nfreeman

Reino did indeed take that line up a notch, but IMHO Jack has not been the same since his injury.

No. After a ridiculous amount of psychodrama, a compromise was reached on this, which is the confining of political discussion to the politics club. That's where it goes. And while you may disagree, you might also respect the fact that numerous posters have stated, including in this thread, that they want to talk hockey in the hockey threads and not have them polluted with political poo-flinging.

Reino isn't short on guts, I agree. But he's not in Toews' class in that regard. And he's never going to get a sniff of the Canadian Olympic team, let alone win best forward in the tournament.

As to the first bolded: we can insist that black is white, night is day, etc -- or we can watch, say, Reino's shift in OT tonight, in which he lost 3 races for loose pucks in the D zone (not to mention getting caught on a potential breakaway in the O zone and turning it into a turnover -- but he gets a pass on that since he was at the end of his shift). As to the 2nd -- I'd say Reino is about the same as Couture and clearly slower than Debrusk, Kreijci and Nordstrom (not to mention Pasta, Marchand, JFK, etc.). Cehlarik has only played 8 games this year. And of course Kuzy is valuable. He's just not as valuable as Ovechkin. Which table? The table that doesn't include a place setting for leadership and guts? Both of those were great passes. But Skinner's 2 goals in the 3rd were better plays, and more valuable. (Especially that 1st one on the breakaway -- holy mackerel.)

I don't "need" to do anything. I think we'll have to agree to disagree about him being slow in small spaces or off the mark. I'll ask you to watch what happens when he has to move quickly from, say, the slot to the corner to chase a loose puck -- he loses that contest most of the time. I agree that he doesn't have a 5th gear (but I disagree that it's limited to 15% -- I think at this point, probably 80% of NHL top-9 forwards have a higher top speed than Reino does). I agree that he is smart about the lines he takes and the decisions he makes -- but again I think these are necessary in order to overcome the handicap that his lack of speed and quickness creates. Again -- I think he's a good player. I just don't believe in pretending that his flaws don't exist. Not sure what this means, but when a guy starts the season with 1 goal in 16 games and later has another stretch of 15 games with 1 goal -- both of which streaks occur while his team, which he's supposed to be one of the cornerstones of, is sucking wind -- he's simply not as valuable as a guy who steps up and lights the lamp when his team needs it.

I don't see how he slows the game down with his skating. His vision, yes, but not his skating. I think his skating is a hindrance in his game, which his vision (which I agree is excellent) enables him to overcome. He is not the least bit quick. He is slow in both open ice and small spaces, and he is slow to get moving from a stationary position. As for the rest of your post -- yes, we could do this for everyone. If you had read the post I was responding to, which was quoted in my post, you might have noticed that I was responding to this: As do I, but the question is how good. And while having only small pointless streaks is good, lengthy goal-less streaks, which Reino still delivers, are bad and something for which it's fair IMHO to hold him accountable.

Do you not think he would be a better and more effective player if he were a better skater?

I'll be interested to see whether they have in fact restructured the PP as I and others thought was the case vs. Minny. I sure hope so.

He's not what?

Well, if the question is "who is the Sabre you LEAST want to somehow lock himself in a closet and miss game 7 of Sabres vs Tampa this April?" -- I think the answer is Jack, then Dahlin.

You sit on a throne of lies!

I thought Eichel was not in the same half-wall spot -- I thought he spent the bulk of his PP time at the right point. I also thought Reino was set up in front of the net, not behind it to the goalie's right.

Just playing devil's advocate: it's quite possible that Benson (and the other Sabres brass who voiced similar sentiments) were affecting an aggrieved air to deflect possible accountability for not getting Babcock to sign on the dotted line.

I think they pretty much overhauled the PP (and about GD time!). Eichel wasn't in his usual spot either. It looked greatly improved IMHO.

Best Will Ferrell movie ever IMHO.

Overall it was another pretty leaky D-zone performance. Bogo’s play has definitely fallen off lately. I thought Reino and Jack both started slow and then really started to impose themselves on the game. I think Howie re-mixed the lines a bit in the 3rd and got Jack some shifts with Skinner and Reino. Not sure who gets scratched when Larsson is healthy, but it shouldn’t be ERod or CJ.

On the Fast & Furious — I have found 4 through 8 to all be pretty enjoyable action movies with some amazing scenes (albeit plenty of dumb dialogue). Separately: my wife and I saw “the favorite” last weekend. Pretty good — if you want to make your wife/gf happy by going with her to a British period piece, this is one of the most entertaining I’ve seen. Solid B-plus.

tankfruit.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Let's see how it goes.

Cease and desist with these, please.

I've been enjoying season 3 of "True Detective" so far. Solid B-plus.

But didn't you also say that last year's team did not underachieve? Hmmmmmm? Having said that -- I agree that last year was not a tank. (Further evidence for which is that the DFL team had an 18% at #1, not 20%.) I don't agree. I think JB decided (and TP agreed) that (i) last year's debacle was a roster issue, not a coaching issue and (ii) making a big-name coaching hire and then firing that coach every year or 2 is a bush-league move. I agree and would just add that it's not realistic to expect a new GM to blow into town and immediately waive a highly-paid veteran without giving him some games to prove/disprove himself. While as I mentioned I agree that last year was not a tank, bringing in Pommer was not an indication of anything. Everyone knew Pommer was out of gas -- JB had to take the extra year of Pommer's contract (relative to Ennis' contract) as part of the price to get Scandy.

You also need to take it down a notch, please. I think Draisaitl is better. And the bolded is obnoxious and an example of why a bunch of people are taking shots at you. Make your points without these little digs, please.

I thought Scandy was fine last night. His minus-1 was attributable to Bogo, who committed an awful turnover that ended up in the Sabres' net. Also, Scandy was the Sabre who came closest to scoring a goal last night! I think swapping Pilut in for Scandy last night would've had zero impact.

I thought Dallas pretty soundly outplayed the Sabres last night. The Sabres generated very little offense, while Dallas had about 8-10 excellent scoring chances. Ullmark kept them in it. I wasn't so much hung up on the physical play, as I thought the Sabres did OK in that department, although I would've liked to have seen someone make Dallas pay for the Benn hit on Eichel. Speaking of Eichel, I really don't think he's been close to his pre-injury peak since he returned.