nfreeman

It has to be said: Benson took over a tied road game against the Cup winners in the third period in the way a great player does.

I don't think they should play Levi tonight, but I am pretty encouraged with his play since returning from Rochester. He's starting to look, as he did last year, like the prince that was promised. And the team certainly responded to him last night. Unfortunately, both of the contenders for #2 have royally pooped the bed in 100% of their outings lately. Come on Sabres. Play hard from the drop and win tonight and hope lives. Show up in a coma and get dusted again...I don't wanna think about it.

If they stay mired way below DeLuca .500 -- ie if the games are meaningless -- I will watch fewer and fewer of them as the season wears on. I won't stop caring about this team, which is in my blood, though unless and until it becomes clear to me that they have stopped trying to be a real NHL franchise. If they end up well out of the playoff race this year and don't bring in a new coach with a legit NHL track record next summer, I will probably come to that conclusion (I was originally thinking New Year's was the deadline, but @Brawndo may have convinced me to wait until after the season). Either way, it freaking stinks that here we are again, well before New Year's, and the season is probably over already.

I'm not expecting this either, which is why I posted yesterday. I am pretty skeptical about committing to the kind of contract that I think it will take to keep him. I think there is a limit to the number of big-dollar forwards a team can have, and I hate the idea of losing, say, Quinn or JJP because they gave Mitts too much $$.

I am a longtime Mittelstadt skeptic, so take this with as much salt as you like: I think he's been pretty bad during this last 2-week stretch, in which the Sabres have pretty much punted their season away (before last night, the Sabres had lost 5 out of 6, to drop to 6 below DeLuca .500). In the last 7 games, Mitts has 2 pts despite playing over 22 min per game most nights and getting top PP usage. More importantly, "dumb Casey" has IMHO reclaimed his prime spot in Mitts' game -- he makes bad decisions with the puck and turns it over pretty much every time he gets it in the O-zone. I don't think he created a single chance last night. Both he and Cozens -- who are supposed to be battling for the #2C spot and be team mainstays -- have spit out the bit right when the Sabres really need them. But Cozens is already under contract, so there is no decision to be made with him. I don't see how they can possibly give Mitts a contract in the ballpark of Cozens' deal.

Rayzor: "A lesser man would've been carried out of here." Outstanding.

Wow. I went to bed when Miami went up by 7 with 6 minutes left! So if the Bills keep winning and Miami loses one more before they host the Bills at the end of the season, that game will be for the division. The Bills may or may not win enough to get in, but they won't quit.

Good. Russia has been uninvited, right? So none of the Russian guys in the organ-eye-zation are going?

Let the record reflect that they showed up and played very hard for McD and, despite more injuries on D, grinded out a win they had to have against a very good team in a very difficult place to win. The grass always seems greener but it usually isn’t. McD is tough and honorable, albeit flawed, and so is his team. It’s not a coincidence.

This is likely an overreaction to the last few weeks’ worth of bad news surrounding the Bills, but it does kinda feel like the game tomorrow marks somewhat of a crossroads. i think they are going to show up and play hard for McD. We’ll see whether they execute well enough.

Well, maybe, but that kinda seems like an obvious fig leaf. Are you aware of any teams that have done this? This isn't realistic IMHO. Similarly -- are you aware of any instances of this happening?

I've been thinking about this. KO is pretty much out of gas and adds very little value most nights. If he weren't the captain, he'd almost certainly be in the healthy-scratch rotation. But I think it's still a pretty firm rule that you don't healthy-scratch your captain.

Come on boys. Please don't come out in a coma at home again. Just play hard and determined from the drop and good things will happen.

I was referring to Quinn's complete game. I agree that JJP is more powerful and I think he may end up scoring more pts (and probably will end up scoring more goals), but I think Quinn has a higher hockey IQ and, last year, played a better 200-foot game than JJP. To be clear, I really like both of them and think they will both have really good careers. I also think they can complement each other well as linemates, although it will be Quinn who more often figures out, on the fly, how to get more out of his linemates than JJP will.

IMHO: - Quinn was better than JJP last year, although JJP will probably be ahead at the end of this year (recognizing that we can’t know what would’ve happened without Quinn’s injury). In any case both of them have very high upsides. - Quinn has more game than Pommer did and will be better than Pommer was, assuming he stays healthy. - I too am concerned about him coming back too soon and reinjuring the Achilles. - If he stays healthy this season he could be a contributor in the 2nd half, although I wouldn’t expect a game-changer.

They are 5 under DeLuca .500 with 11 games left in December. 8-3 gets them to DeLuca .500 as of New Year's, and means they are very much in the playoff race. 7-4 means they are 2 under, and still alive. Anything worse than that makes it extremely unlikely.

Well, they sure didn't get Boston's A game, but they didn't show up looking like they'd given up on the season either. And they got a great performance from Levi, which will be good for his confidence and theirs. Not dead yet.

I'm sure TP doesn't want to do this -- no one does -- but DG has 2 more seasons on his contract after this season at less than $2MM per year. That is a pittance relative to the huge dollars TP has committed to the players. YMMV, of course, but I don't think the cash will be the issue. OTOH, what may save DG is TP's hunger for stability and to avoid the embarrassment of being wrong on yet another HC. Still, the team looks utterly lost and unable to find its way back, and is regularly getting booed off the ice at home. I just don't think that can continue indefinitely, or that TP will object to KA making a move. We'll see.

Correct -- Roku is a far superior product to Fire TV.

It gives me no pleasure to say it, but I think it happens on 12/31 or 1/1. The wheels are falling off.

IMHO you can’t trade for heart and toughness and determination in the middle of a season and expect a major turnaround. But you can find a coach who emphasizes those qualities and brings them out of the players. I would love for DM to prove that he’s the guy but every week that goes by where the Sabres are simply not competitive in at least half the games makes me more skeptical that he can do so.

Early December, 4 games under DeLuca .500 and we aren't far from a place where the playoffs are impossible. The countdown to DG getting canned is officially on.

Briere scored their 2nd and 3rd goal that night. He was fantastic during those 2 great seasons. Such an unforgivable hockey sin to let him and Drury leave. The moment I was thinking of was at 52:58 of that video. It was Lydman who laid out a Hurricane, followed immediately by Kotalik's goal and the crowd reaching peak euphoria and noise levels. That was the perfect match of a thrilling team with peak RJ, plus a great coach and an adoring, raucous crowd. Taken from us far too soon, but two years of great memories.

In person: - Bills defeating KC in the 4th AFC Championship game, sitting with my best friend from childhood, with Cornelius knocking Joe Montana out of the game in Montana's last NFL game. - My son's first NHL game, coinciding with the rebirth of the Sabres in the glorious 2005-06 season -- early that season at the old Nassau Coliseum vs the Islanders, with Tim Connolly, also undergoing a rebirth, playing a beautiful brand of hockey and starting his best season as a pro, tying it up on a sweet goal with a couple of minutes left and Big Al Kotalik winning it in the SO. - Later that season: game 3 of the conf. finals, at home, vs Carolina with my brother. The Sabres won to take a 2-1 series lead and it felt like we were coming to the end of the desert (although Tallinder broke his arm in that game, the first or second in a catastrophic series of injuries on the blue line). At one point in the 2nd period, someone (maybe McKee) laid out one of the Hurricanes with a big hit, the Sabres came down right away and Kotalik blasted in a one-timer from the high slot to put the Sabres up 4-1 and the building felt like it was gonna explode. That was the loudest crowd I've ever heard at a hockey game. - Hasek and Sabres squeaking out game 4 vs Ottawa, 2-1, to complete the sweep in the 1st round of the 1999 playoffs. - 1993 NBA Eastern Conference Finals, Knicks vs Bulls, game 2: I was relatively new to NYC and got a group together to share Knicks season tickets. This was peak Michael Jordan vs Pat Riley, Pat Ewing, Charles Oakley and the brutal Knicks. With a couple of minutes left in a very close game, John Starks, a guard who was bagging groceries before Riley rescued his career, went flying down the baseline for a huge dunk and the Knicks hung on for the win. - A bunch of fantastic college basketball games.

What did he say exactly?