Lumpy

Not enough speed, hustle, toughness, scoring touch, creativity, or heart. They show tantalizing bits which keeps me around, but with a four game losing streak, going to be tough to keep caring. At least this was a step up from the Carolina game utter lack of heart. But this team just isn't very good. I would try to save the season by seeing what a new coach could do.

suckitudinous

I guess I was expecting more of a lift from Ott.

This is uninspiring. Tough to watch this team. I can watch the Rangers down here locally. I am starting to feel my hometown allegiances waning.... Ott and Scott don't bring much to this team, and it is still the same collection of figure skaters going through motions for big money.

The team is heartless. Best thing we can do with Grigorenko is keep him with Patrick Roy - a winner in Quebec - and keep him away from the mediocrity which is the core of our team. The less time for Lindy to ruin him is for the better. Hopefully Ruff sees the door this year. I am praying for another miss this year so we finally get the change we need.

Pussies. Same old crap. Glad I am getting an internet feed. Two stinkers in a row. Crap effort. I would not mind (as much) losing an exciting game.

Botox?

Scott looks like Andrew Peters out there - especially after he got decked in Toronto and lost that fight. And then I swear I saw #9 Ott go off the ice on one shift in that same lollygagging way Roy used to. Ennis, Stafford, Foligno don't look like they did last year. No one seems like they were shot out of a gun. Only one who plays with some spark is Kaleta.

2-46....

Yesterday's games - New York/Boston, Philly/Pittsburgh were a wake up call. Unless the minor tweaks in chemistry in the off season catalyze something significant in the basic compounds on this team, I just don't see any major chemical reaction happening here. Grigorenko playing great, the soft forwards playing with courage, Foligno/Ennis/Stafford being more than a flash in the plan, Miller digging out the form of 3-4 years ago, a bunch of sub-par seasons last year magically becoming above average -- all of this will need to come together for us to even have a shot of being competitive. I don't know. Today's game and the next one or two will be indicators whether these minor changes will be magical given the aggressive, up tempo hockey I saw from the best teams in the division. I must watch on the same general principal of why moths like flames, but I suspect it will be a short season of thinking something special will happen. Hope springs eternal, and while I am modestly excited about watching John Scott pound the lights out of the other enforcers in the division, not sure this will be enough. His fight reel on YouTube is pretty dominant. First fight in Buffalo against a Philly guy should get the blood spirits up. But the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. I don't think magical thinking is going to help us, and not sure getting an enforcer and Steve Ott will be enough to get us there. But hope springs eternal. Hockey is still better than watching basketball.

So little movement. Entreched positions. I don't see the catalyst to end this. I think this is a pain endurance contest. That will take awhile, won't it?I feel that the whole thing will be cancelled. I think the whole thing will be cancelled. Is their a betting pool on this anywhere?

I would be too. He was really short on skill and positional knowledge, which seemed to limit how physical he was. It felt like he had to think too much. I would like a bunch of 6'8 guys on the ice in a line brawl against the bruins. I am old school that way....

That would be the decent thing to do. I suspect there is way too much money at stake for the University to do this as the football program is a major breadwinner - but this would set a real example for sports, politics, business etc. if they forsake the money and really acknowledge the instituional mindset that allowed this to happen for as long as it did. I think we need our Universities to set examples of doing the right thing and not acting like a business or government. I don't expect the right thing to happen.

Assuming they keep Kaleta (which I hope they do), and they have agitation spread over four lines (Ott, Kaleta, Foligno and not just one line), I see a need for one unstoppable guy to beat the living daylights out of those who will try to punch the agitators. Cody McCormick in the role of tough-guy-of-last resort is an overwhelming option. I think Scott will play a lot early in the season as the Sabres try to set a new tone with the league as not the biggest pussies to ever lace up skates. I am hoping the tone setting goes on well past January and I would love some Ottawa-style donnybrooks to make sure our skill players and snipers (we have so few we should not put them all on one line) have more skating room. But I think Scott will make our agitators more effective and allow each line to have a physical presence. I hate the paradigm of a #1 line, a #2 line, a checking line, and then a fighting line. I like four lines with a playmaker, a sniper and a grinder so other teams needs to re-adjust their way of looking at us. I never felt Bobby Clark was such a skilled hockey player as others in the league at the time, but I think his skills were strong enough but helped by the room he was given playing on a Flyers team as scary as it was. I am hoping Ennis, Hodgson, Gerbe, Pominville, Vanek, Grigorenko (assuming he is NHL ready to replace either McCormick or Ellis in the middle), Stafford, Leino play better with some more room feeling that they can be more adventurous because someone has their back. Hopefully they will not feel they must always float to the outside. I am hoping Stafford and Vanek are motivated to play more physical with their size given what would be improved physicality on the team. God, I hope the new mix brings a new attitude and the new attitude becomes infectious. As a fan, it felt like there was some cancers in the lockerroom last year, and perhaps enough of it has been cut away that the old attitude does not grow back.

Cough syrup. Hard Candy. Ornage Juice.