SabresBaltimore

Or go to bed really early so you can wake up and watch the 3rd period before work?

Maybe. I think the one area that Nilsson appears better to me is his rebound control. But I think that important to Lenher's game though. I feel like he's more likely to make a ridiculous save because of how aggressive he plays. Meanwhile Nilsson is a lot more controlled, and probably less likely to wow you. But at this point, I don't care about being wow'ed by highlight real saves. I just want to see them string together some winning streaks.

Agreed. Otherwise TMGM is just as bad as Doug Whaley and EJ Manual. Sometimes you have to move on from a bad decision. Although for me personally the jury is still out on Lehner. He's been hung out to dry with a lot of games with no offense from the rest of the team to speak of. But I'm tired of being patient. I don't expect this team to contend for a cup, but they should be contending for a playoff spot, not doing worse than our tank teams. I see them beat the Rangers and hold them to 1 goal, while scoring 4 and it pisses me off to think about all the other games where we did worse against teams that probably wont make the playoffs.

I'm not saying it does. But it's at the heart of the debate. Their stats otherwise aren't significantly different. So the question here is, why are we winning more with Nilsson? In theory the team playing in front of them has been mostly the same (although maybe not with all of our injuries). We need to win a lot more to salvage this season. Somehow Nilsson is winning more. If Lenher had played those 12 games, would the results have been the same? If Nilsson had played more than 12 games, would the team have a better record? Stats can only get you so far. So the best I can say is, give Nilsson more starts and see if his stats (and win ratio) hold up.

But he had a great pre-season! :rolleyes: Apparently that counts a lot with either GMTM or Disco Dan? :wallbash:

Personally I'm ready to move on from Gorges. He's got another year on his contract, so maybe we can move him for something. I do think getting him was a good move, as him being here has been valuable to the development of our young kids, but he should be a middle 6 pairing at best for a playoff team. And if he still has an A, he should give it up. I think for next season our letters should be: RoR - C, Eichel - A, Risto - A, although I do want Gionta back another year or two in a bottom 6 role. I think both Gionta and Gorges are veteran enough players to be willing to give up the letters, and just be vocal leaders instead.

I started with Dark Tower back in high school, and worked my way back to read most of the books that have tie-ins, especially the major ones like the Stand. I read a lot of the Stand during a particularly boring class in Grad School. Another good appearance of Flagg is in Eyes of the Dragon.

Randall Flagg shows up in many forms (with many names) in Dark Tower and other King Novels. He's the main antagonist in The Stand for instance. I believe he's originally from The Stand in fact and King later decided to merge him into the Dark Tower.

Also, if you look at points earned: Lenher: 16+5=21/50 = 44% Nilsson: 12+3=15/24 = 62% Boston is currently on pace to hit 90 points for the season. Let's say to make the playoffs as the 3 seed for our division we need 95 points. That means we need 59 out of a possible 90 points (66%). Nilsson is a lot closer to that right now. Of course that may not hold up under a larger sample size, or he may be having a fluke season. If it's the latter, I'm fine with that, but then we should ride the hotter goaltender. And if it's the former, well we're probably not making the playoffs anyways so I'd rather see that now before his contract is up.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm not saying Nilsson is definitely better. I'm saying I want him to play more to see if he is or not. This season: Lehner is 8-12-5 (32%) with .921 sv%, 2.51 gaa, 0 shut outs Nilsson is 6-3-3 (50%) with .928 sv%, 2.35 gaa, 1 shut out Lehner's career numbers are 43-52-23 (44%) with a .917 sv%, 2.74 gaa and 3 shut outs Nilsson's career numbers are 25-25-7 (44%) with a .906 sv%, 2.94 gaa and 2 shut outs The number of games makes it hard to compare straight up, but Lehner is preforming worse in terms of wins and sv%, but better in terms of gaa than his career average. Nilsson on the other hand is crushing his career stats. But he's only played 12 games. I want more data. Is this year a fluke? Is he getting the better matchups? Does the team play harder in front of him for some reason? I think Nilsson deserves some more starts. Maybe he's just a really solid backup. I think having a solid backup is just as important to making the playoffs as having clutch starter.

That's exactly what I'm worried about. :wallbash:

Byslma called it a "maintenance day" and expects him to play tonight.

Man both games last night were pretty good, although the game kind of got away from Sweden after the Canadians swapped goalies. It should make for two more great games tonight. That Russian goalie was fantastic, I think he's a Caps prospect. I'm expecting to see him down here before too long, although the Caps are already pretty solid at goaltender. I think he was definitely the better goalie last night though. I can't believe the Russian coach didn't stick with the player who had 2 goals in the game and was 2/2 in the shootout in round 7. It's also impressive the US player went 3/3 including 2 in a row like that. The pressure had to be insane. I'll be rooting for Sweeden (and our 2 prospects) to bounce back take the Bronze, and flipping between the Gold medal game and the Sabres/Hawks game tonight. Should make for another great evening of hockey.

This is going to be a tough one. Chicago is slumping at 1-4-1 in their last 6, but we haven't beaten then in our last 9 games, and haven't won in Chicago since 2007 apparently. I hope O'Reilly is back. It sounds like he's healthy. If he plays it sounds like Reinhart could move down to the third line, keeping him at center. Hopefully that would mean Eichel moves down to the second line. I think I'd rather see him with Kane and Bailey, and O'Reilly and Okposo have good chemistry. I don't like Grant on the 3rd line though. I'd rather have Moulson. Then again, I don't like Grant on any line at this point. I'd rather we have someone up from Rochester. I'm hoping Nilsson gets the start tonight, mostly because I want to see what he's got. I just noticed Gorges is back with Risto. I hope that was simply because McCabe had the day off of practice. McCabe's supposed to play tonight, and I want him with Risto down the stretch.

I'd like to see what we have in Nilsson. He's been playing above his career stats this year, but it's a very small sample size. The goal support stat is telling. Why does he get more goals out of the team when he starts? Easier match-ups? Does the team just play harder in front of him for some reason? Fluke?

I would like to see Nilsson get more starts down the stretch. I do feel like the team plays better in front of him than they do with Lehner.

Hmm. So not the same guy then. From what I could find John Forslund called the Centennial Classic. I guess he's the Canes play-by-play guy, who I was never impressed with either. I wish NBCSN would bring back Joe Beninati from the Capitals. He always seems to know every player on both teams. Just so long as they don't hire the Capitals color guy. He's terrible. Kenny is Marv Albert's son. A lot of his family has done broadcasting too. I had no idea. Apparently Kenny does 4 different sports, so it's no wonder he gets confused. He probably thought he was calling a Curling match. Or a football game with really bad field conditions.

God I hate that NBCSN play-by-play guy. He kept neglecting to mention our game against Chicago. At least twice he said our next game was in Winnipeg on Saturday. We're playing Chicago on their own network on Thursday! Then the Rangers got a power play and he goes "A chance for the Sabres to get back in it". I think we were up 2-0 at that point. Plus all the stuff about Carlton Bailey others mentioned. Terrible. I think he was the guy who called the Centennial classic on Sunday too. And he made several glaring mistakes during that game as well. I hope we don't get stuck with him again on Thursday. And if we do..how could he forget about a game he was calling? He should be fired. -------------------------------- Nice win for the Sabres. But after the last several games any win is a nice win. I think this makes us 2-0 against the Rags this season. But I don't know what to make of it. Does it show their real potential? I know this team can score, but we don't seem to most of the time. We only had 19 shots. Despite 5 power plays. Then again we only allowed like 25, kept them without a shot for like 15 minutes in the 3rd (after a terrible 2nd period giving up 15). And our power play was was like 1-5? It seems like Lunquist just played a bad game. But hey, 4 goals (and at least 1 in every period), and some really nice ones at that including Bailey's first. I'll take it! I'd like to see the same level of effort in our next game on Saturday against Winnipeg Thursday against Chicago, and hope Buffalo Bill's Carlton Bailey's son Justin Bailey plays another good game.

Thanks Peppy!

I think they do, or at least Bylsma does: “It’s significant for us,” Sabres coach Dan Bylsma said Wednesday. “You’re staring at Boston for a home-and-home. They’re within earshot. You have a chance of sweeping these two games and gaining four points on them and putting yourself right near them, right next to them in the standings.” Now if he can get the players to play a full 60 minutes, remains to be seen..

If we can sweep this home and home, we'll be in good shape to get our season back on the right course. I hope these guys step it up, it's not going to be easy.

Agreed. It feels like a waste not to pair them up. I think we should try to have two third lines instead of hoping to have two top lines without ROR. Maybe something like: 1) Reinhart - Eichel - Okposo 3a) Foligno- Larsson - Gionta 3b) Kane - Girgensons - Carrier 4) Deslauriers - Grant - Moulson I'm not sure if I'd swap Moulson and Carrier or not. I'd also try to get Babtiste, Bailey or Sneider back up here and bench Deslauries. I'd like to bench Grant too, but I'm not sure who to slot in at center if we do unless you do something like: 1) Carrier - Eichel - Okposo 3a) Foligno- Larsson - Gionta 3b) Kane - Reinhart - Moulson 4) Deslauriers - Girgensons - Babtiste But that probably makes it too easy to just shut down our top line when we already have trouble scoring. Plus, I'm bad at this. I'll stop now. Needless to say, I'd like to use the injury to get someone from Rochester with some speed/scoring.

<--Software Engineer. I got your git joke right away. I also had similar thoughts when "git some" was posted.. I'll be missing tonight game in favor of Rogue One. I'll likely record it and watch it tomorrow. Unless I hear the score, in which case I may just skim it tomorrow. I'll be attending Thursday's game in person though..

I have friends over tonight, so I won't be able to watch the game while it's on, but I'll likely record it and watch it after they leave and/or tomorrow morning. It's easy to avoid hockey scores down here. We really need to put together a big win streak the next two weeks: Islanders, Canes, Panthers, Canes, Islanders. I'd love it if we went on a 6 game winning streak here, but I'll settle for 5-1 (or maybe 4-0-2). We can't really afford to lose these games after such a bad start if we want to be serious about playoffs. We're 5-3-2 in our last 10 (4-2-1 since Jack's return). That's 12/20 points (9/14 with Jack). But we need to push that above a .500 win rate for any hope of catching those ahead of us. We've shown we can beat some good teams, so now we need to take advantage of some of our fellow bottom feeders to show we don't belong among them. Carolina is only 2 points ahead of us, with 1 more game played. Florida is 3 points ahead of us with 3 more games played. These are teams we should be able to beat. We need to carry the momentum from Tuesday through the weekend. Here's to hoping for a 4 point weekend!

In my teens and early twenties I'd eat 20+ wings no problem, now I eat like 15 tops, and usually 10 or less. Although I normally have a small (sheet sized) piece of pizza or two with them. My metabolism has always been pretty bad though. I just started caring a lot more in my 30s is all. I found that as I was watching my diet more, I could eat less without feeling hungry. Over time my portions started shrinking, and I got used to it. I tend to overindulge in my eating whenever I'm back in Buffalo though, especially wings. I used to love getting Chicken Finger subs from Johns on Grand Island back in High School too, but I haven't had one of those in maybe a decade.