent is there, just give them time!" Not at ALL. I would guess before we are happy with this team Weber, Gorges, Moulson, Gointa, Franson will all be gone ... guys like Deslauriers, Foligno and Larsson will be obvious 4th liners if they are here at all ... so I agree they are not good enough yet. But by the same token, less than 30 games is way too soon to say they are not making any progress. I am sure they caught some teams taking them lightly early, and also they had no games to watch to see what the Sabres do well ... now they have 20+ games on tape and teams are game-planning for them. Makes a huge difference. Now the Sabres need to adjust to that ... and it's not going to happen as quickly as it will next season or the season after when most of the team knows the system and all the adjustments off of it. What a veteran team like Dallas or Boston can do in between periods takes the Sabres a week. They may never have even practiced the necessary adjustment yet. All that to say ... this part of the process is no fun, in many ways LESS fun than even last year, because there is reason to believe there is the beginning of a good team in there ... but they are making progress. Sometimes the hard way is the only way to learn.

Well it's not EXTRA, if the goal stands they lose their timeout. But at that point they may have used it anyway so not much to lose.

Most, if not all, would know immediately. Just warming up pushing from one post to the other they would notice something off right away, they have done drills like that thousands and thousands of times. They might not immediately think "The net is bigger!!" because that would be crazy to think but they would know SOMETHING was off, blame their skates or something but then figure it out pretty quick when all their angles were off too.

Sorry to grab a random line from weeks ago as a jumping off point, but I think this is the more interesting part of the discussion ... I totally agree goalies have gotten too big and too good for the size of the nets ... if goalies shrink or the nets grow scoring may rise a little but if it's just more random goals going in off guys' elbows and rear ends, the game is really no better. Are there any changes that can actually make the game less congested? I saw Scotty Bowman quoted last week and he pointed this out, the coaches always adjust. Here is the link - http://www.theprovince.com/sports/Gallagher+Scotty+Bowman+knows+teams+score+today/11122774/story.html... I found it interesting that moving the blue lines out and making the o-zone bigger has ended up clogging prime scoring areas more, which was the opposite of the intent. Question is, now that coaches have seen how effective packing 5 guys in and blocking shots can be, would things evolve back the other way if the moved the blue lines back? Or is the toothpaste out of the tube forever? If it does loosen up the zone and defending forwards are out by the points more, will we see the return of the breakaway pass? Even with the two-line pass we used to see lots of those ... Also made me think, has the no-change icing rule also backfired ... by that I mean, have the high-risk breakaway passes been coached out of the game out of fear of an icing call if it misses? Would love hear from people on here who have coached or played ... I know just enough to be dangerous, I am really curious ...

The Pegula thing is an interesting one when thinking of it as "Seemed right at the time, but turns out I was wrong." With players, it's easy to look back as see we were right or wrong. Evaluating owners is way harder .. they tend to be around a lot longer and can get better or worse ... they can also get lucky or unlucky. With this ownership, while it has been disappointing obviously, they could still end up being wildly successful and winning Cups as we thought they would in 2011. Maybe in spite of themselves, maybe out of sheer longevity they eventually stumble on the right mix of management and players (which is what I think happened with RWS and the 1985-1999 Bills), or maybe because they learned from mistakes ... who knows? I don't consider the early excitement "dumb" any more than I consider criticism for recent results unfair. They are what they are. Unlike Drew Stafford, they can still change what they are.

I totally get why many of us see that and are like "WTF is the point of that? Just play hockey." I also shudder to think what a 24-year old Jim Kelly (just for instance) would have done with Instagram while king of the USFL or when he first got to Buffalo. Not saying he will end up the most beloved athlete in town of course, but at the end of the day most of what people complain about when it comes to Kane is harmless and has zero impact one way or the other on his hockey. He'll grow up and stop with the selfies because all 24-year olds take tons of selfies and 30-year olds take way fewer selfies. If anyone scores 30 on this team they will be better than I am expecting, that's a year off, but I expect him to have a good year and put up 50+ points if he stays healthy.

Perfect. I would have lost faith in humanity had you responded any other way! Eh you may get a pass on that one. He wasn't TERRIBLE but if the rumblings are true that he and Drury didn't get along (some say Drury issued a "him or me" ultimatum), he needed to go, then it was a good thing he left when he did.

Thanks Taro ... family is great, kids getting a bit older so hopefully I will be able to post a bit more ... reminds me I need to update the avatar

I swear I'm not saying this because I just owned being wrong about him on another thread, but IF Pysyk pans out I see him as the Sabres' version of Hjalmarsson ... 55 and 51 get all the hype like Seabrook and Keith, and Pysyk just eats up effective, quality minutes.

HA nice! ... you'd think we'd have this worked out after all these years. Signed Pipes (also known as BtP)

OK, the thread about welcoming new members combined with the play of a certain player on the Blackhawks inspired this idea ... I started posting here in 2005 so I am sure I said a lot of dumb things those first few years ... but one sticks out and keeps being thrown in my face every time the Blackhawks play. So I thought it might be cool for the veteran posters to own something dumb they said, or at least something they ended up being wrong about even if it kind of made sense at the time and calling it "dumb" would be revisionist history ... Here's mine (or one of them): I was SO wrong about Niklas Hjalmarsson. In 2008-09, as the Sabres were on their way to missing the playoffs by 4 points, I remember suggesting they should try to get something from Chicago for Tallinder (Remember this was post-Lydman/pre-Myers Tallinder) because they were so young then, and he was 30 and had solid playoff experience from '06 and '07, and Hjalmarsson was 21 and had played only a handful of games in the NHL as the trade deadline approached. I believe I went so far as to say something like "Do they really want to end up with something called Niklas Hjalmarsson playing in the playoffs?!" Apparently they did. The dude played the last 19 games after the deadline and 17 playoff games as they went to the conference finals. They have won two Cups. They may win a third. And something called Niklas Hjalmarsson is freaking awesome. Anyone else?

I think it was in last year's special, the one at MSG I think? Not the most recent, the one filmed "in the round." As far as the topic of the thread ... I joined basically for the season opener coming out of the lockout and posted a ton for about 3 seasons before my kids came along. That was SEVEN years ago since I stopped showing up regularly and yet nearly every time I post, Smell greets me with "Pipes!!!!" like I am Norm walking into Cheers. Obviously that reference dates me as one of the "old guys"... but the point is that once you establish yourself as someone who is not a total a-hole, you are always welcome. I am sure it was easier to "break in" 10 years ago when I did, but compared to most fan forums, this one is very welcoming. (I used to work for Rivals.com, those message boards on the college team sites are war zones.) I think part of the intimidation factor is not because people are hostile but as someone else mentioned, the interesting topics are covered WELL ... it's hard to hit on something new. It's no fun to just post "I agree" ...

This discussion is no different than trying to compare football players from an era where linemen were 225 pounds. Of course they'd get killed today but everything is relative. I am quite sure the best players of today, if you timed them, skate faster than Perreault or anyone else did in 1975. But when you consider it was 40 years ago ... I mean, the skates were borderline primitive, the quality of the ice sucked relatively speaking (for instance, the Aud wasn't even air conditioned at the time), those guys never trained year-round ... my 7-year old has better skates we bought used for $60 and probably gets better coaching as far as skating. Drop 1975 Gil Perreault into HarborCenter and give him custom made $800 skates and I am guessing he could hang with most top pros even with his cigarette hanging out of his mouth ... at least for a few shifts, at which point he'd be sucking wind. Then after practice they would go lift and rehydrate and eat some grilled fish prepared by their personal chef. And he'd go have a beer. It was just a different time.

There are too many memories to list them all but one of my favorites similar to X's ... in his last full season (85-86) he was killing a penalty against some team with a bunch of young guys ... for some reason I think Detroit, Yzerman was young at that point, but I could be wrong ... anyway, he was out there against these kids and just held the puck in the neutral zone for what seemed like a full minute (it was probably 20 seconds but still) ... never passed it, never left the neutral zone, just danced in and out until the penalty was over, no one could take it from him ... he dumped it in and went to the bench to a standing ovation. He was 35 at the time ... which today may not sound like a big deal but at the time it seemed like an old man toying with the kids. The next day it was all we talked about on the school bus and one kid named Sully on the bus was at the game ... It's crazy the stuff you remember ...

All of this sounds good but when I read it I can still see that Aud hallway in your avatar out of the corner of my eye ... so I am suddenly craving a thick SportService square of dough with a cardboard bottom with something that might be cheese and a single piece of alleged pepperoni in the middle.

I am so bummed I missed out on this, I need to get here more often.

That's how good I feel about him. His sweater is my biggest concern. The rest will take care of itself.

15 seems most likely but I am hoping he splits the difference between 9 and 11 and takes 10. Can they buy out Hodgson before the draft? 19 would be a better option than some linebacker number ... but then I am a grumpy old man when it comes to that kind of thing.

The Drury-Max game vs NYR may be it, but it's hard to pick one moment. The Drury goal was more a relief because the Sabres dominated that game, but when they actually won it I allowed myself to think maybe they really had a shot even though that whole season felt like there was something missing compared to 05-06. Coming at it from another direction: I may have told this story before, but going to the Sabres-Nordiques 1-1 tie in 1984 with my Grandfather ... Sunday night, second half of an old Adams Division home&home ... I was 13 and for the first time wasn't treated like a little kid at the game ... first row of the Oranges, section 25 or 27 on the corner ... debating whether they should have played "the kid" in goal even though he played the night before (they didn't, Sauve played) ... Dale Hunter knocked Mike Ramsey's teeth out with his stick .. Michel Bergeron got doused with beer as he argued the penalty despite the teeth scattered on the ice ... Marion Stastny scored shorthanded in the second and Cyr tied it on the PP in the 3rd ... I'd choose to re-live that game over any other ... and we didn't need a shootout. Imagine that.

My low point was defnitely 86-87 when Bert retired ... we had just moved away from Buffalo, so that added to it ... we're talking almost 30 years ago, so as a teenager the feeling was very different than today with the Internet and cell phones (free long distance was a dream) ... we may as well have moved to the moon, not 3 hours south into the sticks of Pennsylvania. The only way to follow the team was box scores in USA Today IF you got the later edition that had the scores from the night before ... it was miserable. No matter how bad the team is now, it's still better than that.

Yeah since regular hockey season ended many of the hockey programs at the rink where my son plays have been re-branded 71HDP ... I am not sure how that is going to work when the regular season starts, if they will have separate programs from the house league or what ... but JP is around more than I expected. My son is only 6 and just moved up into the mite program (8 and under), and JP is on the ice with them about half the time. The older kids may get more of his time ... either way it's nice that he doesn't just put his name on it.

I am steering clear of all this pics-of-Spndnchz chatter .... But I do appreciate all the welcomes back ... Very cool so many of the same people are here. It is crazy to think I started posting here in 2005 when I was single and now I am sitting here watching my son's hockey practice as I post this ... and JP Dumont is one of his coaches. So things have changed a LITTLE.

Well I had to come back while I still had a very little 'street cred' left ... bad enough I wasn't around all season. Like I said, I should have come back when Darcy was fired or Murray was hired. In addition to some personal stuff, I drifted away basically because every single conversation circled back to the same things: They are soft ... they will never win with this "core" ... it's all Darcy's fault .... etc etc etc. While all of those things may have been true, every single thread getting steered in that direction became tiresome. Now, while they still suck, it's much more interesting ... Murray has a blank canvas in many ways, we all have thoughts on who he should do with it and we can debate the options without the conclusion being "It doesn't matter, the core is soft, Darcy won't make the deals he needs to, Lindy's message is old, etc ..."