mjd1001

Are we talking players how are 'listed' at Center on NHL.com, or legit centers? Because Draisaitl does play some center for Edmonton, but he also is on the wing alot, probably more than center. Petterson is having a great season, and when you watch him play, he is playing a LOT better now than Eichel has played in years. He for sure should be ahead of Jack. I'd aslo move Jack Hughes up the list. Right now I think he has passed Crosby and Barkov, probably Point.

I'm guessing Orlove moves into the top 6 (probably top 4) and Forbort comes out for Boston. An upgrade yes. But is it enough of an upgrade for what they gave up? If you are in a win-now-at-all-costs this year mode ANY upgrade might be worth it I guess. It does give you security in case of an injury to your back 6 though, whoever gets knocked out of the top 6 now can come back in and be very little of a downgrade in case of an injury.

Here is one I thought I would never say....a movie that doesn't have ENOUGH merchandise tie ins with it. Saw the new Puss in boots a few weeks ago with the family (including a niece and nephew) and they really liked it. So my wife starts thinking, we'll buy them something from the movie. A Toy. A video game based on it. One of those Funko-pop figures. A lego set? A board Game? There is virtually nothing available. A few things from the previous movie a decade ago and a few posters, but that is it.

When the guys are on the road, they have curfews that are enforced more, they spend more time together with just a team/coaching staff. At home they spend too much time sitting around on the couch, late nights playing Xbox with each other. Is that it? probably not, but its all I have now for a guess.

Yes and no. As I have stated many times I am not an expert at hockey X's and O's, never coached or anything close to it. But, it looks like they are still in 'development' mode, throwing guys out there that are not the best at Penalty killing (yet) but letting them get experience. When I watch replays of a lot of the Sabres goals allowed, I don't see a huge lack of talent, lack of effort, or 'bad systems'. What I see is inexperienced players making a lot of mistakes and getting out of postion. The Toronto PP goal the other night is an example. Lybushkin vacates his spot in 'the box' to chace the puck to the boards. In an experienced unit I would expect he would either leave that to the winger/forward or, better yet, if he does he would KNOW the forward will cover his spot. However, Krebs was the forward on that side of the ice, not only did Krebs not cover the vacated spot, but he followed right behind Lybushkin to the same spot on the ice. I have NO IDEA what he expected to do there as Lybushkin was in front of him and was going to get to the puck first. So, now both players on that side of the ice are on the boards, the puck comes out and goes right to their vacated spots where the goal is scored from. A more experienced player than Krebs (maybe Krebs in a year from now) doesn't do that...or a more experienced unit has that forward (Krebs) and that D-man (Lybushkin) know each other better form spending more time playing with each other and knows not to do that. So I don't think the coaching staff is sabotaging the PK unit to look bad, but I do think they are letting the unit 'take its lumps' while players learn from their mistakes and they figure out who the long term guys out there will be. It would be easy to just put out Jost, Okposo, and Girgensons as your forwards all the time, but all of them aren't likely to be here long term. Gotta see which of the young guys will be the 'next ones up' and let those young guys get experience, even if it means mistakes. You don't want them to make mistakes now when in a playoff push of course, but probably better now than next year when you are pushing for a LOT more than just the playoffs.

Agreed. I full understand those who are tired of waiting for this team to get better, they aren't happy with the lack of moves. I also get there are moves he made or players he has on the roster that people aren't convinced belong here. To some of those people, they aren't convinced he is good at all as a GM. However I am on the other side. Of course I want the team to win and to win right now. But unless something unreal drops in his lap, I am 100% ok with him making zero moves and seeing what this team does from now until the end of the year. I'd love for him to get a #3-4 quality D-man in a trade, but I woudn't force it.

i'm not a season ticket holder. But if I was, I would sell my tix for this game. Not just for the money, but for the atmosphere. I have been to many, many bills games and dealt with opposing fans. I lived in Boston and saw a couple Red Sox games at Fenway and saw how the Yankee fans were there. But in the past 15 years, I have been to 2 Sabres-Leafs games here and the opposing Leaf fans were bigger Jerks and arrogant *-holes by far than anything else I have seen. Beleive me, the Yankee fans inside of Fenway aren't all that great, but I saw more arrogant/ignorant Leaf fans at the arena than anything else I have seen. I'm sure its not a representation of people from Toronto, we live right on the border, go to Toronto a lot, and have no problems with any people there....but put a Leafs jersey on them and put them with others like them in an opposing arena, and they are as bad as the worst trolls on social media. And Yes, I also was at one Canadiens game about a decade ago where the Arena seemed almost half full with Canadian fans...and saw a few Montreal games at the arena in the 1990's.....and the Montreal fans were WAY better than what I expereinced with the Leaf fans. Just my own experience....

As of now, the Sabres 5v5 save percentage is .907. The league "median" is .918. If by good you mean 'top10', tenth is .922. Now I understand a lot goes into save percentage beyond the number. I think the Sabres goalies should get a LITTLE slack because this team tend to give up a lot of odd man rushes and good chances compared to some 'lock it down teams.' With that said, lets say the Sabres 5v5 save percentage was .920 instead of .907. That would mean they would have allowed 25 less goals this year. (maybe more, close to 30 if that good goaltending carried over to the PP also). I'm guessing 25 less goals allowed would get their team +/- into the positive mid-30s....teams at that level now are in the low 70s in points. I know, VERY unscientific and a lot of variables there. But if the Sabres goalies had an 'above average' save percentage, some very basic numbers would imply they would comfortably be in the first wild card slot, but likely still behind the top 3 in the division.

But yet it still happens. Go to the Bills forum and you can find it....but listen to talk radio a day or two after a loss you you get a lot of "I'm Joe from Kenmore and I've been a Season ticket older since 1978, this team will never win a championship until they get tougher and run the ball more!"

Most people, myself included, like to post things we are sure we are correct about. Obviously we like to agree with those who are like-minded on a topic and disagree with those who think something different. With that said, what are things about this current team that you were WRONG about (or at least it is trending that way). For me: -Mittlestadt. Up until even earlier this year, I thought by now he would be the 20-25 goal, 60+ point guy (with a potential go to 30g, 70 points), who would generate offense whenever on the ice. It looks like this many years into the league, he is falling short of that. -Cozens. The opposite of Mitts. Again up until the start of this year, I thought he was going to be a very good 2-way center. A guy who would be a fixture on the 3rd line but the most you would expect out of him was 15-20 goals (tops) because he just didn't look like he had a good shot. Well, this year alone at his age he exceeded what I expected from him offensively. -Bryson. I never thought he would be a star, but I thought he was going to be a great 3rd pair guy, but a good enough skater that he might even be a good 2nd pair guy. Not only has he not reached that level, but the more ice time he gets, the more he regresses. -Anderson in goal. I wasn't against him coming back, but I thought he would be here for half the season, play 10 games until UPL and Comrie took over the duties...and when he played you would HOPE he would get you .895 save percentage and not embarass himself. He isn't this teams starting goalie, but he has been a LOT better than I thought. On a league related note, I have to say Claude Giroux falls into this cateory and so do the Flyers. Giroux when he signed with Ottawa I thought was done. Finished. Washed up. that by half way through the season they woudl reget signing him. BUT, he is on a pace for almost 35 goals and almost 80 points. Ooops... The Flyers, I was thinking bad. Worst in the league bad. Getting blown out every other game bad. Well, they aren't 'good' but they are only 4 points behind Buffalo (although with more games played) and aginst the Sabres they knocked them around pretty good. Lets not even talk much about the Bruins. They will EVENTUALLY have a bad year where the miss the playoffs. its coming, It has to be.

If that is true and while in the NHL he has those qualities, that is exactly what the Sabres need. Get the puck in your own zone, Get it out of the zone with a good pass. Let your talented/high draft pick forwards or Dahlin/Power take it from there. As I have posted in many other threads just in the past day or so...this current Sabres team allows goals not by lack of effort (well sometimes but not usually) but by lack of positioning and communication and general breakdowns in their own zone or in transistion. A D-man who is sound Defensiviely and has enough ability to get the puck out of the zone is the exact thing, the EXACT thing this team needs. Only problem is they can really use it now, today,...not 2-3 years from now.

The fact that the team has such a good record on the road (4th best in the league I think), can you also say that that is the sign of a great coaching staff, one that gets their team prepared so well and has their strategy so sound that the lack of getting matchups doesn't matter? The staff has the team so focused on the road, and the team is 'less' focused at home because of family/friends and other distractions the coaching staff can't do much about. You can argue it either way. It evens out. If you are going to use a team's record as a barometer of coaching quality, then you need to use the entire record.

If I am going to defend Granato when things go bad, I have to try pretty hard but not THAT hard. Maybe another evolution of the NHL is that a head coach can be more of a guy like Granato and less like what we had in the past to be effective. A counter point would be Ralph Krueger. For the most part, he was well spoken and seemed like a 'nice guy', but as far as coaching, it was his way and his way only. We see a perfect example of this that Granato was ON HIS STAFF but must have had very little input because the coaching style/operation of the team was so much different under both of them. So where am I going? Less of a 'everything runs through me' type of coach and more of a CEO. Kinda like an NFL coach where they delegate a lof of the actual 'coaching' to experts. Your head coach can be the one who runs the general direction of the team. When to practice. How much to practice. What to focus those practices on. If a decision NEEDS to be made on gameday, he is the final say (bench a guy if need be, double shift someone). But beyond that, you hire a PP specialist to run/teach the PP, a SH guy for the same. I seem to remember Ted Nolan openly admitted he wasn't that great on the x's and o's so I remember he would call a timeout and one of the assistents would have the white board setting up the play with the guys on the ice while Nolan stood back and watched. It doesn't have to be EXACTLY that way but I think Granato can succeeed in a role like that. Plus its not like he doesn't know x's and o's...or he doesn't know how to coach....he has been around the AHL and NHL in various roles and has seen other coaches do 'their thing'. The GM position has evolved. Presidents of hockey Operations are psuedo-gms. Some have more power than the GM, some leave the hockey decisons to the GM but operate at a differnent level. There is no set rules form team to team. I guess what I am saying is...if Granato isn't the best coach for this team based on how we judged coaches in the past or how we judge them today, that doesn't mean he might not be good in tomorrows (or next years) game. And Yes, with this post I am reaching for a way to justify how he could be kept around long term if it looks like he has shortcoming...but if the game is always evolving, players are evolving, strategy and training are evolving...how about trying to be part of the evolution of coaching and how a team is coached?

Well, here is the 'problem' or at least the nature of social media/message boards: There are some people who don't like Granato. There are some people that do like Granato. After a winning streak, the ones who like Granato will make their voices heard. After a losing streak or a bad loss, those who don't like his as coach have their time to speak. Its the nature of things. The same behavior happens on the Bills forum or talk radio. When the team wins a game by passing the ball all over, people say its great they play like that. When they lose, people complain "they need to run more!" The common complaint is that people will complain no matter what they do. That isnt exactly true. You aren't hearing people complain 'no matter what', what you are doing is hearing DIFFERENT people complaining based on the most recent events of the team. If/when the Sabres go on a 3-4 game winning streak, I highly doubt there will be a lot of complaining about Granato as coach. If/when they lose 3-4 in a row there will be calls that he isn't the guy. Its not so much people changing their mind...it is just the same 'different people' capitilizing in the situation to make their point.

So much of the talk around him was whether he would become a free agent or not...and very little about how good he actually was becoming.....that I have NO IDEA at all how good he is. He is a late first rounder. Great. That was a few years ago. How has he progressed or regressed, If he does sign does he help this team now (is he better than someone like Bryson who has less talent but more experience)? What is he likely to be in a couple years from now? I have zero idea.

I posted soemthing like this in a differerent thread but I think it applies to the comments you made here also. When the Sabres lose, I don't see it as a lack of overall talent, or a lack of effort, or a lack of toughness. I see it has 20% "puck luck" due to the style they play (D-men push up the ice so much, sometimes it helps you score, sometimes you get caught up the ice and it burns you), but 80% is mistakes or bad positioning. Against playoff teams, they have enough experience that they will 'counter punch' what you do. They have film on the Sabres, they know how they play. Those good, experienced teams wait for the Sabres to make a mistake or be out of position and then caplitilize on it. The Sabres can get away with it agains 'lesser' teams because the Sabres either have just more talent, OR the 'lesser teams' positioning is just as bad as the Sabres and they aren't in position to capitilize on it. A GREAT goaltender can also cover up a lot of the mistakes the Sabres make, but they don't have that right now. And Yes, the Sabres make a lot of mistakes especially with positioning on their goals allowed. But I think that comes from the lack of experience and lack of communication. Those things should get better over time. It won't all happe in a week or two though, it might take a half season, a season, or more.

I watched some of the goals allowed and think that the lack of Grit and them 'folding' wasn't a huge issue last night. The goals the allowed, they were mostly players being out of position or making mistakes. Bring in 'more grit' like when Risto was here (maybe a bad example he really isn't that good) and many of those players make MORE mistakes just to make a hit. The goals they allowed last night were a result of bad line changes (Samuelson carrying the puck up the ice, falling down leaving no one back on D at all because that exact moment Power left the ice on a change), Forwards out of position in the D-zone (Thompson going to the boards, the D-men getting split and Skinner/Tuch not covering the vacated open zones), Bad SH positioning (Lybushkin chasing the puck to the boards, and instead of Krebs covering the spot, he follows Lybushkin litterly 3 feet behind him to the same spot leaving the slot open). Also, the Sabres style of play is to push the puck up the ice. D-men pinch and join the rush. SOME games doing that is going to be the reason you score a few goals and win, other games the bounces will not go your way and it will be the reason you lose. It just happens. The best team in the NHL doesn't win every game, and the style the Sabres play leads to having some bad goals allowed. Those things are not corrected by extra effort, "Grit" or "Balls". Those things are corrected with experience, knowing your linemates and partners evern BETTER and much better communication on the ice. ALL teams have games where those mistakes are made. Young teams have more games like that. Teams like Boston aren't that much more talented than everyone else, they are successful because they make the FEWEST mistakes like that. Now, I'm not saying that having another '100% effort, all the time guy' or a bigger, physical guy added to this roster wouldn't make them better. It might and probably would. But not having that guy is not the reason they lost last night. Inexperience, bad positioning, and a few plays where players didn't backcheck hard/made bad decisions/or had bad giveaways (Krebs, Krebs, Krebs, and one time Quinn and Skinner) are the reason.

This year New Jersey is currently 3rd in the league in points. Hughes is playing like one of the top 5 forwards in the league. Last year they were FIFTH WORST in the league. Hughes missed some games last year but even when he played the team wasn't as good as it is this year. The point? Young teams take time. They take a step forward from being an average team to a very good team when they are ready, NOT when the fan base wants.

I think hes fine. Development of players, that is his specialty, that is what he did, and it appears that is what he is doing here. Is there a problem with him as far as strategy/x's and o's? I don't know if there is or not, that might be his weakness. If it IS, then you get an assistent coach who has that as a strength. Certain head coaches have the "I'm the head coach, things are done my way" vibe. Granato doesn't seem like that is the case with him (at least to me). If he has a specific weakness in an area of strategy, Adams and Granato can/need to talk about that in the offseason, and if there is a deficiency, bing in an assistent to help. I'd rather have Granato as head coach/ "CEO behind the bench" who may or may not lack in one area that you can bring in help with.......RATHER than have a great Strategy/gameday guy behind the bench that lacks in the areas Granato has strength in.

Maybe an experienced guy would help, but what I see is not the lack of a certain type of player back there. I see Power as a good young D-man who, because of his inexerpence, usually plays well but often has some pretty bad games. I see the 6th D-man on this team as missing. I seeLybushkin as a pretty good 4, 5 guy who can play phyiscial but he seems to be playing beat up all the time. The biggest thing I see though when they allow goals is a D-corp that is young overall and doesn't make too many physical mistakes but makes 'young guy' out of position mistakes. I think this exact same group on D will be better next year, and a LOT better in 2 years from now when they all have more experience. Of course, that Vet guy would help right now to take a couple minutes off of Power and to take all the minutes from a struggling Clague/Bryson/whoever else.

This is a streaky young team that seems to win when you are pretty sure they are 'done' and expect them to lose, but on the other hand just when you think they are playing good a losing streak starts. Right now fans have lost faith in the team again...so maybe that will signal a turn around to playing well? That is all I got, I'm not epecting much from them in the next two games myself.

Excpet Anderson stopped 17 out of 18 shots he faced after he took over, only allowing 1 PP goal where the team in front of him had 2 players take themselves out of position. Then again, if he STARTED the game when Toronto put all that pressure on...maybe he wouldn't have done as well.

He is really young for a Goalie. Many young goalies seem to go through very hot and very cold streaks. I think he'll be fine....BUT I would say now would be a time to get Comrie 4 out of the next 6 games and see how he does.

Tied for 3rd worst in the league with 11 home wins. Tied for 4th best in the league with 17 away victories. If only they were even a .500 team at home. (actually if they were .500 at home they would currently have 66 points and be the first wild card team with games in hand over most the other teams)