SHAAAUGHT!!!

lol, I meant Donny. But at this point I don’t want any Granato near this team

Fire Tony

What is the Sabres game plan? I e been here for the first 50minutes and I still don’t know what they are trying to do. This sucks

Sabres looked like lazy trash the first 5 but bounced back the next 10-12, and then looked average the last 3 min. They need to come out hot for the 2nd

Nope. 90% Sabres fans in the building today

I thought players had to wear a helmet in warmup or get fined, but Tuch, and three Canuck’s aren’t wearing a bucket…

I’m so old I remember when this place was called SabresReport 😁

Idk about genius. We may have seen a better version UPL this year if Adam’s didn’t run a 3 goalie rotation for almost half the season. Still nowhere close to sold on UPL, but it’s also hard to have a definitive opinion on a goalie playing behind this defensive system.

The Foligno-Smith fights were such fake fights. I could tell Foligno was just postering because those were the most…let’s call them… “cautious” punches thrown I’ve seen in a tilt from a “tough guy.” 100% Folingo was only thinking about his paycheck, and that he didn’t want to get lambasted like Reaves did in TO.

Not to be a Donny downer, but this is one of the reasons why I’m not very excited about this win. This team is an above average team when they show up and compete. Last night it was Levi’s first game in Montreal, before that it was to “be there for Donny” or because they wanted to step it up to beat a top team. Otherwise they win one, and then take the next game or two off. The Penguins are 7-2-1 in the last 10. If the Sabres come out and play a solid 60 on Saturday night it may give me some hope they turned the corner on the season. If they lose bad or give a half-hearted effort, well, it’s just more par for the course with Donny Meatballs at the helm…

It looks like that from the outside at least. I was at the Colorado game earlier this year and they looked amazing. Later that week I went to the Philly game and left during the second period it was such an awful effort. I can’t remember the last game I left early for, no matter what the score was… Seems like semantics, but whether they try less, or don’t try as hard, it’s literally the coaches job to prepare them for the game, and to make necessary changes throughout the game to get them going. Power would likely have been healthy scratched a few weeks in. We also would have seen him get more like 13-16minutes instead of the 20+ every night. We need a coach that isn’t afraid of his players getting upset with him.

I thought the “it’s not the coach” narrative was put to bed when we kept watching the Sabres outplay top teams when they felt like it, and then the next game went back to sleepwalking. We have an above average team, and they have the ability to be a playoff team, they just need to be motivated to play solid hockey every night for 60 minutes. I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve seen that this season. Could you imagine if we had someone like Torts, Ted Nolan, or Lindy Ruff here running practices? I bet the Sabres wouldn’t have such poor starts and inconsistent efforts.

I’ve recently assigned the Sabres to the Non-Watchable list.

It’s almost like these players (Johnson and Benson) that haven’t been coached by Granato know how they are suppose to attack the puck. Everyone else on the teams knows how to do it, but only does it when they “wanted to back Donny.” Weird. It’s almost like they know how to play the right way, but choose not to. Weird…

The refs in this league are suckers

Completely agree that defensive play is also an issue, but that isn’t necessarily on the players. That lack of preparation is on the coach. He talks about it, but I don’t know if Tony really understands what “accountability” looks like in this league…

I really hope after this game everyone will stop saying the goaltending situation is not a problem. The Sabres do NOT have a #1 tendy on this team this year and it has been obvious all season. Levi will be great, but he’s not there yet…

Jack Edward’s is a chode, but he noticed what almost every hockey person noticed: Levi is a good goalie because he is fast and smart. That is going to help him respond to deflections, while a goalie like UPL is counting on his size to take away more of the net. Watcing Levi play this season after watching UPL play was like watching an 80s goalie play and then Hasek coming into net the next game. UPL and other large goalies are slow and clunky in comparison to Levi, and that’s where Levi’s competitive advantage lies. I’m curious if we start seeing more Levi type goalies in the league the next 5-6 years if he breaks out the way everyone expects him to.

Adams missed the mark this off-season, but Clifton is not the problem. Joker and Bryson are not good for this team and should have been moved with picks and/or prospects for a top 4 defenseman, the coaching is horrendous, GMKA did not make enough moves over the summer, Okie is not a good captain (great guy, bad captain), and no one bothered to learn how to take a face off this summer. I think that might cover it…

Kane obviously “doesn’t want to be here” with this signing. I hope the Sabres FO remembers this over the summer and doesn’t sign him. He would have been a good depth piece to add this year to help on the PP and add some experience, but there should be better players available over the summer.

Sorry for the delay, I’m traveling a bit for work this week. Core should be 6, no more than 7? Why you say? Because 7 is 3 defensemen, 3 forwards, and a goalie (current Sabres “core”). It is also 2 defensemen, 4-5 forwards, and a goalie (sometimes). Let’s do the math next. Specifically for the Sabres because duh: Position, Name, Salary (or projected salary during core years) Goalie, Levi, $4.5Mx3 after ELD Defense 1, Dahlin, 11M Defense 2, Powers, 8.4M Defense 3, Mule, 4.3M Offense 1, Tage, 7.1M Offense 2, Cozens, 7M Offense 3, Skinner, 9M Offense Core +1, Tuch/Casey, 4.8M/6.5M First off, yeah, Skinner is your core. You don’t sign guys for 8 years that aren’t your core. Once skinners contract is over you can either go down to 6 core, or add someone like JJ here, who I think is a 5M+ player and fills a critical need (strength on the boards, vision) once he is at his peak. Second, you will see the salary demands assumed here take up 2/3 of the available cap space assuming a $84.5M cap. So basically you have to sign 16 players with 1/3 of the projected available cap space. This is why there is a core, and why I think you have to build flexibility into your roster. Because if 1 or 2 of these guys get injured or flames out the Sabres go from a position of strength to one of uncertainty.

Is Kane better then VO? Of course he is. Sign him for 2x4.5M, sell VO for a 5th. Call it a day.

I think a good GM builds some level of flexibility into his lineup. You can’t do that if you have 8 guys in the core where they are all making 7-10MM+.

I’ve been thinking about this contract a lot lately. Sabres have their core, but Casey is a nice Core+1. So what does a Core+1 get paid? I’m thinking less term, less money than the core, but enough money to keep him feeling good about his situation, but also low enough to make him easy to trade, while giving him a chance to sing another 6-7 year deal when that one expires. Im coming in around 4x6.5 with no special clauses.

Ryan Johnson had 8:20 of ice time, and Bryson had 6:27. We need a poll on when Bryson gets traded or sent down because it’s not if it at this point it’s when