Randall Flagg

That win probably has a big impact on those guys mentally. I bet worries of going winless for 7 like last season were creeping in, just because of the eerie schedule similarity, and that of the result on Wednesday. Hutton looked excellent and I hope he keeps it up. The team will respond positively. The active stick was so fun to watch. Each defensive pair was solid compared to usual, if maybe a little scary still overall (8, 82). McCabe had a good game, but I wanna talk about Dahlin. You know how I annoyingly salivate over defensemen like Jones, Slavin, Pesce, Stralman, etc.? For their million tiny plays that flip the ice, that don't make any highlight reels? Dahlin didn't look like them tonight. He WAS them tonight. He had about 40 plays down low in tight that got the puck out of the zone with possession, plays that no other Sabre can make. Every transition pass was the perfect, correct play, nothing flashy. With five guys breathing down his neck in the mid-third, he put the puck between a guy's legs and then moved it to his forward. His confidence rose slightly, and then he had those two great jumps into the rush. Wait til this kid has fully absorbed what he needs to. He's a legitimately good NHL defenseman in the way that I've been pining for for years, right this second. And he's eighteen goddamn years old Jack is dinged, is a little wonky (he started last year that way too) and still got his 2 points. He's going to be a lot better this year than we saw tonight. I didn't hate seeing any line out there tonight - that's the depth additions working. You could see why Skinner gets a lot of high-danger chances. Elie played the perfect 4th liner game for today's NHL, and I would keep him, Evan, Jason together and roll with that. Sam is the Sam of March, not of last October. Tage looks more like the Tage I saw in St. Louis than the Tage I saw in preseason, but he was better than Thursday. Nice pass to Dahlin. We still allowed too many chances and were not in sync, which happens often in our Rangers games. But a lot of the problems were things that chemistry will iron out. That doesn't mean we're good, but the sky isn't falling either. We have a chance to have our first winning record after game 1 since the 2011-12 season, on Monday.

Dahlin with a beauty breakup at the blue line.

Yes!!!

Congrats to Hoss, Doohickie, and Georgia Blizzard!

Yes!!!

Yeah, we should assault opposing fans for having the audacity to come to our games

We're getting some good bounces so far. Hopefully a sign of things to come!

So is it on purpose that the PK forwards stand on the line from the goalie to center ice? It's giving NY so much room.

Skinner's pass to Kyle a few minutes ago was ill-advised.

Nice start. Gotta finish!

A Mitts-Berglund switch would make those perfect IMO

I believe the Rangers are one of the teams he's most successful against.

Let's go boys! Bounce back, show us you're different!

"“I had a really good summer and I feel I had a really good camp, but now I have to build off of that, get better here every day and play as good as I can and maybe be the first one they call up,’’ said Nylander, who leads the Amerks against the Charlotte Checkers in their American Hockey League season opener Friday night at 7:05 at Blue Cross Arena." https://amp.democratandchronicle.com/amp/1522981002?__twitter_impression=true Good stuff to read there from/about Alex Nylander

Ah yes, Nazi Germany. Kavanaugh stuff aside, I want to refrain from SC nominations from the political left for now, as they're the ones I view as the biggest threat to the proper role of the SC in America. It's just an extension of the legislature in their eyes, it seems. Trump's SC choices and their rigidly constitutionalist principles are the best thing about his presidency. After watching all of this, if he gets to choose RBG's replacement.. what will the reaction be to Amy Barrett? That seat's probably more critical, no?

So in general I don't care maybe if Eichel plays against top centers. And other teams are going to match their defensive lines (in this case the Bergeron line) against him. But when we have last change and that line is as smothering as it is, AND we choose to put our 3 major offensive pieces together, it puts too much pressure on everyone else to score and removes our only consistent offensive generators, so I think it was pretty dumb. And the line scored all four goals, right? So you can really throw any line you want against them, and you probably wouldn't get a worse defensive result, but you'd also have a little more space and freedom for your offensive line.

I'm not sure it's arguable. In 2013, before it had Pastrnak, Crosby didn't score a point in that playoff series. They smothered Matthews last year too. And of course, that stat I love quoting from last year.

The fourth line was also a plus from last night. They had two of our three best scoring chances

Wait, how is "the coach" any less of "an excuse" than any other reason that any poster might have for a loss? I think posters are all just saying what they think is wrong with the team. They could all be equally viewed as excuses by people who think different things are problems.

Just a random thought, but I'll bet you it doesn't happen again this season!

I'm fairly positive that takeaways/giveaways are ill-defined and not reliably tracked.

Yes. If we suck on the ice and people are miserable and talk about how mopey Sam Reinhart is, are we trading him for Antoine Roussell, Ben Hutton and a 1st? I don't think so, but that's where the logic goes, and it's my opinion this has already happened once. Though of course, if Tage turns out good, then that wasn't a big deal. I"m not saying I truly think Botterill is like this and would do this, but I really think we are what our talent level says we are, and I believe that about all teams except for wild exceptions, like maybe Vegas or something.

I think so. When I was doing d-man counting last year, I was shocked by how effective he was at starting transition with passes, as I was expecting to count dozens of Risto-clears and little else. I think there's a great defenseman buried in there somewhere. I don't think we'll ever see it, though he'll always be fine as a 3D. I honestly think most players had "fine" games, outside of Jack and maybe Skinner, and Berglund defensively a few times. And some D. But that Phil did this scares me a bit.

I might believe this too. I'd put money on our next six games going better than that six did last year. The depth very much did get better, and Dahlin is very good right this second. Rodrigues being on our fourth line versus Nolan, Griffith, Pominville makes a huge difference, and he and Pominville had a pretty good game offensively. If we get that from them going forward, in games where our top six is effective, it's going to help us get wins. That's the conclusion that I've come to as well. The issue is that my theory is the front office feels that way too, because they need their additions to be good. We're totally trading Eichel and Reinhart in the next two years ? But seriously true, how much were we called miserable this summer? I keep bringing it up because I'm actively miffed about how this has transpired.

Also, Sobotka (who was fine) was second in ES time on ice, in a game where we were losing the whole time.