LTS

I have to go with McCabe for the positive. I truly expected him to be the roster filler. He could be moved up and down with impunity and I expected that flexibility to be the key factor keeping him in the AHL. He's not going anywhere at this point. He's forced the hand of the Sabres. Ullmark is a surprise but when Lehner comes back he's still going to be sent down to Rochester. He's here because of necessity. He sure is making the most of his time here however. As for Zemgus it's a bit misleading. There are 4 regular roster players on the Sabres who have a positive +/-. Reinhart and Larsson are +1, Zemgus and Pysyk are 0. I know some aren't huge fans of +/- but still. Comparably, Gio is -6. Moulson is -1. Anyway.. the whole team looks really good. These games against DAL, STL, and NSH will be some good benchmarks.

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=787521&navid=nhl:topheads Interesting read on goalie skates... This could have gone in the scoring thread or the science thread but there's no scientific evidence that these changes will lead to less scoring. :)

I can watch the game tonight... so, that's a positive for me. Looking forward to it.. as I do every game this year..

The only thing I saw in the McDavid injury was a guy who took a shot and twisted enough to put his center of gravity on the wrong side of his edges. Once that happened he was going to fall over. Given where he was at he was most likely going to come away with some serious hurting. The problem was made worse by him taking out two Flyers defenders with him. I don't see anything cheap there at all. It's an unfortunate play and McDavid is responsible for taking out the Flyers players as well. I don't think anyone is going to cheap shot Eichel. He's already one of the faces of the game. He's likely to get some extra bumps and a few other knock downs but as far as a pure cheap shot goes? I don't think so. There was a ideo posted a few years back that I believe showed Gallagher against the Bruins. He gets dropped by the goalie, then the defender knocks him down, and then he gets knocked down again all while just trying to get out of the Bruins zone and get back into the play. I would expect THAT level of irritation. That said... I do think there is an entire team that is going to come to his defense at this point.

I'm always amazed at how poor the defense plays those moves. We teach the defender to not focus on the puck, the body matters and yet there is another example of the defender staring at Vanek's stick and puck. By the time he realized what was happening Vanek had his arms in the air. Great moves by Vanek to get to the goal.

What are the fancy stats on that? :) Yep. Hard to figure. And the thing is the schedule doesn't happen in a vacuum. So, for DAL, NSH, STL, and TB they've cleared the Sabres off their schedule early which means they are stacking other teams later on as well. Surely there are a variety of good teams to play against? I look at it this way. The Lightning did not have to face Bogosian once. It's just a schedule quirk this year.. can't recall anything that seemed this concentrated before.

The Sabres play the Lightning for the final time this season. Greater than 25% of their games so far have been against the Lightning. Who makes this schedule? It's awful. Go Sabres... I'm just over annoyed at the schedule makers to be all that excited.

There is still a lot to be said for the evolution of protective equipment and the willingness of players to stand in front of shots more. Goalies are bigger, there's no denying that. I agree it's not as bad as it was back then but there are times when it still comes up. That said, it's not always the obstruction that is the problem. Not calling cross-checks also dismisses an opportunity for a power play that could raise scoring.

If it were Johnson you would do it just for the headline. But "Bylsma pulls Linus" doesn't have the same ring.

I believe they studied the NFL for exactly how to execute this. But there is still a good amount of hooking, grabbing, that goes uncalled. Look back at Girgensons being everything short of tackled the other night and no penalty called.

Thank you for the response. With regards to the likelihood I would agree, but I just wanted confirmation of my thinking that he could charge her if it were truly a false accusation. As for the moratorium, thanks for the clarification. I think a better way for me to ask is that do we think it's likely that those who have voluntarily engaged in the moratorium will then release her name or at least use it freely if she is no longer considered a legal "victim". Honestly, i would hope that would not use her name.

The simple solution is to call the penalties that are happening. Allowing the interference, etc. is a way to keep the teams closer together in the standings by not allowing the truly talented to move more freely and create goals. I don't see anything else required at this point.

Another game where I will miss most of it due to coaching... but man.. the key thing is that I will actually MISS it. Go Sabres... keep growing.

I feel exploitation. As in many men being separated from their money for an outcome that will never happen. I laugh. It is what it is... and it's not my thing. Good stuff. Love it.

Is it any surprise? Look at the McDavid thread for a more localized sample of the lack of compassion and understanding in this world. Even if you don't want to be compassionate or understanding there is still the desire to waste energy wishing ill on someone else. I don't understand it. I never will. I guess that's how people roll but it sure as hell doesn't help society. My question for the legal minded in here. If she knowingly made a false accusation then would we expect that the DA would charge her with anything? Not a case of it may have happened or it may be hard to prove but more or less they knew it did not happen. I'd think they would. I think, when the case is closed there might be a few statements. Also, once the case is closed, does the moratorium on not publishing her name get lifted since she's (by the letter of the law) not a victim? Curious..

I think it makes it worse. Now his accomplishments can be questioned as to whether McDavid would have performed better or not. This is a disgusting viewpoint. Hoping someone gets injured. It's just disgusting. Real fans don't want McDavid to be a flop, they don't want the other team to suck, they just want their team to be better. Not a roar of delight. The Cowboys fans gave a pretty good cheer for the Seahawks player who suffered a serious neck injury in the game. That's what SHOULD happen. In your case you'd be Dez Bryant out there on the field saying he got what he deserved (if you believe the media report). You might as well stop on the side of the road when you see an accident and start laughing at people. Seriously? Your goal in life is to succeed by destroying others rather than building yourself up to be better than they are? Let's say Brady tears his ACL. Let's say the Bills win. You get no satisfaction because every Pats fan is going to simply say, "Didn't have Brady". You'll say... "So what the Bills still won." Their response? "Yep, they won, when the best QB in the game wasn't playing." You don't get your comeuppance. You don't get to gloat because it's meaningless. Just like no Patriots fan gets to talk smack to a Giants fan. Can't do it. Why? 0-2 when it matters. Disgusting. You might be the first person I ever put on ignore.

He had to love voicing the Joker in the animated Batman series. Psycho-evil... he's good at it.

Well... add to this the theory of Luke actually being on the dark side. Couple that with the Lucas' commentary that the pre-quels would follow the original trilogy in some story lines and plot devices... So, the unsuspecting evil guy was Luke, he played everyone. Binks is the unsuspecting evil guy, he played everyone. Yoda was the unassuming power character. Binks was the unassuming power character. What if Skywalker/Binks actually built the New Order (or whatever its called).. the male Skywalkers are evil and the female Skywalkers resurrect the Jedi? Just have fun with that.. you can get your head spinning. Okay.. I'm done... I just want to see the movie.

I don't disagree. But right now Moulson is tied for the lead in goals. As it so happens, the 3 players with 4G each play on a different line. Consistency in scoring and having each line being hard to play against is pretty admirable in my opinion. Each line bangs, passes, and shoots. More below... In continuation (because I wanted to address both). I think Bylsma will move some players around, but not while things appear to be working. But, there's a hit or miss on that idea of doing it. It's not just the probability of improving one line but also the probability of decreasing the effectiveness of another. If the net gain is more production then great. There is also morale. I think, right now, no player necessarily feels that they are not on the 2nd line. The O'Reilly/Ennis line I believe is the clear #1 line. After that the Sabres have 3 lines of #2/3 lines. Really.. they all seem so similar in composition at this point.

One would hope that Girgensons might do the same. There are a lot of similarities between the two when it comes to dogging the guy with the puck.

Letting me down too. :)

Hah.. love it.

The Sabres might have a problem. How do we shuffle the talent? So much better than... How do we hide the flaws?

"I was prepared to not like it. ... "I drank about half the bottle". Talk about your ringing endorsement right there. Haha.. that's awesome. (well, except for your recollection issues...)

Indeterminate. Revisionism? Certainly not me. He's a horrible coach. "Go that way, really fast and if something gets in your way, turn." The entire staff was set up to fail,of course. They were also faced with the last coaching opportunities they were going to get in the NHL. Nolan had no choice (I posted this last year). Murray held all the chips. Keep Nolan, placate the fans. If Nolan succeeds then great, but it's likely he won't. So he fails, you send him packing, and he helped accomplish a last place finish. Let's not pretend that Nolan was included in the discussion of every coaching vacancy in between his HC stints. He wasn't... in any of them as far as I know. The easiest way to put this is this. He's not a good coach and he was set up to fail. He would have failed anyway, but perhaps not as poorly with this years team. The categorization of "dumb dumb" and "genius" is unwarranted. I have provided examples of areas where Nolan was simply not capable of coaching an NHL team. it wasn't diluted down to "he dumb, he smart".