Randall Flagg

The first thing I noticed about him is that he lost a step. But he looks a lot better with breakout options than he did without 'em. If you watch, quite often his partner is yelling at him which player to pass it to, which is interesting. Because of injuries, I'm expecting any time that he's gone for a long time, but for now he's doing just fine in our bottom 4. Playing fairly smart, nice and simple, and effectively. Only a few breakdowns, plenty of which are really Scandella's fault, who will soon be the new whipping boy if he can't sort himself out soon.

I seriously respect Columbus as a team, and think they'd have several playoff series wins in the last few years had they not hit the cup winner in the first round every single time. I walked out the door at 4-2, so this was a pleasant result to come back to. Most of the names people were surprised about in a bad way today are the guys who were questionable in the pregame skate, so they're definitely banged up. Hope everyone is back to normal on Tuesday. I'll take this point for sure. Sandwich it with another win on Tuesday!

Halloween party

Happy birthday Jack and Risto! I have to leave in 5 mins nobody tell me what happens

Sheary's had a tough go.

Are you kidding me on that slash call?

Columbus is getting so, so many good shots off. Tough to see them scoring less than 5 tonight unfortunately. Can it be a slash if their stick didn't even break? That's on Risto right?

Jack had a couple of mishandles in prime areas, after which he lowered his head and pushed harder. No exasperation/moping. It was good to see.

You just need to embrace defeat. We're going to keep Skinner and he's going to be an excellent player for us for a long time. ?

These are the kinds of games Dahlin will learn from. He's struggling with how fast and heavy Columbus is. He won't be struggling against them this time next year. Columbus is pretty good at hockey, even if they have wonky GAA or a bad record (I haven't looked at either but I know I've read Bob is struggling and that Korpi allowed 4 goals in their win against the St. Louis Jake Allens). Keep pushing and playing hard boys.

Another broken Risto stick directly harming the team and almost allowing a goal. Somebody has to be held accountable for this. Enough is enough.

He can't handle the speed of the game right now for some reason. Needs to sit for a bit for Beaulieu. Or even better, Pilut

That double minor on Kyle was the best thing to happen to him this season. He's been a man on a mission.

Without any hard evidence, I boldly proclaim that Pilut will be our 3rd best defenseman the second he comes up.

Hockey's a team game, unless it's time for my narrative.

Eichel-Reinhart-Sheary and 2 firsts for Au$ton Matthew$

No thank you.* *On the assumption that his legs will give, as they have every season for a while now And I say this lovingly, as Jason is the man. But our roster simply has to be good enough to make this uneccessary in 2019-20.

People have been talking about this all season, including me, without mentioning ROR - I don't think I've brought him up first since the summer. He's not on my mind 99% of the time. But it was brought up in that context in this thread, and when I look at this team, that team, "attitude," "comebacks," the picture doesn't support that, as I tried to flesh out. I do appreciate your kind words, and the other posters for putting up with me.

To put my center-depth worries into numbers, in ten games we have 4 points from our non-Eichel centers at 5v5, zero of them goals. I believe in our boys, and like any fan that does, I want them to have the best chance they can if they look like they might be able to do something. We need to kick start our guys, or make a small move somehow to help them out. I'll stop saying this soon, and it's not any sort of ROR trade shot - improvements elsewhere always have an expense in the big picture. I'm also a little worried about Scandella and would let him sit for a couple games for Nate, who has outplayed him this year. Not as like a punishment, just to help him get over this hump. He was integral to the first two Montreal goals last night. We've made good additions and are seeing good growth and I don't want something that could be helped without breaking the bank to bring them down. I'm not sure anything is really available at this point though as teams still try to figure out what they have. Casey is getting better each game, he was excellent yesterday I thought. There's not a huge amount of pressure on him internally, but there is from a sustainable roster-construction standpoint, and I'd like to keep him as insulated as possible. We are doing a tremendous job of protecting Dahlin so far, from any angle you look. He's not asked to do too much, he never needs to be the reason we win, and his teammates (and himself) keep him safe from dumbos on other teams. We've found a set of lines, with what we have, that we can roll with, and it's helping us keep taking it to teams shift after shift, without the confusion of the defensive specialist changing halfway through shift nonsense. We've got some winnable games coming up here.

Asking for the human mechanism for what differentiates comebacks this year from comebacks driven by ROR in previous years, as has been asserted happens in this thread, is not sticking to stats. Asking for discrepancies that are being plucked out where adding in all of the information we have completely wipes them out, is not burying my nose in spreadsheets and being cold and callous and ignorant of the fact that all humans have problems.

What I'm referencing here is interviews I recall where Botts was more than happy to jump on the life-raft provided in end-of-season/offseason interviews by willing media members, about the locker room being so sorry, which wonderfully deflected from the utter trash of a hockey team he put together. I understand that things were not good from a human perspective, overwhelmingly because of Lehner. But aside from Robin, this team would not have had any locker room issues that weren't typical of other gatherings of humans all across the world, had the team been good. ROR didn't bitch about his play after wins. I know there's more to it than that, but nothing tangible about ROR has ever been reported outside of references to these, so those are what I'm going to use. I think jason handled this whole entire thing poorly and won't excuse him for it, even though I separately like what he has done elsewhere. If you read all of that and came away with this...with the context of the thoughts I just conveyed I fundamentally don't understand what you're asking me.

I'm going to try this again without being obnoxious. There is absolutely a human element to hockey teams. These guys have to be together in close quarters for large stretches of time. I don't discount any of this, and never did. On the ice Last season, the Sabres depth scoring was the worst in the league. If you want to see the exact numbers, I made a thread about it about six months ago, complete with charts. Behind the top six scoring forwards for every team in the league, we had the least amount of production. Our top six production was not great, but it was middling, and it wasn't bottom-5, and would have been in the mid-tier had Eichel stayed healthy. Furthermore, last season most underlying metrics and scoring rates for our top six forwards were the best they had ever been in those players' Sabres careers. But again, we started the year winning 3 of our first ten instead of six, because every time ROR or Jack wasn't on the ice, at least two of the bottom ~10 players in the entire league were, out of a sample size of probably 700. Right now, Erod-Mitts-Okposo and the checking line was switched out with a conglomerate of Matt Moulson, Seth Griffith, and flipping out Berglund on that line for Jordan Nolan. Pominville was with Eichel, but his legs were gone compared to now, and the other side was Zemgus or Kane, and not Skinner. Furthermore, the goaltending duo, despite being in front of a team that was in the top half of the league in allowing shots and high danger shots, was the second-worst tandem in the league, behind that of the team that added said starter as an upgrade to allowing the second most goals since the full-season lockout. Of course, I believe that this all adds up to what we saw last year. It more than explains everything, fully. Any sort of fallout in interviews (ROR), on-ice demeanor (Jack's slumped shoulders, Okie's Vanek-face recreation, Risto's frustrated just-clear-it-out attitude, etc) are typical of any team that's going through what this team did. It's, fallout. It isn't driving. What drives on-ice success is the product you put on the ice, along with some bounces, some timely hot streaks. Interviews, Problems off the ice It has been very clear that this team had maybe 3, maybe more, people in the locker room going through some heavy personal sh*t last year. It's clear that number one in this category is Robin Lehner. Robin almost died. He was taking pills and a twelve pack to bed every night so he could sleep. Furthermore, as it relates to on-the-ice, it's an objective hockey fact that the only single player that can solely determine the outcome of a game with any real consistency on a standings-affecting-level is the goalie. Because of this hell that Robin had to endure, the team's performance suffered. And there absolutely had to be strain on these guys' shoulders in the locker room. They're worried about their friend. It sucks, and we're all glad Robin is getting better. This has all been documented and we have a pretty good understanding of it. Separately, if Robin had been in a better place, and had put out a season more in line with his previous one, the league-leading one goal losses might have been fewer, and the season wouldn't have been as bad. Similarly, apparently ROR has some demons, and Okposo was fighting his own as well. It's real, it's human. Of these three players, I recall two major interview tropes. Robin had a tendency of deflecting blame to the team in front of him (and he was, quite frankly, often correct). Ryan, since he got here and assumed a leadership role, would shoulder the blame himself for everything that went on the ice, and it's clear that it ate at him. It sucked to listen to, and posters here and elswhere would get very annoyed. "Why don't you do something to change it, Ryan, instead of saying the same things over and over again?" I don't think this is fair, but whatever. I never said anything when it was going on, because I don't care about what guys have to say when it's the mid-season grind and the team is so bad that they have to talk after loss after loss, and ultimately reduce to the same tropes to get the interview over with. I guess here's where I'm going - which of these players needed to be cast out of the locker room, considering all of their issues and how it affected their play on the ice? With all of what was going on in Ryan's head, something that literally hasn't gotten out to anybody unless dark feels like he can share (he has no obligation to), well, there's nothing well-defined here at all, aside from the "woe is me vortex" that Vogl shamelessly tweets about with a tone that is disgusting for somebody who pretends to be all sympathetic to mental issues. If we can't get these details, then I think some of the speculation that goes on here is ridiculous, which is why I'm using the phrasing that has ruffled feathers, and I'll try to stop. Furthermore, NHL teams carry 23 skaters. I would like to see evidence that a.) There isn't somebody dealing with things as bad as ROR or worse on 95% of hockey teams, because just in my dealings with humans and reading rudimentary mental health statistics, that seems overwhelmingly likely among a population as driven as these humans are b.) These players consistently are a barrier to on-ice success in ways that on-ice talent and lack-of-talent can't explain, and c.) how it ties into the following: The team getting a better attitude sans ROR Say we make every single move this offseason, except for the ROR trade. But we still add Berglund, because there are quotes going back a full year which indicate Armstrong was actively calling people trying to unload the contract and that nobody could bite. Even if we didn't, we're down one roster player (Berglund and Sobotka, one of them upgraded to an elite member of the two-way-forward category). What about this year's success wouldn't have been replicated? In ten games, this team has created five goals 5v5 that had nothing to do with Jack or Jeff, a guy who was already here, and a guy who would have been added anyway. Of those goals, I can picture one that has integral involvement of a player that wasn't here last year, Sheary's yesterday, and Sheary himself was brought in before ROR was shipped out. Most importantly, our goaltending performance (the upgrade we made in the one position that can consistently affect standings, and a direct addressing of a mental issue that we DO know tangible things about, issues that can be directly tied to last season's results) has been rock solid compared to anything we've seen in years. And yes, the humans are having more fun. Are they having more fun and thus the fun is driving wins? Or are the additions of good personalities also direct upgrades to positions that were tangible reasons we were so bad last year? Because they sure as hell have been playing better than the laundry list of worst-players-in-the-league which got real ice time for us all season. As a result of actually winning some of these close games, of course things are a lot more fun. So why wouldn't this have a.) helped O'Reilly, who seemed to have fun and had no rumblings of this stuff during Colorado's fun season in 13-14 b.) still existed if ROR was here because of things that still have yet to be well-defined without giving generic locker room quotes from a key player on bad teams Why would this effect have been muted? Would these guys have been less infectiously positive, eyeing ROR in the corner of the room solemnly? Why? Would their efforts in the corners be less, their on-ice vision clouded, just knowing that down there on the end of the bench sits the bearded vegan? Show to me that this is the case, and show me it's unique to that player and this locker room. Show me why players who DON'T come out with their problems (ROR hasn't) yet still exist in every locker room in this league, don't have the same thing happen to their teams. What's the mechanism. I want to see it described. This is not me deferring to stats and only metrics. This isn't a "stats versus eye test" thing. It's a challenge to a claim that I find weak, ill-defined, vaguely referenced. Furthermore, they believe in themselves, but didn't before because of ROR's sadness and its affect on the locker room. "Last year's team would have lost games they were trailing." Please differentiate the ways they would have lost as they pertain to attitude versus the fact that they were an objectively worse team last year too. And then please address this: 2015-16 In St. Louis, we trailed most of the game to a much better team but forced an OT point, ROR scored the tying goal and was our best player. At home against LA, ROR assisted on our tying regulation goal in the first and won the game in OT on a stupendous individual effort, falling over as he does it The next night was one of those classic stinkers against Detroit, until a ridiculous individual effort, throwing dekeyser off his shoulder and driving to the net, tied it with less than 5 to go in the 3rd, leading to a win A week later, trailing 3-1 in Boston, Ryan kick starts the comeback with 3 3rd period points and the Sabres win Later in Carolina, a beautiful assist to Kane in the dying minutes of the third to tie the game before the Sabs pull it out on the ensuing momentum swing with grumpy Larry (on a Skinner giveaway) 2016-17 Stealing the show in Jack's first game back, helping us to the desperately needed win to kick-start the push we had to being within 4 points of a playoff spot in February Connor McDavid comes to the house, gives the Oilers a lead in the final seconds, and ROR creates the game-tying, and then game-winning goal, both happening within 2 minutes of the end of the 3rd and the start of OT days later, like I mentioned, being down 2-0 to LA and ROR making Kopitar and Doughty his b*tch, kick-starting the comeback that gave us the win Home against Winnipeg, again right in front of me, tying the game in the first and then creating the game-winning goal in the 3rd after being down 3-1 ANOTHER one of those dreadful Detroit games where we look worse than we should, until ROR ties it late in the third and assists on the OT winner Immediately followed by another third period tying goal and OT winning goal, both assisted by, you guessed it, this time in Montreal A goal and an assist in the 3rd period, including on the tying marker late, after being down to SJ 4-1 at home - we won in OT The game-winning goal to cap off a 3 game win streak against a great Blues team in our last breath of hope The tying goal for our grittiest win in the season, 2-1 in the shootout at ANA 2017-18 2 points in the 4-1 comeback on the road in Boston, including a ridiculous OT winner 2 points in the 4-1 comeback that fell just short in Vegas, an OTL An assist on the OT-winner to cap off another 3-1 comeback in NJ 3rd period goal and assist to ice the red-hot lightning in a surprising 5-3 win 4 points including 3 in the third in that awesome comeback in Nashville, to beat them 7-4 on the road Assisting and creating the game-tying goal in the 3rd on the road in Ottawa to get a win This is directly addressed at the "ROR's attitude being gone lets the team believe they can win" sentiment. You must explain to me why this amount of the same type of thing happened, battling back from behind with ROR, why he drove all of these happenings, and why we should have expected more from a team with the talent level these teams had, how much more we should have expected, but just didn't get, and tie the reason we didn't get that amount to ROR being a downer. And how many we thus should expect this year, and why the two comeback wins they have so far (whopping two eh) couldn't have happened and were driven, not by things that happen on the ice when we can roll lines without getting caved now, but by the better attitude that couldn't have existed with ROR's presence in the locker room, even after clearing out Lehner. F*ck stats. That's not what I'm doing here. I'm trying to see why that can be a real mechanism for the things we see on the ice, and I won't believe it if the talk remains as vague as it's been at its most fleshed-out points. It doesn't actually make sense if you put reading glasses on.

And then even if you got me to believe that ROR had to be gone, artificially suppressing his value in a garbage role I called out all season long and assigning an arbitrary deadline because of money that every team knew was there, backing us into a corner, amid swirling locker room rumors you helped start, is the worst and most-disgusting management of a top 3 asset I can even imagine.

Even if ROR was as bad as Lehner, the on-ice replacement is a net-negative. Dumping the player who was actually bad and way more depressed, along with pointed roster additions that were made, you cannot convince me that we'd still have huge problems as a team, unless ROR was like threatening to murder his teammates. The guy was given 33 defensive zone draws with proven-worst-players-in-the-league per sixty minutes, a record by far for any top six player ever, and artificially suppressing his ES rates because of it, while being on the worst team in the league in that important role. Interview quotes don't matter. They weren't even bad. I always got the impression he was just doing what he thought leaders did, taking blame off their teammates, and that the act got tired with fans because we were so bad so he had to do it every single night. I'm not going to lie, I think this whole thing is a freaking joke.

I don't mean to sour the GDT of an amazing game with this stuff. I can make a laundry list of comebacks ROR was involved with in his time here, directly affecting more than, say, Eichel did tonight. He's done it about three times in Boston. Home against Calgary, 2016. in Vegas last year. The OT winner at home against LA, the following year home against LA, down 2-0, starting the comeback for the 6-3 win with the ridiculous backhand goal while working Kopitar and Doughty. Home against Detroit and NYI, games we trailed in the third while playing like absolute dog-sh*t, each time being tied by ROR and sqeaking out points and OT wins in at least one case. He was too sad though, and the mystics behind it are what drove us being bad, they weren't a product of it. I'm actively offended by that take, actually. I should probably tap out.