mjd1001

2013-14 team would probably have to be the one in recent history. Yeah, the start of the tank I get it, but that team was dreadful to watch. In a full season, your leading point producers had in the low 40s, those were your offensive STARS. You had a total of 4 players with double digit goals. 65 points out of the division lead. The team scored UNDER TWO goals per game. Looking up and down the roster, no-one I really liked. This current team isn't even close to that team for me.

Its not that the Fan salue is a big deal, its not that its needed in anyway. BUT, once you start doing it, it becomes noticable by its absense.

To me this isn't a huge deal, but it is an issue. Why? To me there are 2 main reasons to be a fan or enjoy being a fan of a team, 2 things that make watching a team enjoyable: 1.) They win the championship. 2.) If they don't win the championship, the at least show improvement from the previous season, giving the fans entertainment AND hope that they are on the WAY to winning the championship sometime in the near future. I think that is 90%+ of what makes a season enjoyable. Well, this team isn't doing any of those 2 things, So they ONLY think they have to fall back on is.....for some fans...are they "likeable". Its not much, but if you aren't doing the first 2, being 'likeable' to many fans is all they can hold onto. Well, this team ISN'T doing the first 2, and a story like this coming out sure doesn't make them very likeable. The are hockey players, but lets be honest....they are not so much paid to pay hockey as they are to ENTERTAIN by playing hockey. The Customer who pays their salary is the fans. As an Enterainer, they players (the organization) should realize all of the above.

See, even as fans we totally disagree on the problem. For me, the reason this team has take a step back has to do with: Tage and Cozens lack of production, injuries, Power being vastly over-rated at this point in his career, and whatever assistant is in charge of the day to day of the PP. To me all of those things I listed rank WAY above any that you have listed in terms of what is wrong/needs to change with the team.

It comes down to...the fans can do what they want/boo when they want/chant what they want....and the players can choose to respond the way they are. Its all in each person's right to do so. HOWEVER, what do the players expect from the fans? Some of them spending a good portion of their monthly entertainment dollar to see that effort/result, which by the way its pretty direct that the money the fans spend is what pays the players salary....and when the fans witness that effort, do the players expect the fans to cheer for them and wish they better luck next time so their feelings aren't hurt? You would think that any chant the Fans have..."Fire Donny", "Fire Adams", "Pegula S**ks"....anything should right away be translated in the players heads to a simple "do better".

I don't mind Bryson and Clifton THAT much as a #3 pair getting 13-14 minutes in a game. Its an issue when they are the #2 guys and getting about 20 minutes in a game.

And the loss to Florida maybe doesn't look as bad as they are winning 9-1 right now half way through the 3rd against Tampa.

I really hate games like this. I'd rather see a sloppy five to five game than a 0-0 goaltenders battle. But. . It's not just UPL.... Since the beginning of the year, the defenseman and even the forwards in their own zone have been playing better, a lot better. Are they perfect? No, but the amount of plays where they're out of position or the blatant awful turnovers.... They are way down. Now only if someone can score.

It seems to me that last year they started to cover him the same way that... But he used a little skating and quickness to side step some of the players and if he didn't get off the one timer, he got off another good shot. I don't see that at all from him this year.

Not only do Thompson's one-timers seem to have a little bit less on them this year.... He seems to be lining up and taking them from deeper in the zone.. on a little bit worse of an angle.

First of all, the ads on the boards they can change digitally and I'm seeing ads targeted towards Western New York.... But that key bank logo on the inside of the blue lines... Had me doing a double take as to whether this game was in Minnesota or Buffalo.

Those uniforms Minnesota is wearing with the yellow.... Definitely brings me back to my childhood watching the North Stars. Now if only the Quebec Nordiques could be back in the league... I hated them so much that I miss it

Is the Powerplay bad because of Tage? or is Tage bad because of the Power play? Is the Power play bad because Tage only has 4 PP goals this year, while last year he had 20? Is the reason the PP is awful not because its run bad...but simply he simply isn't producing on it? OR.... Is Tage a lot worse this year because he isn't getting those PP goals, and its not his fault so much as it is the fault of the way the Power Play is run?

Buffalo is 14.38 on the PP this season. Median this year has been around 22-23% for most of the season. Last year they were at 23.42. Lets target 23%. Slightly worse than last year, maybe close to 10th-15th in the league this year. Where does that get them? That gives them 13 more goals. With no other changes, that gives them a positive goal differential this year (I think a +4). How does that equate to the standings? In the East last year, EVERY team that was good enough to have a positive goal differential made the playoffs. Every team that had a negative missed the playoffs. The correlation was 100%. In the West EVERY team that had a negative missed also, 8 or the 9 teams with a positive made it. In the East, 2 years ago EVERY team that had a positive goal differential made the playoffs, EVERY team with a negative goal differential missed. Its not a guarantee (the West has a couple teams every so often on the bubble that don't fit the 'rule') but for the most part, the SINGLE best metric (other than points) that determine whether you are good enough to make the playoffs or miss the playoffs is overall goal differential. Change NOTHING other than the powerplay (make them league average or close to last year) and this team has a positive goal differential. Or think of it this way...sprinkle around those 13 extra goals...and quite a few of them probably turn losses into wins and you can get your point total up that way. 3 years ago Buffalo was 12th in the league at 21%. 2 years ago they were 16th at 21.2%. Last year they were 9th in the league at 23.4%. This year they are 28th in the league at 14.3%. Did the players change? Not really. Did the head coach change? No. Did the assistants change? YES. So, where you have a huge drop off in performance in one key aspect of your game, I just don't think you 'blow things up' or make huge changes until you change what is the problem. Its like Surgery....you have an infection on your arm, you don't just cut the whole arm off, you first TRY to get rid of the infection locally.

I see a drastic improvement but only in the past few weeks.

Ok. Blow the team up. Change coaches. Change GM's. They all may be valid points. But maybe its simpler than that. What is wrong/different with this team compared to last year's team, which was 1 point away from the playoffs? -This team is allowing less goals than last year. They are now middle-of-the-pack and actually improving the last few weeks. They have a goalie who not only has pretty good numbers, he passes the 'eye test' also. Scoring is the problem but: -Peterka is doing better than last year. Skinner is basically giving you close to the scoring of last year. Dahlin has less assists but is scoring more goals. Mitts is better offensively. Greenway and Okposo are better offensively. Basically, this team is equal to, or BETTER than last years team in MOST ways other than: Thompson scoring, Cozens scoring, and Tuch Scoring (Tuch isn't as big of an issue as the other 2, and it may be related to injury with him.) VO is off also, but his play is made up for basically by Peterka, and few think/thought VO was long for this team anyway. So yea, the results aren't what anyone wants....but its not the whole team. Much of the team is equal to last year or BETTER. The question may not be how or why to make wholesale changes, or blow everything up....but rather how/why are Thompson, Cozens, maybe Tuch and Power issues. I don't want to blow the whole team up yet....I don't want to make major changes yet. I want to fix Tage, Cozens, and Power (mostly) as those guys are 3 of your 'core 4 or 5'. If a coaching change or GM change 'fixes' those guys, then great. But I know when people say we have waited and endured 'too long' and just want 'something to be done', I'm not quite sure what coach...or GM...comes in here and just makes those guys better. Because, while the rest of the team is 'flawed', overall they are giving you want they did last year or in some cases are better than last year.

All of the following things can be true....that he has every right as the owner to be in those meetings...that other owners do similar things....and that it can be very disruptive to the management. Years ago when Rex Ryan was the Bills coach, I remember an interview with Pegula. He was talking about how Rex and his staff were defensive geniuses, and that Pegula himself sat in on meetings with the coaching staff and he was amazed at how much they knew. He want on to say he had to ask so many questions just to understand what they were talking about. After that interview I came away thinking....If i was THAT coaching staff, I couldn't wait to have a meeting without him. Even if he wasn't throwing in his 'opinion', someone interrupting on a frequent basis (which he made it sound himself like he was doing), just isn't a good situation. Now, add to that the fact/strong rumors that it was PEGULA who wanted Ville Leino, and he admitted he pushed for Erhoff.....and it would seem to be reasonable to think that in hockey, he makes his feelings known and does more than 'just listen'.

It sounds like someone is should 'switch to decaf' just by how upset you got by my original post. You ended up with a longer response to my post saying my opinion that the length of my original post. And by the way, I said giving someone a nickname who already has one is 'dumb', that is straight forward. but don't trip over yourself saying 'someone should switch to decaf' trying to be so clever. I find that more offensive to me and more worthy of a response back than me saying a nickname someone made up out of the blue (and is trying to PUSH) is 'dumb'.

So just as quite a few of us start singing his praises, saying how good he is playin in this very thread....and UPL comes down with an injury that will cost him a game (or games). Maybe its not much..he COULD play but they want an excuse to give him a couple days off and NOT look bad to the fanbase like they aren't trying to win. (I'm reaching here, I know).

That looks bad, maybe we can try to look at it a positive way, however unlikely? -Ottawa, OTTAWA has 16 points in their last 10 games. So does Vancouver and Edmonton. 3 other teams have 15 points in their last 10. So its possible. -If Buffalo did the same, 16 points in their next 10 games, that would put them at 66 points in 62 games. -Currently 8th in the conference is Detroit at 57.7% of available points. If the Sabres had 66 points in 62 games, that would put them at 53.2% of points. -That would leave them with 20 games left...and 5 points out of 8th in the conference. So Yeah, they would have to do the 16 points in 10 games, but again, a few teams, including OTTAWA are currently on that streak. And it would still likely leave them 5 points out of 8th...but it would make it interesting at least.

Ok, make a list of who you think the top 10 players on the team are. How many of those have NOT missed games due to injury? Its probably not as bad as I think, but this year it seems really bad.

We can pick the number of games we want to make things look as good or as bad as we want, but before reading this post I wanted to see how he was doing since the beginning of the year, Since Jan 1, 2004: 6w - 5L (11 starts) .944 save percentage. 1.56 GAA, 3 shutouts. Has not allowed more than 3 goals in any of those games. In his 5 losses, he only allowed 11 total goals (2.2 per game). If only the Sabres had a little more offense....

MacKenzie Weeger. Good D-man. But 8th year in the league, 30 years old. Never scored more than 8 goals in a year. Averaged 6.5 goals per 82 games before this year. 7th round pick so didn't have a high pedigree coming into the league. This year? leading the league in goals from the blue line (Dahlin is 2nd). On pace for 23-24 this season over 82 games. Had 31 TOTAL over the rest of his career. Did not see that coming.

2 years for 2.75m would be great, but there is no way he is taking that (at least I strongly don't think so). If he plays like he is, even finishes in the top 10-15 in most major stats, you are going to need to pay him more than that.

I think I might be Cozens biggest critic on this forum, but he has been playing a better lately. He is still bad in his own zone, but he hasn't made as many critical errors in the D-zone as earlier in the year (either that or UPL is covering up for them). 4 goals and 6 assists (10 points) in his last 10 games is what you need out of him ALL THE TIME. I'm hoping he keeps it up. I Still think Cozens game is better suited to wing than Center. But if you are going to play him at center, he needs to produce in the offensive zone. The last 10 games he has finally started to do that. Tage. Its got to be a nagging injury, right? He had a career year last year, but that was AFTER a full season before that was a breakout year..and he started to turn the corner the last month of the season before that. So Cozens had a career year..but Tage has been a legit goal scorer for 2 full seasons before. I think there has to be something else going on like an injury. I like Girgensons game, I'd LOVE to have him back as a 4th liner next year but if he has a chance to play for a contender, so be it. Okposo is scoring pretty well, has had some timely goals for the team this year, but I think his overall game has slipped noticably (he is always a step slow to get back in his own zone) so again, if he has a chance to play for another contender, I'm all for seeing him get that chance.