LTS

A few things I've done that have helped. I switched the lower boot to inside out lacing. It generally keeps from overtightening around the front of the foot which I used to do when tightened from the outside and could pull harder. About 4 eyelets from the top I switch to traditional lacing. This allowed me to pull the ankle more snug where there is far more give in the boot. You've been leaving the top a little looser. This is a by product of your ankles getting stronger as well. Ideally you want your foot, up to the ankle, to be snug so that the boot moves in tune with your foot and you don't waste energy with your foot moving as you push. At the same time, with a slightly looser top you get increased bend in the ankles allowing you to bend your legs more effectively. Just some fun for lacing as well as what was linked above: http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/lacingmethods.htm

I'll be watching the Sabres. I might flip to the Bills but in my pecking order it's almost any hockey game and then just maybe a Bills game. Not a football fan really. Perhaps I will do something else while the game is on. Who knows. A team that can't score going up against a team that is traditionally hard to score against. Both teams are horrible on the power play. Perhaps there will be a lot of penalties tonight as there will be little fear of the ensuing power play hurting the team.

How sad. A guy gets hit hard and you immediately want to cause permanent physical injury to someone. Perhaps your emotion is getting the better of you. The Sabres responded as needed. It's unfortunate that the lack of true hockey skill o on this team has led you to desiring actual physical harm on others just to the team you root for might have a chance to win. Given your apparent response levels you prefer the play of Patrick Kaleta and Matt Cooke. You'd be gone from the league in less than a season. Your coach would be fined large sums of money for your actions. You'd probably be able to do that once before you were released from the team. It's wrong. There is no justification for it. None. If you want people responding to violence with extreme violence then you should spend your time with MMA or something. Stafford has already dropped the gloves a few times this season, including at least once when it was totally not necessary. Completely irrational thinking to say someone should snap just because they are on a crappy team. I fear that after getting humiliated by the Wild on Thursday a fair share of posters on this board might go and try to burn down FNC to show what they feel is an appropriate response for this team. Sigh.

The play against Ennis and the spear are completely different. Spearing has no place in the league. It's as despicable as boarding a guy who has had his back turned to the play for some time. The penalty for spearing is a match penalty. What happened to Ennis isn't even a penalty if the puck doesn't go out of play. It would have been deemed a shot and a continuance of the hit he took to take the shot but because the puck goes out of play it seems far worse. Oh, and to add to my other line on Ristolainen. I also laughed on the Sabres power play in the 3rd. Stafford gets tossed. Moulson wins it cleanly, shot on net. All Sabres stand around as Elliott has the puck in his glove and can't believe NO ONE is crashing the net. So he calmly lets it go to his defender who shoots it down the ice. Outcoached, outworked, outplayed.

Perhaps because he earned a stupid 10 minute misconduct penalty on Saturday night? I still have no idea what it was for but he must have said something to the ref while the ref was calling a penalty against Samuels-Thomas. No clue.

Deslauriers won't have to be scratched next game. He just speared a hot new star in the NHL. That's gonna be two games. I'd waive Hodgson at this point. He's a turd. Love with 6 seconds left in the second period Ristolainen jumps into the play, goes deep into St. Louis zone. As the puck is coming back he's waving to the bench. The camera follows the puck but at the end of the period there's Ristolainen on the ice. Either no one felt like jumping on the ice or they weren't paying attention. Outcoached, outclassed, outmanned, outplayed. Good night.

I don't know. The line in this game between NHL level and not is pretty thin. A lot of it is in the coaching, both on and off the ice. I don't think the Sabres have the coaching at any level at this point. Granted they don't have talent either but to explain away the effectiveness of someone like Moulson is tough. Sure he's not with JT anymore, but he's never looked this bad. It's a coach who can't get his players on the same page. The 50% thing is completely pointless. It has nothing to do with having 300,000 better choices worldwide. I think it doesn't play here. Lots of stupid people get married, treat it like a commodity, and end it by flushing it down the toilet like that unwanted goldfish from the fair. Anywho. Words are just words until there are actions behind them.

So he's playing D now? :) "Whatever" - this is my phrase for this season. I refuse to be emotionally twerked by these kinds of things.

They blew pretty hard tonight. Grigorenko made a few good plays but Armia looked like a spoiled brat at times. I wasn't impressed. He is still trying to force his way through players and losing the puck. He had his moments I suppose. McCabe did not impress me. He had a few moments but I saw some bad reads on his part tonight. Pysyk just plays his game. You don't even notice him on the ice. Overall, the Amerks looked pretty crappy. Albeit the Comets are the top team in the AHL but I expected more from the Amerks. All in all it was a pretty boring game tonight.

Hah. I saw none of the game tonight as I was busy watching the Amerks lose to the Comets (best team in the AHL). The Amerks looked like sorry turds against the Comets. Sigh. That said, why does anyone even bother to complain about the Sabres? Losing to Pittsburgh is a foregone conclusion. The Penguins are at an entirely different level in the NHL than the Sabres. This is the Sabres. This is who they will be for this season. If you can't handle it, then you would do your health a benefit by tuning out. I'm not saying that to be flippant, but seriously, think about the absurdity of getting upset over this. This team sucks. I don't think Nolan is the answer by any means. This is the pain that was arranged. It will be played out. That said, to put any of this on Murray is absurd. OF course, watching the Amerks tonight I saw a few things. Passes into skates, players slow in reading the plays, players taking bad angles, one too many passes, etc. I did actually have a thought that perhaps Cassidy needs to go because there are some problems in Rochester that seem to also appear in Buffalo. Oh well. At least I got to watch my son play tonight and then we got to watch a hockey game.

Of course RJ said he had a PET scan, not a CT. But either way. I turned on the TV last night right when they showed RJ for the first time alongside Duff. Duff was clearly emotional talking to RJ and I thought that showed just how much RJ means to so many people. Truthfully, could you ask for better timing? On the night of Hockey Fights Cancer they get to announce RJ is cancer-free. I mean, it was perfect. He's clearly got a long way to go in gaining his stamina and strength back but he sounded better than I anticipated given the last article I had read. I was going out last night and not to a place where I could watch the game but I stayed home long enough to watch the puck drop. I can tell you that the news set my mood to awesome for the night.

Look... If this can exist -> http://www.back9network.com/ Then anything is possible.

I drink after the game. Every time. No exception. :) I think my problem is that this year I am coaching 9-10 year olds. I am shooting on a 10 year old goalie, so I can't just do what I normally do. They are bringing me down. (I'm going with that, I skated them extra hard in practice last night because I blamed them.) j/k

We'll know once the Sabres play the Islanders and Blues. In order to do everything required they would need to take out a few key players on each team to help them lose more. :w00t:

Sweet. I'm showing this to my 10 year old and tell him sucks. :) His retort will probably be. Yea,, but he plays in Japan, the level of competition is different.

In other news... I've had two clean breakaways.. blue line to the goalie with NO pressure, one each the past two weeks. I've scored zero goals. Unhappy am I. Also, I never drink before or during playing.. can't do it. I know guys who do... but really, no thanks.

That's pretty damn awesome right there.

Wish I could find the details right now.. but I can't. In the NHL, there are two important deadlines for players like Zadarov. The 10 game mark we are very familiar with and then the year of service qualification which dictates when he'd be eligible for UFA status. Even if he's not playing I am pretty sure he still counts towards those games and so if the Sabres keep him up and scratched he is eligible for UFA status a year earlier than if they send him back right? That said, do games in the KHL count as professional service as well?

Clearly. Nothing ironic about him having built a house. Callahan has a house in Rochester too.

Here's Grigorenko's number. Welcome to the NHL.

Bitch all you want.. the Canes are below the Sabres in the standings. People say, wait until they get their players back...yea... right. Didn't watch the game.. had a good time catching up with someone at the bar tonight instead. The game was on to start, some satellite or TV issue and they put TNF on instead. I never noticed and never cared although I do recall thinking "Wow, they are up 2-1?" while on my way to the men's room. This post also has no value.

This thread could overtake the Stafford one in the end. Given how long Hodgson will be around.

So I read Fraser's C'mon Ref and he indicated that perhaps they could have reviewed the goal. There was a potential goal scored. The only problem was they blew the whistle upon Detroit touching it so they believed no goal was scored. Still, I would have reviewed it. Oh well. Two years in a row Detroit is involved in a crazy goal situation. Last year they were the beneficiaries of the puck of the mesh back into play and through Quick's legs. At least we have the butt goal still right?

Detroit got absolutely hosed last night on a goaltender interference call that never happened. Almost ridiculous that the rules don't allow for some kind of video review in that situation. Perhaps they could have reviewed it as part of a good goal review since they waived off the goal Detroit scored when Holtby tripped over himself. Amazing..

It's a fine line at some point there's no doubt. However, I think when you take multiple strategies at each point in the game and then you put those together you've developed a system. I'll boil it down into one specific instance I can think of here. What is the strategy for wanting to leave a player, uncontested, in front of your goaltender while shorthanded? It's something Nolan must want because they do it constantly. It's in his system that this happens. While I don't think coaching at the highest level is required it is required to have a solid fundamental knowledge of hockey strategies and systems. I think it is possible for many people to gather that information and incorporate it into their analysis of the Sabres positioning, their methods, etc. That said, we don't know what everyone's background is and just how learned they are in these things. Even then, I would it could be said that the highest level of coaching provides additional nuances that those who are not able to achieve that level would never understand. I think it's fair to say that Mike Babcock probably has some nuances to his coaching and his system that Ted Nolan does not have.