Bmwolf21

That might be the understatement of the year. Absolutely awful 1st period, ugly ugly ugly hockey. Too many bad passes, giveaways, not taking care of the puck, etc. At this point, I wouldn't blame Lindy if he decided to call a couple guys up and start giving out some healthy scratch games to get their attention.

Wow, these guys need to get out more: Guess you can't yell & chant at a hockey game, huh? First, what is Buffalo Nation? You could at least get it right (or make it sound better) by calling it Sabres Nation...and second - how are we even close to Front Runners? I would look at the Yankees before anyone else, and the Patriots, the LA Lakers, the Bulls, Miami Hurricanes, Notre Dame, the Raiders (hard to front-run when you suck, though) Ohio State...I think the Sabres would be waaaaaay down on the list of front runners.... We didn't even throw any commemorative glasses at anyone? Man, Lightning fans got off easy...

DC, I'm glad I wasn't the only one who disagreed about Kalinin...(see a couple posts up^^...)

I can't argue with the Briere and Miller picks, but I can't give Kalinin the nod for his game tonight. Not only did he have the original giveaway that led to the Lightning's only goal, he had another giveaway in the 3rd that Miller stopped; and he seemed to struggle all night in the 1-on-1 battles and with moving the puck. Not one of his better games, IMO. Then again, Spacek had a couple of misplays with the puck, and even Campbell had a couple minor flubs and turnovers. I don't think there was any way he could have stopped it. The turnover happened directly behind him - in a blind spot - so unless he had been slow following the puck originally, I can't see how he could do anything different. I'm sure he was also counting on Spacek & Hecht taking better care of the puck back there than they actually did.

Best news we've had in weeks...and I am very happy that Stafford was the one sent down. I like him, I think he is going to eventually be a big contributor to the Sabres' success, but by going down to ROC he can get more ice time in different game situations - PK, PP, etc. I'd rather see him do that than try to learn through 8-12 minutes of game time with Buffalo each night...

matter, I hear all that, and I agree that it wouldn't have been feasible to get Funk or Card or someone up in time. My question is why let it get to that point? I don't know how many 25+ minute games Teppo has in him at age 38, and like I said, if we lose someone in-game, I'd rather not see us down to four defensemen... overall, I'd rather have a (gulp) Rory F-type player up with us at a minimal salary who can play when guys are banged up and can give guys like Teppo some nights off, rather than keeping Paile and/or Stafford up to play 7 and 9.5 minutes per game, respectively... How is this for a joke (from the AP game recap): "Ovechkin drew an automatic $100 fine for the hit, which will be reviewed by the league office to determine if further action will be taken." For those of you scoring at home, here is how that breaks down: player "A" does something in egregioius violation of the rules, which the on-ice officials feel is an attempt to injure. NHL says "Bad boy, you owe us $100.00, Mr. $1 million-per-year superstar..." I mean seriously, wouldn't that be like one of us doing the same thing in a bar league and getting fined a quarter?

My quick thoughts on this one: *Good to see Mair and Goose "take care of business" after Ovechkin smeared Danny from behind. I agree Kotalik should have been involved, but I am overall happy about the way the team responded to the hit...I also agree that the NHL should be giving Ovechkin a couple game vacation, but knowing the NHL's track record, I won't be holding my breath waiting for that suspension... *Who had a worse night tonight - the refs, or Nathan Paetsch? Off the top of my head, I can think of three Paetsch misplays turning into Caps goals - he won't want to see the tape of this one. Good thing he is a rookie, it can be a valuable learning experience for him, though...OTOH, the refs were brutal in stretches tonight - missed some calls, and screwed up the "brawl" penalties, IMO. *I know it is salary cap related, but why did we even take a chance of not having an extra defenseman with us? Seems awfully risky to me to keep extra forwards up and hope that none of our 6 "D' get hurt, especially given how our injuries tend to come in bunches....what a nightmare it would have been had we lost one of our 5 D-men tonight... * Part of me is glad we weren't able to come back and win this one. Face it, our success in erasing leads, in playing partial games where we take shifts and periods off and still managing to come away with the win, has probably given them a sense of complacency no matter what the situation. I want the team to be confident that they can always come back, but they also need to know that the only way to ensure a "W" is to play 60 minutes of up-tempo, strong-effort hockey. *Anyone notice the Pulte Homes sign on the boards? Looking at it online, it isn't as close at it seemed, but my initial thought was that either Pulte was sponsoring the Sabres next year, or getting a logo/trademark infringment lawsuit ready, based on how similar the Sabres' logo seemed to the Pulte homes logo...

Dwight, the stats you posted for Ryan cover his entire career, which includes his 15-game rookie season (2002-03), while your totals for Marty appear to be from 2003-04 and on, skewing the comparison a bit. By adding Marty's numbers from 2002-03 (17-28-6; 2.56 GAA and .908 SV) this is how your comparison shapes up: FWIW, I still don't get the "he might retire to start a garage band"-type comments that seem to resurface every time we talk about Ryan. I've seen most of his interviews, and while he isn't a cliche-spouting machine, I haven't seen anything that makes me think he'll just walk away one day to hang with his buddies or get high with Wickey Williams. During that stretch, Marty did play pretty good. He played well enough to win, and make some noise about being traded somewhere else, but I don't think anyone is saying that right now he is playing anywhere near as well as he was during that streak. If Ryan isn't ready for the weeknd, then we have to see Dennis for either Friday or Saturday. Marty has played 5 straight, going back to the NYR game, and we have back-to-back Friday & Saturday games, followed by Mon-Wed-Fri games. If Ryan's injury nags even a little bit, we cannot expect Marty to handle the strain of 10 straight games over 17 days.

I gotta disagree with you here, X. There is no way you can honestly say Marty played well enough to win, nor did he play well enough to steal a point. I just watched the highlights on Yahoo sports, and there is no way that Neil goal should have gone in. Good shot by Neil, yes - but there was no pass fake, Marty just tried to guess at the pass and whiffed. Then he commits a standard-issue Marty-puck misplay, turning it over to set up the 3rd goal. Don't get me wrong, I am not laying the blame for this game solely at Marty's feet. I agree that there should be more focus on the ST's and the fact that we took way too many penalties last night, or that we stopped skating for a while, or that we had too many passengers. Whatever other factor you want to point to is probably true, but it doesn't absolve Marty of his clockwork efficiency of letting in a couple soft goals, and then making a couple tough saves to try to balance it out. Bottom line was, this team blew another third period lead last night. It is one game, and I don't want to focus too much on it, but at the same time, I am concerned that this team has blown significant leads in 4 of the last 5 games, and all with Marty manning the crease and giving up soft goals.

A general goaltending question - I was watching on Center Ice, and I didn't hear either goalie banging their stick on the ice to indicate their team's PP was ending...did anyone hear that at any point? The play that caught my attention was the Ottawa's SH breakaway, when Vermette(?) came out of the box and got behind the "D." I rewound the DVR and didn't hear anything from Marty to let his guys know he was coming out of the box. From then on I tried to pay attention to whether either goalie did, and couldn't really pick it up, so I am wondering what the MSG viewers saw/heard.

Yeah, but some of the people calling for Miller to sit were those with little or no credibility in that area. BTP, mrjsbu96, I agree totally - there were way too many passengers tonight, we didn't take care of the puck, and took too many stupid penalties. But none of that excuses Marty's performance - not only did he make some saves to keep the game close, but he made two misplays to give Ottawa life, so in that sense it's a wash. I don't think anyone is blowing the loss out of proportion, just stating what we saw as the major problems - and one was that the goaltending was, at best, average, while the ST weren't good at all. Close the book on tonight, hope Ryan is back for the weekend, and let's move on...

Some of the most uninformed, hate-filled idiots I have seen in a while - and I just came from TSW...

Who is SouthernHockeyChick referring to when she says "At least we kept Ernie Keebler out of the goal column." (Last post on the page)

My quick thoughts: * Overall, it seems this team plays to the level of their opponents. Could bite them in the ass later in the season, but right now they are still able to rack up some W's... * Can't really blame Marty for any of the first three goals, but that last goal by Brind'Amour is the reason I hope Ryan isn't out for a long stretch. Seems like Marty gives up at least one goal like that, a shot from in close that has no business getting past him, yet still does... * Was it just me, or did anyone else have that ECF sinking feeling start flaring up in the second period? When they came back to tie it, I thought it was May/June all over again, and we were going to blow another lead to the stinking Canes. Thank God this team has figured out how to finish... * Chris Drury - with the way his luck has gone the last few games, no one would have thought twice if he would have tried to force a shot at the EN, but he still passed it off to Hecht, and made sure the team got the insurance goal to knock the Canes out. As if anyone needed any more evidence that Drury is a truly unselfish player and a true team leader... * Erik Cole - what a frigging joke. Everyone felt bad for you after Brooks Orpik broke your neck last year, Erik - now it looks like you are just as big an a$$hole as anyone in the league, short of Darcy Tucker... * Finally - no B.S., no hyperbole here - this may have been the worst officiated game I have seen since the lockout ended. Guys going down all over the ice, getting run, roughed up, interfered with - but as soon as someone's stick goes horizontal all the whistles come out. Plus, how the hell can there be four officials on the ice and they miss a high sticking call?

The shootout guys and Lindy seemed to sugarcoat his performance, which made me wonder if I was being too harsh in thinking he wasn't on his game tonight. Glad others felt that way too...I don't want to have a one-man crusade against a player (not that anyone on here every does that... :doh:)

I think he did...the shootout guys mentioned he might have been screened, but I think he just misplayed it. BTW, did anyone see this: Did Roberts go ape$hit on the officials after the GWG? I rewound the postgame show to see if they had anything on it, but no one has mentioned it...

Good points, Kev, let me add a couple: * Not a strong outing by Marty tonight. Made a couple big saves after the game was 4-4 but probably should have stopped two of the goals... * I don't like to blame officials for games, but the stripes didn't bring their "A" games tonight. Just poorly officiated all around, including the linesmen. I understand tossing guys from the faceoff circle for cheating, getting a jump, whatever - but they are tossing guys out left and right for what looks like nothing. And two missed interference calls set up two Panthers' goals - the first one was the noncall on Briere right before the icing, and then the interference to clear the shooting lane for the tying goal. * PP looked terrible most of the night then redeemed itself in OT... * Stafford does look like he can hang...he is going to be pushing for more time, which means someone will have to go, especially if Timmy comes back. Peters is first out of the lineup * 13-1-1 looks awesome after the Sabres name in the standings

With all these relatively minor injuries, the team needs some of our "stars," like Briere, Drury, Pommer and Vanek to step up their play and make a difference. Winning some of these games with Henrik, Ryan and Max out would go a long way toward the confidence of the younger guys. Also, with guys missing from the lineup, it's a big chance for other guys like Stafford, Biron and Peters to show what they can do - Stafford can show he wants to stay with the big club, Biron is campaigning for more work and/or auditioning for another team, and Peters just wants to stay in the lineup and not get nailed to the bench when the game gets tight.

Labatt, there are still a few guys who will go toe-to-toe and just slug it out, but most of those guys learn pretty quickly that they won't be sticking around the NHL for very long if they take that kind of beating every time. I think I remember Razor or Barnaby talking about that in an interview a few years back. I also think that's why you tend to see more of the fist-flying brawls in the minors and the developmental leagues - they are trying to catch someone's eye (no pun intended) to get their skate in the door in the NHL. Once there, they'll fight, but they don't want to jeopardize their career.

Sometimes a good ass-kicking can do what even a coach of the year cannot - make the point that you aren't as good as your fans or the media are making you out to be and that you need to bring it every shift, every night.

I had a long list of gripes and grievances for this game, but I decided against posting them. I want to see how this team responds tomorrow night, since this is the first loss (and full-on ass-kicking) they have endured in a while. That being said, just because we are 11-1-1 doesn't mean we've been playing good hockey the whole way, and we haven't played well since the Isles game. We came out flat, Toroanto kicked our ass, let's move on to the next game. OTOH, one thing i will complain about is the number of leafs fans in our building. I understand the idea of selling your tickets to a few games to help pay for the other 35+ games you will actually attend - but there were WAAAAAAAY too many Leafs fans in the crowd tonight. Too many ugly, obnoxious, classless Canuckleheads in the crowd = hearing Ryan Miller get taunted and hear the "Goodbye" song against us in our own building. No matter how you spin it or whatever comeback you've got, we shouldn't EVER hear that in HSBC. And kudos to the 14-15,000+ Sabres fans in attendance - you let a much smaller leafs contingency make more noise than you. :doh: I know the Sabres didn't give us much to cheer about tonight, but make some noise, throw a beer on a Leafs fan, push him down a flight of stairs, something (EDIT: obviously I am just kidding - don't really act like Philly fans. ;) )

To paraphrase Marisa Tomei from My Cousin Vinny, that post is 100% dead-on balls-accurate.

Yep, IMO it looks like a pre-Lockout game out there...lots of stuff (both ways) being ignored byt he stripes. It seems more evident when you are used to everything being called then nothing is being called. Not skating is the tip of the iceberg tonight. A lot of standing around, not winning battles for loose pucks, not in position when we lose a battle, passes aren't sharp, mishandling the puck... But they can still salvage the night with a strong 3rd... :thumbsup:

Although I suspect Dave may be right, and it may have been a case of getting TV back on the ice, we have to remember that Lindy doesn't really have the threat of scratching spmeone right now if they don't play well. His only options for that are to pull a Peters and nail him to the bench in the 3rd, or make the offending player skate with Gaustad & Mair. In this case, I would argue that unless Lindy told him it was just a double-shift to get him back on the ice, TV probably still "took a hint" from Lindy. At worst, it was an unpleasant reminder of being relegated to the end of the bench from last year. Anyway it's great to have these kind of things to worry about right now, isn't it?

Actually, I thought Max was the only one of those three that had a decent game - it seemed like neither Roy nor Vanek could keep up with him tonight. I wonder if it was just an off-game for Derek & Thomas, or if the legs were a little sluggish. Whatever. I think Lindy sent a little warning to Vanek late in the game when he was skating with Mair & Gaustad, and I think they'll get it back on track for Thursday.