Jsixspd

Sabres Are showing some life. :)

Now it's a game again! :)

Amazed Vanek couldn't score - that was a great opportunity.

I still think they can shake it off, and should pull this out and win handily in the last half of the game, despite a rough start. If they could come back against Pittsburgh, they can come back against this team.

Pominville turned it over in the Sabres zone - didn't Pominville say the other day that will happen from time to time and it's normal and to be expected? LOL

Buffalo should come on in the last 30 minutes.... Buffalo is a better team and the Jets are on a losing streak.

Sabres should win this game. Jets are one of the worst teams in the league, and Buffalo has a $25 million higher payroll, and this is a home game.

The way Ryan let it rip today, it didn't sound too "heavenly" to me. :)

Ryan's uncharacteristic rant will likely put more pressure on Ruff and Regier to perform. Their team has made only 2 points in their last 4 games, and they continue to sink further towards the bottom of the pack.

haha!!!!

This team currently has the 5th worst power play in the League - 13.5% http://espn.go.com/nhl/statistics/team/_/stat/special-teams/sort/powerPlayPct/year/2013/seasontype/2 Given how awful the PP is, amazing that there are actually 4 teams worse in this regard. However those teams don't have the Sabres near-highest in the league payroll either. Given the money spent on this team's salaries, and the fact that Vanek is the hottest player in the league, the PP pct is a DISGRACE! The sports media should be grilling Ruff and Regier on it at every possible opportunity.

Alright, I modified my "stat" that I created a bit.... to try to equalize things for the wide disparity in number of games played - some teams have played 2 or 3 fewer games than the Sabres, so I didn't think it fair to compare the total points of a team that's played 11 games vs 14 played for Buffalo So I took the total points, and divided by games played to generate average points per game. BTW, at only 0.8 points scored on average per game, we're in the bottom 5 of the NHL in that regard - the only worse team is the Capitals at 0.7 per game. But then I took the team salary and divided by points per game. Guess what? The only team worse than the Sabres are the Capitals - right now it's costing Buffalo almost 90 million dollars per average point scored per game. And a number of teams are averaging almost twice as many points per game as the Sabres. If that doesn't change, and very soon, the gulf in points between the Sabres and playoff bound teams will be insurmountable

Here's a stat I just calculated - cost per point. I took the 2011-2012 salaries of the 30 NHL teams, and divided by the points earned so far. May be a way of evaluating how effective management is at both hiring and coaching. Right now Buffalo is 5th worst in the league in cost per point earned. I'm not sure how much salaries have changed from 2011-12 to 2013. Capitals are by far the worst in this regard - with Overratedchikin on the team. LOL

Thanks - that's right, I remember seeing that in replay and the announcers mentioning it. That would suck.

Well, if that's total number of goals scored, then Myers being benched for 2 games has probably improved him in this stat-- or he probably would have been ahead of Leopold in being bad. Seems like Leopold has played better since Myers was benched.

Wonder if there's anything wrong with Vanek? He only played 15 minutes tonight total.

Goal-tending? You cannot have the shot disparity like last night's game - where the Sabres were outshot almost 3 to 1, and conclude that goal-tending is the issue. The clear issue is - the puck is spending far too much time in the Buffalo zone - and that the number one defense-man (Myers) was a bottom barrel -9. Almost every time the Sabres were scored against, I would see Myers on the ice. That isn't just a coincidence. Before I'd have been blaming Enroth, I'd have been blaming Myers and Leopold who both looked about as effective as antique wooden cigar-store Indians on the ice! My question is - why did/does it take Ruff so long to identify a real problem, like Myers? He must be getting a supply of rose-colored glasses directly from Terry Pegula. Enroth is a decent goalie - he's not as good as Miller, but for most well constructed, well-coached teams he'd do a good job. Anyone else besides Pegula, Ruff, and Regier can plainly see that the Lindy Ruff "System" is a major problem for the team.

So we're up to 22nd? I believe we were 3 or 4 places lower before last night's game. Still astonishing that we won - Miller was playing like a man possessed... even kept the penalty shot out. The problem is - after such an effort, Miller could be tired tonight when we face the Bruins. Keeping fingers crossed. We can't continue to have 5 or 6 players carrying the entire team.

Buffalo has, in Thomas Vanek, the number one ranked player in the NHL, yet still manages to be in the bottom 5 teams in the overall league standings. That is unbelievable. Without Vanek (and to a lesser extent Miller) this team would be worse than the Capitals in the standings. Even a bottom 10 team like the Islanders outshoots the Sabres nearly 3 to 1 last night. Sabres powerplay is 7th worst in the NHL - and it would be even worse without Vanek's sparkling play. Lindy Ruff's coaching and system stinks. They call Ruff a "Defensive minded" coach. He kind of has to be, since the puck spends 2/3rds of the game in the Sabres' zone, even against a bottom-shelf opponent in the Islanders.

Sabres can thank Miller, Vanek, and Erhoff for the win. In general the offensive effort was HORRIBLE last night - 15 shots in the entire game - and the Islanders are one of the bottom teams in the league standings. There are a few guys that want to win - seems like most of the team phones it in though. Nods to Sulzer, and Leopold. Leopold played VERY well, and some work by Leopold set up two of the goals last night. Benching Myers may have been good for Leopold.

That makes it sound better than it is, somehow. For the league, 28th out of 30 - tied with Columbus for that place. Only two teams worse in the entire NHL - Washington and Calgary - and astonishingly Buffalo has lost to Washington.

Great points. I'm a bit concerned that the Sabres are struggling while Vanek is playing his best hockey of his career. What happens when he hits a slump, and all players do? How low could the Sabres sink if Vanek started playing at an average level? I guess we could hope that if/when that happens, Myers and Leopold act like they're actually playing. But I don't know how realistic that hope is.

This is a one-line team right now. We can't win consistently that way. But.... Lindy better not tinker with the #1 line right now - they are red hot. Need to find a way to improve the other lines without changing/ruining the #1

I don't understand why Ruff continues to pair Myers with Leopold - they are both weak, and having two weak D-Men on the ice at the same time usually ends up with the opponent scoring (and they have). Many of the recent goals scored against the Sabres - Myers, Leopold, or Myers and Leopold together were on the ice at the same time. You'll see opponents skate right around these guys and then get deep into the Buffalo zone. I cannot understand why Lindy Ruff is apparently unable to see that both players are in a serious slump, and that putting them on the ice together is almost like giving a Power Play to the other team.

Paul Hamilton was just on WGR.... he was asked..... "So what do you think it would take for Lindy Ruff to be fired?" His answer? "Darcy gone" The next question - "So what would that take?" His answer was - "I don't know - don't think that's gonna happen." Why is Buffalo sports always Bizarro-World? Our teams always try to do things "differently" than anywhere else. There is no other NHL team that would ever consider keeping a GM and coach this long, especially with as little success as they've enjoyed. Even Stanley Cup winning teams have changes at the top far more frequently than the Sabres. With the Bills at least we could blame it on the perennial penny-pinching of one Ralph Wilson Jr when it came to coaching staff.... But in this case we've one of the highest payrolls anywhere. This is the second season in a row where Regier and Ruff were given essentially a blank check to get anyone they wanted for the roster, and yet the product is clearly getting worse, and is near the bottom of the barrel in the NHL.