dudacek

Skinner has to bury that. This is ridiculous

Good shift by the Lazar line

Doesn’t look like those lines are right

Lovely

Joki had absolutely brutal fancystats yesterday. (4-18 shot attempts) Evidence Ralph pays attention to those numbers, or evidence he hates kids?

Casey bumped up from taxi squad. Reino out again. Tage sitting?

Better actually. career average over 82 games: 28 goals 46 assists. He’s only topped 27 goals once in his career.

Career Shootout stats Montour 50 (2/4) Dahlin 50 (1/2) Ristolainen 50 (1/2) Mittelstadt 37.5 (3/8) Okposo 37.1 (13/35) but he is 0/6 as a Sabre Eichel 33.3 (8/24) Thompson 33.3 (1/3) Reinhart 31.8 (7/22) Hall 25 (4/16) Staal 22.2% (4/18) Skinner 17.1 (6/29) Cozens 0 (0/1) Eakin 0 (0/1) Olofsson 0 (0/2) Reider 0 (0/3)

Again, this isn’t 5-on-5 hockey and they aren’t proven shootout scorers. Hall has 4 goals in 16 shootouts. Skinner has 6 in 29. I would be watching and testing players in practice and be aware of their shootout history and their history against the goalie.

Not contagious, I suspect. The fact he has yet to recover explains his poor performance. Surprised there haven’t been more athletes affected that way.

Was anyone else impressed by the four goals we scored tonight? Staal, Eichel, Reider, Eichel - every one of those perfect shots. That’s something that hasn’t been happening for us earlier this year, and most Sabre teams of the past decade couldn’t do.

He’s let in two from behind the net and a few straight in from the point. But he’s also battled so hard, put the bad goals behind him and made some fantastic saves with the game on the line. He’s coming on and putting us in a position to win games. Shootout is a specialty. Before tonight, career success rate: Skinner 18% Hall 25% Dahlin 100% And it’s not like Skinner has been riding a hot streak lately. Or even the past season and a half.

Thompson looked like he was overthinking things, which is no surprise given the way his season has gone. Ralph is going to move him off that line very soon. Dahlin I thought was playing the way he needs to be playing. Trying things and pushing the offence. Really overwhelmed them with the puck pressure early, but instead of feeding off the 5-on-3 we relaxed after that.

The Devils are hanging on by their fingernails with their third-string goalie and have a bad PK. The Sabres put out an embarrassing effort last time, have PP firepower and are well overdue for some bounces and lucky goals. Scott Wedgewood has a grudge no knows about from his time in Rochester and the players want to win one for Lindy. Smells like an easy 7-2 Sabres blowout, or a frustrating 3-1 loss.

It's probably better that way.

I’d be surprised if Sam misses any time. It’s probably from the cheap shot he took (what the hell was he doing in the dirty areas anyway?) after scoring comes on the heels of another that made him miss a shift a few games ago. They kept him out of practice to rest and heal, but he’ll play. Dude never misses. He’s one tough *****.

I’m really struggling to juxtapose your three years of preaching patience with Jason Botterill’s .442 hockey team with the air raid siren you’ve been sounding about this team over two weeks of .500 hockey. Honestly, I’m baffled.

That lineup looks like everybody will be getting another chance to make up for yesterday. Except Irwin who was an injury replacement anyway (and looked abysmal last night). Hope Hall can find himself on that line. He really looks out of sync and I think he might be in his own head right now.

What the hell is Jack Quinn doing? We see the other taxi squaders in practice and even getting shots with the team. We see the other prospects in training camp with Rochester. Jack seems to have been tucked away in a closet somewhere.

Eye test vs analytics vs production Skinner GP: 8 0/1/1/+1 Olofsson GP:8 3/4/7/-4 Is +/- the most revealing stat here?

Well at least we now have a real frame of reference for what this team looks like when it's playing bad. What a stinker. Thank Linus for the point, reset, come back Saturday to prove it was a blip, not a trend.

Ralph talked a lot about matchups over the pause and a lot of us thought he was talking about matching lines. It's becoming more clear that what he was talking about was rolling 4 lines capable of tilting the ice in a positive direction, rather than having to hide one or more.

No one said this would be bad, or that it couldn't be better. But you haven't really responded to what IKP spelled out: a situation where every line has a positive Corsi and the top line is dominant. He didn't prove this is the best possible mix, but he show it is an effective one based on the analytics that you have long wanted the Sabres to use.

I'd say Sam does into the dirty areas as much as Marchand and Tkachuk. He just doesn't go in with his stick up and his gums flapping.

I think this is a good take. I think he tries really hard to do what he thinks is expected of him, and he needs to be told that it's time to start imposing his will on the game and we will live with any mistakes if the rewards are there.