mjd1001

I guess that was the correct call on the no-goal, but if I was St. Louis, I'd be a bit upset about it. I think it could have gone either way.

I'm not sure if its coaching/system, or just will by the players...but it seems that when the PP had success, it was doan (or someone else) who just planted themself in front of the net. Didn't 'rotate' through, didn't skate through the crease..but they planted themself there the whole time. On the PP, that seems to have gone away..and so have the goals.

Except I'm pretty sure that isn't tage on the faceoff circle, didn't someone else take that bad one-timer? I think Tage has been on the point this PP.

Tage on the point? Not sure I like that. Yeah, he has a good shot, but he also has pretty good hands in traffic. I get trying something different, but that isn't it.

Sabres were close to dominating the first period. 2nd period was closer, probably a slight overall edge to the Blues. Not a good sign when they played last night and the Sabres were home resting.

Remember a couple years ago, the team scored 5 or more goals in 25 games. Almost 1 in 3 games they scored 5 or more. More than once per week on average. This year, they've done it 2 times, in what is likely to be 14 games. About once ever 2 weeks.

Zucker has some big goals, but I have thought his play without the puck and the number of turnovers, is a step back from his game last year. Yet, you are still correct, they miss him. I don't have confidence in Ruff and/or Adams to bench Quinn. But if you were fully healthy, MAYBE he would be getting less minutes and doing less harm than he is now.

And that is the difference between a team that makes the playoffs as the 6-8 seed and one that doesn't make it. All teams fighting for the last spot in the playoffs have good games and bad games. They have games they lose they SHOULD win. The difference between the Sabres and the teams that squeek in isn't always talent, its the Sabres have just a few more games like this than the other teams do.

Like last years version. 🤮 He's gotten back close to on pace to be a -30 in +/- for the year if he plays a full season.

Greenway-Quinn-Kozak....do they even have a shot on net? Its not a 4th line, so they need to have SOME presense in the offensive zone, they have had zero. $7.5m dollars for those 2 wingers and they are pretty awful most nights. Krebs-Malenstyne-Dunn might be the best line of the night, even in the offensive zone. They just have no finish. As mentioned above, Tage looks lost with those 2 young guys.

Tage-Östlund-Rosen was a mistake. I'm not saying those young guys might not deserve ice time or eventually will be good, but you need goals. Don't mess around with Tage, play him with guys he has played with before.

Anything up with Tuch tonight that I missed? He's normally at the top of the list in ice time for forwards, right now 8 other forwards have more. Not to mention I haven't really noticed him do anything of note since the beginning of the game.

Or, you could say when you hit a post, its almost 'perfect' goaltending as the goalie took just the exact right amount of 'net' away from the shooter, and only left the post.

Give me UPL and Quinn to anyone for 3rd round pick and a decent minor league forward. I'll plug that minor league guy into Roch and bring up one of the Roch guys on a permanent basis to replace Quinn. It would make the team better not playing UPL anymore and replacing Quinn from the lineup.

Between this year and last year, this will likely be the 28th game where he had a save% under .900. Almost half of his games. And some of those games are in the low .800s and .700s. You can't win with a goalie that half of his starts (or more) he allows more than 10% of the shots to be goals. (and lets i a LOT of easy goals where sees the shot, is set, facing the shooter and still gets beat alot)

I'm 2/3 of the way there with you. Power has had some good moments to me. The other 2? Yes, the team would be BETTER with the replacements that would likely take their minutes.

Its only been 2 games before tonight, but UPL had a .877 save percentage coming in. Playing the worst team in the league...and not even half way through the game, he has managed to drop his save percentage to .859%. And they weren't lucky goals or anything. The first goal he was too slow to get over, that last goal was one of the worst an NHL goalie can/should ever allow.

St lous has allowed the most goals in the league. Their goalies have the worst Save % in the league. Can we please get a goal?

Its clear to me they were the 2 worst players that caused the most harm to this team last year (even more than Cozens). Not a good sign if you are giving them both "another chance" and they end up costing you points/games you might need at the end of the season.

Ok, I'm really close to being done with the UPL experiment. That wasn't screened, he was set, he was facing the shooter. It wasn't a blast. That was just a bad, bad goal by the goalie. I expect my goalie to make that save every time.

So the biggest positive to his game on that card is that he has 0 penalty minutes.

To Pile on Jack Quinn a bit more: This season of the top 10 forwards in ice time for the Sabres even strength.. Jack Quinn: -2nd last in Fenwick % -last in Corsi % -3rd last in shots for/against -He's negative in goals for/against, negative in expected goals for/goals against, negative in scoring chances for/agains, negative in high danger chances for/against.

"Scoring chances" in the first: St. Louis, 2 scoring chances 1 goal. Buffalo, 6 scoring chances, 0 goals.

In one period he's moved his SV% up about 10 points already.

Something happened to him in the 2024 calendar year. Yeah, it could be an injury but he had an injury earlier and came back and played well. -In his first full season, he was as productive as he was last year plus his +/- was a lot better. -His 3rd season he scored at nearly a 30-goal-per-82 pace -Then last year, his production dropped, and he basically became the worst 2-way forward in the league. He stopped going to the net (almost totally), started making a lot more mistakes defensively. His plus-minus got a lot worse. AND, if you look at his analytics, pretty much every teammate-linemate got worse when they played with Quinn than they did with anyone else. He even brought Cozens analytics down. He has flashed a bit of good play this year, but when you average it out, he is still costing the team more than he is contributing to it. Maybe you just keep him around to play Ottawa, sit him the rest of the year as your 13th forward. In the last 2 years... -Vs Ottawa: 5 games, 5 goals -Vs all esle: 82 games, 13 goals