Randall Flagg

Bryson's blue-line shimmy is pretty cool. He doesn't look great anywhere else yet haha

Also in the 5 games I've watched Staal has been the worst player on the ice. Very unfortunate

I haven't seen enough of this year to know if there's been impovement, but Olofsson (a wonderful PP weapon) was always so invisible at even strength last season. It started to drive me nuts seeing him on Jack's line when the games got important. When Olofsson got hurt last year, Jack got new LWs (Usually Vesey or Zemgus) and put up 13 ES points in his next 16 games without VO. His PP production suffered naturally, without that sniper on the other side. Before Olofsson's injury, Eichel's ES production was similar, but it rarely had anything to do with Victor (remember how much trouble he had at ES early in the season last year, I believe Ralph even mentioned it numerous times in press conferences). Jack dancing around the Panthers, Predators, Capitals etc. with absolute gorgeous efforts, his 4 entirely solo rush effort goals in that game against the Senators, similar rush goals against TOR and MTL etc. Victor just often had nothing to do with it. But when Victor came back and teams had ramped up their play down the stretch, it was even more obvious that he wasn't ready to be there, and putting him there actively hampered our run. It literally killed the production of the top line. They won a couple more crazy games going into the TDL, and then as we all know, lost 6 in a row in regulation, and finished outside of the increased playoffs by 1 point. Again, without Victor there, Jack had 13 ES points in 16 games, which is borderline elite ES production for a player that does so well on the power play. As soon as Victor came back, the line disappeared. I posted about it in GDTs at the time. In Victor's first 3 games, the only offense that line got was a Jack solo rush goal against the BJs, and they were caved in the rest of the time - other than 1 goal post vs Toronto, there was barely even anything you could call a scoring chance. The key was that nobody noticed this because jack and Victor were lighting it up again on the PP and in OT (olofsson PPG tied the BJs game that was his first one back, and his OT goal won that game, both epic, both assisted by Jack). So people said wow glad to have this back together! Well, you can split them up 5v5 and still get all of those moments in OT and on the PP. Because with Olofsson on his side, the remaining 11 games saw Jack get TWO points at even strength. Two. That's it. Olofsson was a drag all year that didn't matter at first, but when teams started getting into that playoff mode (remember those games against Vegas and Colorado? We played so damn well, but lost both, because it was two great teams stepping their game up for the first time we had seen all year) they were suffocated, and having 2 forwards that can handle top defensive assignments instead of 3 wasn't enough. Because we ultimately missed by 1 point, I think this decision actually cost us a shot at the play-in round. It wasn't just stats - Jack's line was far less dangerous by the naked eye overnight. It was one of the lasting things I took out of that season and thought about all summer long. Skinner this, Skinner that, blah blah, when Eichel's LW is Olofsson, versus when it was anyone else, the following things happened: Eichel's Corsi drops from 52.7 to 48.6 Eichel goes from +6 in 2/3rds of the sample size, to only +3 in 50% more minutes (his GF% drops from 57.1 to 52.5) His xGF% drops from 52.1% to 45.8% High Danger Corsi (not sure how this differs from scoring chances) goes from 53.9% to 44.2% This is all while his offensive zone starts actually increase by 5%. Some of these gaps would indicate the difference between a cup contender and last place, at a team level. It doesn't work Ralph! And I'm not hear to say that Skinner deserves ANYTHING, I know I defended him during his first two goal-less droughts, but he's obviously incredibly flawed and needs his hand held at all times, which is a problem at that contract. But, when you have a guy that can score 40 and flip all of those stats, and get the best ES play out of Jack we've ever got, and that player also happens to have like 0 goals away from Jack in his Sabre career, well, maybe take the anchor off and get Skinner there? But even if you don't want to "reward" Skinner for his lack of results, put SOMEONE there that isn't Victor. You hamper both Jack and the team, for a gain that hasn't yet been observed. This sums the last 3 seasons. At this point, whatever we don't know about Skinner might be far too gone to do anything about. But if you're going to take a guy that scored 40 and received 9 million dollars per year from you, and give him the equivalent of about 5 games worth of minutes in that same situation over the next 2 seasons, and he ***** BLOWS outside of that situation...for me to be okay with it, I had better see some results that I can't deny. Have we seen the spoils of this decision? Because we missed a 24 team playoff last year, and might finish DFL this year. Whatever the situation is might change things, and might make fixing things like this impossible, I don't know, I'm just speaking from the knowledge I have (Paul insists that he picks up on things, and that he hasn't heard a peep about Jeff rubbing players the wrong way or anything, he says he's well liked, and Ralph says the treatment has nothing to do with discipline)

I give a round of applause when Sabres players do this. So many times, a forward about to head off on a change has a wide open defenseman standing at their faceoff dot with no one else in the zone, and rather than give him the puck, go change, and hit the attack with fresh skaters, we instead hand it to the OPPONENT's defenseman before peeling off to change anyway. It's obviously a natural reaction to get it in deep, and sometimes it's the right choice (if the D need to change too), but when the option is there, keep the puck!

If I close my eyes and think really hard, I can sort of pretend that playing the same team 3x in a row is like the playoffs. PLAYOFFS BABY LETS GOOOOOO

2C and a goalie. There are more needs on top of that, but if those get fixed, it goes a long way towards having a real roster.

Paul said that Kyle also said he was proud of Dylan. IMO, that's no hockey cliche. Dylan showed Kyle something Kyle hasn't seen around these parts.

Genuinely confused because I don't think I ever got into any major disagreements with you, at least like I have with SwampD (Bylsma) and Hank (I don't even remember what, I'm sorry Hank), triumphcommunes (about anything and everything) etc. ? I agree that it was a very well-thought-out post, but again, literally everyone engaging from that side of the issue has said essentially the same thing haha, nobody is grug the caveman here

I trust you, am relieved that I don't need to fully adopt a view that I was increasingly worried about - that Jack is checked out, and has quit on us. This understanding helps square away what I see on the ice - it makes a lot more sense. And hopefully it means he isn't ready to leave just yet.

I'm not offended lol, you're just being incredibly disingenuous. Last night and this morning, a dozen different posters used different words to say the same thing that you so generously gave a grudging stamp of approval to (from Carmel Corn). Wait, you don't like me? Is it because I like to poop on all of your favorite modern mediocrities, like late night 'comedians' and Neil Tyson?

the liger cries out in pain as he degrades your mental capacity

That was very well put, but it was also the essence of what pretty much everyone on that side of the coin is saying. "kid punch ppl, he do good" is far more revealing about the way you view others vs. yourself in this conversation than it is an accurate description of what anyone is saying.

Cozens did something meaningful last night, you felt it, most of this thread felt it, Kyle Okposo certainly felt it and had to gush about it, Rob Ray felt it, Paul Hamilton felt it, etc. Snark from people sitting on their butts and texting on their phone should change nothing about your recognition of this

I dunno man, at this point I'm pretty sure you're the orthodoxy lol

So you've felt this lifeblood coursing through your veins, and you still get all nerdy about it?? 😝

Cozens is a Yukon boy. He ain't skeered of no hockey fights.

I hope I'm not being too much of a jerk here, i was just picking up on that same moral thing, and felt compelled to offer my own resistance. I share the same appreciation and admiration to SDS, as creating and maintaining this board is something I have neither the determination nor skill to do.

Haha, what? I'm not trying to speak ill of you at all. But your train of thought through this topic has not been compelling, and you aren't going to fix that by digging deeper into arXiv. We have ridden many technological waves in throughout history, and this one is the most massive one yet - but not one of these surges of advancement has changed human nature an ounce (at least since we started farming). That you see a rapid march toward a "progress" (in this case, the end of fighting in the NHL) does not mean that we suddenly discovered and changed something about ourselves (we will no longer engage in such unpractical, pointless and dangerous proceedings! How could we not have seen this earlier!). Any surge in civilization is accompanied by the belief that we finally got something right we had been missing for previous millennia, and that we are ready for a glorious, modernized, empathetic, equitable etc. future. Then things fall apart, and it is unveiled that humans are, after all, only human, and the cycle repeats itself indefinitely. Worldviews you think we have finally come to our senses with, that WE are the ones providing the much needed fine-tuning to after thousands of years, worldviews that have conquered the modern ideological landscape, will be disregarded at some point in the future, and worldviews you see with contempt and disdain will one day rise in their place again. I don't have a crystal ball, so I can't tell you which specific views these will be, and which ones have better staying power, but this cycle is essentially the essence of humanity. No reason for hockey to be exempt from it. Don Cherry and his ilk no longer dominate hockey culture, and what was once an energized opposition to them are now firmly planted in leadership, executive and PR positions of the sport. They will grow stale and complacent just like Cherry did, and elements of the game they overlook will become appealing, we will discover that their initial existence within the sport isn't solely because 40 years ago we were dull cavemen incapable of putting together a coherent thought, whereas now we are enlightened and superior. The type of fighting a hockey enforcer engages in is quite unique yeah, but there is a broader implication to this shift in the game than just 1v1 scraps, it's not just about those, it's about the danger of elements of the game that include scraps. Other sports also have that danger, and have much hand-wringing over it. Sports will not logarithmically approach a concrete value of "integrity" or "safeness" or whatever word you'd ascribe to this shift, as t goes to infinity. That just won't happen. It might for the entire duration of MY lifetime, but we haven't wrapped up this issue in a neat little package for good. Sports will be a part of the same cycle described above. I am loath to dig into something as farcical as this, but I see that Mr. Potato Head is merely "receiving a rebranding" to this new name, along with a change to family packs which will allow for a more enriching experience of creating zombie potato families, rather than what I ascribed to him - something I admittedly only picked up through water cooler talk. This massive difference clearly paints a less-nonsensical picture to the entire situation, I am SO relieved. It no longer appears mind-numbingly contrived, fake, forced, inauthentic, pointless, hopeless, bleak, empty, vapid, meaningless, dumb beyond all reason etc.. phew.

Thanks. I'm no PA though. Seriously, I'll be first in line when that book comes out.

If it ends up being NYR, I want Shestyorkin and Zibanejad. I want Fox too, even if that means we are adding something (I have absolutely no idea what the value of either of these packages would be)

It's funny the way metanarratives evolve - these views have lost a lot of their shine now that they no longer possess the edginess inherent to countercultural thinking. They stand rather nakedly, with not much to offer beneath the layer of smugness that cakes them I didn't watch the game, but I heard a lot of callers, hosts, former hockey players, and current hockey players buzzing with energy afterwards because of Dylan Cozens. Being honest, I thought they had won the game when I started listening. Actually, it was so jarring that I was wondering why one close win against a bad team could make everyone sound like this given the context of this season (and decade). Almost exactly two years ago, Brandon Montour, Evan Rodrigues, and Conor Sheary combined to produce a goal with less than 3 minutes remaining. They won the game in overtime. I'd bet that less than 5% of the posters on this board can tell me anything else about the game I've just described. The reality is, had the Sabres tied and won tonight, Sabres players and fans wouldn't think about it again for the rest of their lives by the time this coming Islanders series is over. But there is a nonzero chance that Sabres fans talk about this Cozens fight a decade from now, and they certainly will remember it 3 years from now. It so obviously meant something to the players, fans, former players, and radio hosts that watched it - this was immediately self-evident. Humans use storytelling to drive their entire understanding of their universe and their place in it, to carry cultures and civilizations, and if Cozens works out the way he has a shot at working out, that fight will without a doubt kick off the Cozens chapter of Buffalo Sabre lore. The ugly context that depreciates the value a 3rd period tie will have to this season and our lasting memory of it also serves to amplify what he just did. It was so stark, fresh, invigorating, and you're the only one I've come across tonight that hasn't felt that. I certainly agree that the role of a strict enforcer does not serve the ultimate current goal that keeps people employed in the NHL, and so it will remain extinct (maybe forever, certainly for now). But I cannot deny the ballet of raw violence and passion that is competitive major sports, nor the role that these play for building and guiding males in societies spanning continents and millenia, and that these things will create moments like tonight time and time again. Particularly in our beloved ice hockey. To deny this is to ignore nature itself. Oh, and while the mention of the potato was certainly out of context, it's pretty disingenuous to imply that the rapidly-accelerating descent into clown world implanting one of its more baffling developments into a sane & normal guy's mind is a more unnatural/contemptable instance of "being bothered" than a toy company feeling compelled "remove the gendered nature" of, or "de-gender," or whatever you want to call it, a toy they made 70 years ago called Mr. Potato Head, which spent that entire span of time firmly embedded in our pop culture, but that's probably for another board

Adding @tom webster to the call.

Going back to the fake NYR rumors from last year, they are absolutely going to talk this into existence if the seeds aren't already sown. No doubt in my mind

I think Jack is far more guilty of dumb effort than of no effort. That guy will come screaming in to chase after defenders passing the puck between themselves, in a move that will cause a meaningful turnover maybe once every ten years. This will have him way too deep in the zone and behind the play when the defenders simply fire it up the ice past him, and he has to sprint back. Then he's at half a tank already, with a whole shift left to go. The missed stick lift wasn't a lack of effort - he didn't know where to look, because he's never known how to cover people in the d-zone. If he Cam Newtoned the coverage, like saw and then jumped away from his responsibility, that'd be different.