SabresBaltimore

I always dread these home games against the Leaves because their fans invade the building and show just how quiet Sabres fans have become the last few years. I was at that Florida game last Saturday and it was so quiet except for one section near where we sat that kept trying to get cheers going, and mostly failed. To their credit they didn't give up and were successful a few times, but it always died pretty quick. Meanwhile I'm sure I'll be able to hear the Leaves fans for a full 60 minutes on TV tonight. We'd better play well and shut them up early..

I agree about Nelson. Unfortunately with injuries now it looks like that won't be happening anytime soon. Hopefully the NHL experience does him well, but I feel like there is always a rush to put guys in the NHL. Part of that is likely due to the with Canadian Juniors preventing us from sending young prospects to the AHL when they are too good for Juniors but have eligibility left. Part of it is probably just our lack of depth. I'm not sure why we didn't have Nelson in the AHL as first callup rather than as 7th d-man though. He's played all of 12 minutes so far. I guess that's about to change. Ah, OK. Considering I don't remember those two, I'm hoping GMTM can do a better job at getting us some more depth than Regier did there. But then I think even given the much smaller sample size and "time will tell" on the team he's been building, Murray's already a better GM.

I'm not sure what you mean by including those two. I'm not familiar with them, but neither were prospects in the time frame I'm talking about were they? My point here was that not too long ago, we were really deep on Defense. Throwing away Ruhwedel (who I think has a 2way with Pittsburgh and probably still in the AHL) that's still 6 NHL starters. I'd probably take those 6 over what we have right now. But I'm not saying we didn't need to trade the 4 we traded away for other higher needs at the time. However it's left the cupboard a bit bare at this point, and our defensive depth is our weakest position now. Could we still use another forward or two? Maybe. It will largely depend on guys like Molson, Ennis, and some of the young kids who played pretty well last night as a 4th line. Our goal scoring was looking pretty awful at the start (minus that Edmonton game) but seems to be coming around now. If Ennis can convert his effort into goals, and Molson keeps up his pace, and our 4th line plays well and contributes some goals, maybe that's enough. Add back in Kane and Eichel and we're probably in good shape. I still have questions at goalie, in particular if Lehener can stay healthy for a full season (and improve his rebound control), but so far I've been happy with our goaltending for the most part. Nilson looked pretty good in the games he played too.

A few years back (~2013 maybe?) I recall everyone talking about how deep we would be at defense. We had only Myers (Minnesota) full time from our "recent" draft picks. In the pipeline were: Ristolinen McNabb (LA) Zadorov (Col) Pysk (Flor) McCabe Ruhwedel (though this one is a stretch. he did play some games for us though)

Personally, I was happy to see the back of him when we traded him, despite all his potential upside. Plus, I'll take RoR over him every time. Hopefully we can make a good trade to bolster our defense. It'd be nice if that was sooner rather than at the trade deadline too. I'm just not sure what I'd be willing to give up at this point. A goalie prospect like Ullmark? One of our young forwards? A package deal? We don't have the crazy number of picks we used to have. Thankfully it's not my job. So far I've been pretty happy with GMTM's moves and hope he'll figure something out soon.

Yeah we seem awfully thin at defense right now. Remember when we had all those defensive prospects? I don't really think Nelson is ready for the NHL yet and would be better served in Rochester for a season.

Yeah, that applies to all National games (NBCN, NBC, NHL Network) regardless of provider. Also local market games. So when the Sabres play the Capitals, I'm blacked out of the package and I have to watch CSN regardless of what's available on the package. I'd love to have all the Sabres coverage in HD, but I'm not willing to switch to DirectTV for the privilege. I've considered switching to the streaming package instead, because even if they don't have the MSG coverage, you can switch the audio to the Sabres radio feed instead. I had it years ago and it was only SD, and only in a browser. Now it has a bunch of platforms supported and built in DVR like capabilities. I still find the FIOS one the most convenient for me personally despite not getting exactly the coverage I'd like.

I have Center Ice through Verizon FIOS. They offer 9 HD channels, and 14 SD channels. I've gotten the Sabres MSG coverage for several games now, one of which was only in SD. In my experience despite Center Ice being available on multiple (all?) providers what's available seems to vary quite a bit. DirectTV has the best service, since they have MSG-B on their package and anyone with Center Ice is able to watch that channel during Sabres games. What's been available on FIOS has changed a lot over the years. For a long time it was typically the other team's coverage only. They also went from 1 HD channel to 3 to 5, and now 9. I'm still waiting for them to get to 14, but at this point I'm not holding my breath. I've found that I almost always gets the MSG feed for Sabres homes games, but it's a crap shoot what's available during away games. Last night I only got the Minnesota coverage. There wasn't even a SD option for the MSG coverage this time. Sunday I got both Winnepeg and Buffalo coverage. Both in HD. I think some of it comes down to how many other games are playing and what channel it's on. If it's on 1-9, it's also in HD. If it's on 10-14 it'll be SD only. Saturday nights tend to be the worst since the most concurrent games seem to occur then.

That's not a bad theory. I wonder if it would make for fewer important games the last few weeks of the season or more. I hate watching a game between two playoff teams slow way down in the 3rd period because both teams are playing for 1 point and a chance at bonus point rather than a win. ROW was supposed to help reduce this, but I'm not convinced it has. It's hard for me to remember since the Sabres haven't been in the hunt for awhile, so I haven't been watching a lot of random hockey games with playoff implications at the end of the season like I did a few years back.

I'd like them to go to a 3 point game system (like they use in international tournaments) instead of the stupid 2+1 system they currently have. Maybe that would make playing for Overtime less attractive since now you're giving up that 3rd point. Of course that now means that Overtime wins are less than regulation wins, and the same as a shootout win, unless you keep the ROW tie breaker too. I have no idea why they didn't just go to 3 points when they changed the Overtime rules. Was it to avoid changes to the records? IE now you'd have a potential 246 points in a season instead of 164 which would mean getting over 100 points in a season would become commonplace.

Not to mention if they went based on offensive output, they should be calling up COLE SCHNEIDER whose 4-6-10 while Bailey is only 3-1-4. If he really believes he belongs in the NHL he should be leading the team. Of course they are only 7 games in, but still.

I'm hoping being sent to Rochester motivates Bailey to play his ass off..

OK. Yeah I don't want to start an argument. I was just trying to follow along. Thanks for the info.

I've always thought win percentage was #wins/total games, so 3-3-2 = 3/8 = .375. That seems to be this DeLuca .500. How do they normally account for OT losses, by points? Like #points/total points so 8/16 = .500?

The DeLuca .500? Is there a thread somewhere that explains it? I tried a quick forum search and got a bunch of Game Day Threads hits, but nothing popped out as discussing what that means that I saw.

Haha. No worries. I noticed it in October too, but I forgot to mention it then. Thanks!

Yeah. 8pm EST start. Not sure why the typo on the desktop wallpaper.

Sabres are 2-0 with a +5 goal differential since my trip home for Saturday's game. I'm taking all the credit. ;) I actually forgot to watch the Wild game on Thursday, but turns out I didn't miss much. Let's hope this momentum continues tonight and we split the season series.

Thanks! Great as always. Small comment though, you have tonight's game listed at 1pm ET but it's at 8pm ET

It's going to be pricey to have to drive up for every home game so this team can get some wins.

Well it's not just for the game. I'm visiting with friends and family while I'm here too. I try to come up for a game in October each year instead of Thanksgiving. Still, I had made these plans before I knew they'd start off like this.

I'm going. Drove 7 hours yesterday for this. 7 hours back tomorrow. Don't let me down boys!

It takes more than 1 person to make a winning team though. The fact that they aren't rising to the challenge yet is pretty disappointing.

The team needs to show some consistency. Ideally consistent with the Edmonton game or the first 2 periods of the Philly game instead of consistent with the garbage/sloppy periods. They obviously have the talent to play well, but have only put together one complete game so far. I was hoping the progress we seemed to make at the end of last season would carry over more this season. I look at guys like RoR and Gionta as the leaders on the team. Losing Eichel hurts, but was he doing more to drive this team than his play on the ice? Or is that just an excuse? The next few games could be telling. 2 home games against some pretty good teams before a timezone hop against a team (Winnipeg) we should take advantage of if we want to contest for a playoff spot this year. It's a long season, but we need to start stringing together some more wins soon, or we'll end up in the same position as last year.

I hope they win this one and take that momentum into Saturday's game against the Panthers, since I'm driving up for the weekend to go to it.