nfreeman

Winning streak commences. Sabres are coming in hot. Zemgus with the hattie.

Good. We need another defenseman. I just hope he can play winger too though.

Good win against an EC playoff bubble/DeLuca .500 team. The Sabres got outworked but mostly kept their composure defensively I thought. Ullmark was very good. Bogo led the team in ice time with 22 min. Where did that ice time come from? Risto had 19 min -- his 1st game below 21 min all season. I thought Dahlin looked a bit better paired with Bogo, although they both had a few shaky moments. Olofsson made 2 very nice plays on his goal, the first being the early pass to Eichel to clear the zone and then the decision to head quickly up ice, and Reino's pass to spring VO was sweet. I'd sure like to see more possession time and O-zone time tomorrow vs TB.

Edmonton and Arizona are heading to OT -- that should be entertaining.

Cribbs was really good, both running it and catching it. Letting him go to the USFL over $$ was another Ralph Wilson cheapness-driven blunder in a late 1970s - early 80s string of them.

Good win. That was JA's best deep throw of the season -- and another very nice play from Brown on the catch. Singletary reminds me of Joe Cribbs. Good for Shaq in his contract year. It's hard to really believe in this team until they beat a good team, but 8-3 is still enjoyable.

So my wife and I finished binging “Succession.” I think season 2 was a bit better than season 1, although still not quite as good as the hype. Still pretty good though and very funny. Solid B-plus. We also saw “Ford vs Ferrari” last night. A bit corny but pretty enjoyable. Matt Damon was very good. My wife thought Christian Bale was really good. I think he’s a good actor but find him kinda annoying. In any case I give it a B-plus. BTW, we saw it in a theater with reserved seats — it’s pretty nice to go to a sold-out movie on a Saturday night and not have to worry about getting there early to not get stuck in the first row.

Well, aren’t you a ray of sunshine.

This is a great post. I had not heard the bolded previously. Was that published somewhere reputable? If so that was a huge blunder.

This sentiment is more than fair. If we haven't arrived there yet, we're very close to the place where JB does not get the benefit of the doubt. But it's still based on the assumption, which can't be known and is quite possibly false, that there was at least one trade available for one of the Sabres' defensemen that would've improved the team. You're far from the only one making this assumption, and it might very well be true, but I think we need to remember that this entire line of thinking is entirely based on a huge unknown element.

No. When I look at Mitts, I think "bust" and "a nail in JB's coffin." It's too soon for those to be fair evaluations on my part, but I think a bad outcome at this point is more likely than Mitts developing into a top-6 player.

I'm hoping you can arrest this temper tantrum before you fly entirely off the rails. I have posted about a hundred times that Reino is a good player. I have no interest in dumping him as part of a housecleaning, and in fact I said I would probably re-sign him, despite my opinion that they'll have to pay him more than he's worth. That doesn't mean he's a great player, or that he's as good as Draisaitl, or that he's a good skater, or that he doesn't make critical mistakes -- because none of those things is true.

I've been wondering about this myself. I think TP really, really wants not to have to fire JB, and will not do so if the team gets to, say, 85 points this year. That would make it 62 pts in JB's 1st year, then 76, then 85 -- which I think TP would view as a respectable enough progression to justify bringing JB back. But if the Sabres can't find their way out of this death spiral, and they continue to lose 80% of their games, and are DFL or bottom 3 at the all-star break, and the arena is half-empty in February, with no noise other than booing at the end of each period -- I think it's quite possible that JB doesn't make it to the end of the year. And that fate will be deserved. Behaving in a professional manner isn't enough. The results matter.

I will also note for the record that Boston's 1st goal last night was a direct result of Reino losing a puck battle on the wall in the D-zone.

Well, wife-beating is unacceptable, and Brown is a bad guy, but double homicide is still an entirely different kettle of fish IMHO.

Help us Obi-wan -- you're our only hope!

Yes -- he's a serial wife- and GF-beater.

Let's chill out a bit in here please. TTBOMK, no one here is responsible for the Sabres stinking yet again.

This is the most important development of the year, IMHO. He has borderline-miraculously become a very good passer on the short and intermediate routes, including the intermediate-to-deep sideline routes where the ball travels a pretty long distance. Once he gets the deep routes down, he's really gonna be something.

I listened to this (and I agree about his segments being good generally). His comments about Dahlin were pretty alarming -- i.e. not only is he shaky in the D-zone, but his offense has completely dried up, and the team doesn't produce any offense when he's on the ice. Yeeeeeesssshhh.

There is NFW that Calgary trades Gaudreau.

Mrs. Babcock's shopping budget won't be affected a-tall. Mike's still going to get the cash (almost said "Benjamins" but that's not correct here).

This has also occurred to me and I agree that it's the most logical and likely explanation.

OK, so here's some positivity: I think there's a reasonable chance that having Bogo in the lineup will inspire his teammates and help stop the team's nose-dive. Bogo is a tough, big SOB who clears the crease, plays with fire in the belly and stands up for his teammates and is well-liked and well-respected by his teammates. He's also in a contract year. I don't disagree with the roughly 14 million posts in the last couple of weeks decrying the Sabres' lack of scoring depth at forward, but I think the primary issue right now is between the ears. They are tentative, scared and feel in the pit of their stomachs that they are going to lose. (That's what the tank does. Hello @LGR4GM.) It takes a primal force like Jim Kelly to blast that fear to smithereens. Bogo ain't Jimbo, but he'll die trying and it might be the spark they need. Go Sabres.

OK, so here we are, 11 months later, and Mitts still looks terrible. If we exclude 2 assists in the opener and goals plus an assist in back-to-back games on the West coast roadie, he has contributed zero goals and 1 assist in 19 games this season, including zero goals and 1 assist in the Sabres' swoon over the last 12 games. (Although, to be fair, he set up Parise beautifully for Minny's 1st goal last night.) I'm starting to think of Mitts as the new Grigorenko -- a much-hyped and allegedly highly-skilled center prospect who likely was promoted to the NHL before he was ready and is unable to do a GD thing at the NHL level. Mitts is faster than Griggy was, but at this point I see no functional difference between the 2. It's far too early to give up on Mitts, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if he turns out to be a complete washout. In the meantime, I'd like to hear a good reason for him not to spend the rest of the season in Rochester, at least once the Sabres have 12 healthy forwards.