LTS

How the he'll are there so many Vegas fans here?

Game time!

Control is an illusion.

Love Flemish.

I just walked through security at the will call gate. Leaning on the wall with a generic sweater. Call out Randy and I'll look.

Nice. I'm finishing the beer I just started and I'll stumble down from Pizza Plant.

I'm at Pizza Plant... Pregaming.

That's okay.. it just means at 1:25pm this will be seen in the concourse. d4rk will be going crazy.

That's right. It's time. Vegas makes it's way into Buffalo. Yours truly will be there along with many other insane SabreSpacers looking to bring the mojo. Look.. we know where things have gone. We hope to see where things are going. The Buffalo Amerks are ready to take on the upstarts who have taken the league by storm. It's a 1pm start which means even if you needed to get to Cracker Barrel you've got plenty of time. If you needed to make sure that you weren't screwed over by losing an hour tonight, you've got time! If you needed to tailgate at 10am like a member of the Bills Mafia, you're in your element! Look for the idiots at the arena... it'll be us! Enjoy the game or whatever you choose to do 5 minutes after Dougie finishes the anthems.

I'll park up at the ballpark as well. I should have a few seats to transport people as well.

Interesting. That would be different than a concussion then. It sounds scary as hell however and your poor daughter is not having as much luck. Wasn't he in the ICU because of a reaction to the medication and not just the concussion? My guess is that they'll find another way to treat him this time.

Excellent. I will say we should plan to meet around 12:15 then. I will probably leave Rochester around 10:00.

Did we set a time we were meeting? 12pm? 12:30?

I think it's important to note that head injuries are wildly unpredictable and each person is impacted differently. So, while Savard may have had one set of symptoms and impacts, Okposo may be different. There are certainly plenty of people who have sustained major concussion and as of yet are not showing major brain trauma impacts. The good news is that there is a massive amount of study going on and the use of fMRI, etc. to map and monitor changes in brain function. I am certain that Okposo will get very good treatment and some projection of the latest injury (assuming it's even a head injury) impact on his mental function. Frankly I really hope it's a chest injury... unlikely, but I hope. I wonder what Crosby's brain looks like at this point. He was out of hockey for a significant period of time.

Just an update that I am the one now sitting in Section 121, row 17, seat 1. I am sure WC and I will be ejected for fighting before the end of the first. If so, we'll meet you all at Cole's as we reconcile over a few beers. :)

I don't view it as the bar being that low. It's really how you want to choose to process the situation. You can focus on the overall record and performance of the team and you'd be right in saying it sucks. The team is not good enough. However, I prefer to look at the team as a work in progress. I am not choosing to ignore that the organization made another change and as such there is a changeover period where the actual capability of the team will not be realized. This is not a hockey only situation either. I work in telecom where there are continued organizational changes and there is constantly a reset of what is expected of you, who you report to, how things are done, etc. It takes time to get up to speed on those things. So, treating the situation in that way, you begin to look at portions of the season to see if the team is improving. All signs indicate that the team itself is improving. However, no one should be saying that this team is good enough yet. It needs more talent without a doubt. The team MIGHT have been able to speed up the process by bringing up the AHL prospect rather than filling the roster with cast-offs from other organizations. However, the leader hired to build this team does not subscribe to that method. Like it or not. What are we left with? The team is showing signs of improvement even with the current talent load. We have no choice but to look to the future and see what additional changes put this team in a position to finally move up in the standings and be more of a contender next year. You can wallow around in the past failures. You can moan about how everything has sucked for so long and that they still suck. I don't see the point in it. If you tore your knee up and needed massive surgery, would you look forward to the progress points in your recovery or would you wait until you were maybe 80% and then finally stop saying everything sucks and it's all bad? If you had a loved one recovering from cancer would you wait until they were in remission before you showed signs of support or would you support every little step of the way back? Why be any different with this team?

So that happened.

While I think you are putting too much emphasis on Housley here I do like your new positive outlook on the team. It's a step in the right direction, keep it up. Another game... sweet. Hopefully they play better tonight. If not I am sure I will find something else to do pretty quickly.

I don't see why they wouldn't. It's a full on restaurant and not just a bar. NYS only has laws against underage kids sitting at a bar. We have the room upstairs. I can't say 100% though.

Let's do it! Sabres office, to the right of will call. Good to see Eleven agreeing with himself.

In which alternate universe does this roster perform better than it currently is and who is the coach of that team? By a strict sense of the word, Housley is a failure. His team is not winning. And if that were the only criteria that matters then every team that doesn't win the last game of the season... fails. Some just fail less than others right? Just curious, when you played competitively, if your team was bad did you consider yourself a failure? I have to assume you did not play on a team that won it's last game of the year every time and that during your career some of those teams failed more than others, even potentially as bad as the Sabres are failing (in relative comparison to the league your team was in).

It won't be 10 new faces with zero experience in the style of play that is required. Vegas players all arrived in Vegas as cast-offs from their prior team. This gives them motivation. None of them are lamenting the firing of their old coach (not sure if anyone in Buffalo was either, but it's distinctly NOT a possibility in Vegas). They are all part of something new with a chance to start their own history. Many of them are playing for the next contract. It will remain to be seen if Vegas can continue their momentum into next season. The situation isn't quite the same. I understand why it's easy to compare them. But this Sabres team is carrying years of losing on its shoulders as well. It has a fan base that barely cares about it. Vegas fans had something new to look forward to. Keep in mind that the Florida Panthers and Lightning were both really good when they first formed... and then not so good. Florida used to pack the building. Now they're the hottest team in the league and no fans are there. Let's let the shiny wear off in Vegas.

It's a bit myopic to judge the current Sabres performance against the full season. It throws out the window that an entire team had to learn a new system. It throws out the window that there were 10 new faces on the team at the start. It throws out the window that there were injuries that may have had an impact early on in the performance as well. It's a season that needs to be judged in segments. The Sabres are playing much better in the second half of the season and all indicators point to improvements. The Panthers were crap early this season as well. They've been super hot lately. Bob Boughner is a new coach as well. They have more talent than Buffalo without a doubt and so overall they are higher in the standings but it's the same kind of progression. I'm sold on what I've seen from Housley to date. I see no reason to be pessimistic. I'm also realistic in that I am not going to sit here and tell you the problems are solved. However I don't think the problem is with the coach.