matter2003

Just aren't at the Canes level yet. No shame in that, they will take a lot of good lessons from this one even in a loss. They have played pretty well, just no answers for the Canes speed, team structure and aggressiveness in the D zone.

Sabres are doing a lot of wheeling and dealing in the offensive zone but it's all to the outside. Whenever they try to get inside the Canes either converge on them or get sticks in the way of passes. They are really good...very impressed especially with the way they play team D. Sabres are getting destroyed on faceoffs again too which doesn't help.

We played well in the early part of the first but Carolina has slowly kind of taken over. They aren't killing the Sabres but we are having to work really really hard in both ends and are having trouble getting shots to the net between the blocks and the back checks getting sticks in lanes. Sabres are doing a lot of circling in the Canes zone without any real shots on goal.

Basically we are watching what the Sabres will look like in about 3 years or so in the Hurricanes. They are damn good.

Can they stop icing the puck?

Ah...is that one of those stats that is judged by the teams official scorer?

This is super entertaining...Sabres looking like the Harlem Globetrotters in the Canes end.

I just stream it off my favorite "Mom's Basement" site.

I wouldn't know...maybe you should take a break or go get some help? 😉

Probably worse.

Should be a good measuring stick...Carolina leads the NHL in CF% at 63.56%. Sabres are 11th at 51.46% Surprise Seattle is 7th at 53.05%...could they actually be good this year? Also surprisingly...Sabres are the best team in the NHL at not giving the puck away with only 56 giveaways and also are one of the best teams in the NHL at not giving the puck away in the defensive zone, coming in 5th at only 41.07% of the giveaways happening in our end...improvement over last year when we were 14th and 8th respectively. Not surprisingly we are far and away the lowest team in terms of hits given with 109...the second lowest team in that department is Montreal with 193...for comparisons, Rangers lead the NHL with 362 hits...but we balance that out by being the 4th lowest in terms of hits taken with only 190. Chicago leads that with only 183 taken, so we aren't far off. We are an NHL worst 36.45% hits given tho so that is something we probably are going to need to work on I would think.

No idea what you are talking about. Weird take.

And look where it got us...nowhere...the same way the Leafs get bounced from the first round no matter how good they are.

It's an example of why Toronto goes out in the first round of the playoffs every year. This stuff matters when push comes to shove and when the chips are down. That is the kind of stuff that causes locker room issues. We just got rid of those with Eichel, Reinhart and Risto...don't need to be adding any of them back again.

Matthews scores a goal, takes a hit after and then goes back at the dude and gives him a crosscheck...then they start slashing and yapping and Matthews let's his teammate fight his fight for him and everyone else gets involved as he stands there and laughs...what a disgrace. This is what you call a punk move. It's like the one guy everyone knows growing up that they won't hang out with anymore because you go out with him and a few other guys to a bar and he starts crap all night with someone and gets your group into a fight and then just stands there watching it happen or runs away. Matthews is a soft little punk and the dude who jumped in there should be doing the same thing to him in the locker room for it.

It's been 38 games now.

In addition to being the youngest team in the NHL in terms of age, the Sabres are also the least experienced team in the NHL in terms of games played by 745 games less than Arizona and the only team with under 6,000 games played logged by their players: No surprise Washington and Boston are the two most experienced teams, with more than double the number of games the Sabres have played. Makes what the Sabres are doing even more impressive, IMO.

What did Gus Johnson call it? Gettin' away from the cops speed? Not quite THAT fast, but pretty fast nonetheless...

Especially if he moves his arm slightly and smaller opponents run face first into an elbow

The Bills have had this pay off hugely under McDermott and Beane and been consistently one of the least injured teams in the NFL over that time in terms of man games lost to injury. By far and away the NFL leaders in that category over 5 years by at least 80 games on the 2nd place Rams and somewhere in the 400-500 game range over the most injured teams in that timeframe. Pretty remarkable. And as bad as they have had it from an injury standpoint this year, it still 12th best in the NFL this year, which shows just how frequently other teams experience injuries...what is a huge rash of injuries to us is still below average for many teams.

Granato is a good coach, not Jesus.

I don't know why, I love what he brings to the team and it's not like has hasn't been productive with 5 assists so far. Good problem to have tho...and I think it may be more because he is a vet and Granato doesn't want to mess with the young players who have been finding their groove the last few games...much easier for Hino to sit out 3 or 4 games and come back in and pick up where he left off from than to disrupt the young guys who might find it much tougher to do that.

Get a Biron and Emery duel going again with someone...

Or maybe it could be said the Sabres simply needed a coach who could actually develop young talent to come along for him to succeed? Is there a single player that doesn't look light years better under Granato than any of the other coaches? That says a lot about both Granato and the other coaches.

Nope, but that will likely lead to scoring eventually.