mjd1001

The problem with that statement for Eichel is, there are too many steps between Eichel and Mcdavid. Many wanted to (and some still do) beleive there was McDavid then a step down to Eichel. The reality is there is McDavid, then Matthews, Draisatil, Ovi, Kaprizov, Kreider, Gaudreau, Huberdeau, Stamkos, Tkachuk, Panarin, McKinnon, Crosby, Barkov, Connor, a few others, and THEN Eichel. Eichel is taking up over 12% of his teams cap space on a team that is stretched in that a regard. His team gave up 3+ first rounders for him (Tuch, Krebs, and last years 1st). He is tied for 111th in the league in points per game since you have been with Vegas. Since he started his career, he is 25th in the league in points per game, and 47th overall in points (partly because he has had so many games missed to injury). My point is you simply cannot have the lack of effort you displayed on that play the other day, or he has displayed many other times over his career and even since he has been with vegas (many of those plays shown here and/or on Twitter). If you are getting paid that much, and your team gave up so many assets for you, you have to be better in the D-zone, regardless of how long your shift was (if his shift was something absurd like 1.5 minutes, then he needed to get off the ice and let someone else on)

I have no feeling at all about this game. Zero. A win would confirm a lot of potential positive thought though, but going into it...nothing.

Yes I did, and I stand 100% by what I say. That they were outplayed in the 3rd period, but they rarely totally lost control of the game. Very few of the chances the Oilers had in the 3rd were screened chances or off of huge rebounds. They gave up a lot of 'good' chances, Comrie had to make a lot of 'good' saves, but not many of the nearly impossible type saves where he was hung out to dry. Edmonton had a lot of shots, and if there was a rebound many were either cleared out of the zone or their players were kept away from the rebounds right in front of the net.

I agree with you. I don't want to say the Sabres played GREAT overall in the 3rd, but they did what they had to do. It wasn't all Comrie, as you said the D-unit did what the needed to do. Complaining about the number of shots given up in the 3rd is somewhat justified, but also somewhat like saying in the NFL your Defense gave up too many passing yards in the 4th quarter when you played strictly prevent up by 10 points and the opposing offense was running a no-huddle the entire quarter.

Yes, but there are about 125 forwards this year (nearly 1/3 of the league) whos coaching staff is giving more ice time to than Eichel is getting.

Its early, but so far when I watch him it doesn't appear the game is too 'fast' for him mentally. He is a quick player physically, but so are a lot of young guys. The difference I see with JJ is, he reacts to things quickly. Not a lot of time to stop and think of where to go or what to do. He recognizes things and then reacts. A trait that a lot of young players (maybe Quinn?) take a year or two in the NHL to develop, he seems to have already.

I'm wondering if he is still hurt, or has another injury that no one knows about yet. Vegas is 4 games into the season. A small sample size yet but we can notice a few trends: -Eichel is not getting the ice time you would think your franchise (or at least star) player should be getting. Star forwards are getting 21m-24m minutes of total ice time per game. Eichel so far is at 15:36...5 to 6 minutes less than most other star forwards. That is a huge difference. -Even strength might be even more telling. Most star forwards are around 17 minutes of even strenght ice time, some (Gaudreau, McDavid, Quinn Hughes) are in the 19-20 minute range. Even strength though, Eichel is getting about 12 minutes (12m 15s). That puts him 6th among forwards on his own team. This year so far he is down almost 4 minutes of total ice time compared to his time with Vegas last year, and down nearly 3 full minutes of even strength ice time compared to last year with Vegas (where he was coming off surgery AND had a different injury later in the year) Does the new coaching staff not buy into his effort? Is he injured again? Or is his overall game not even close to that of an elite player that deserves top ice time, but are there a legit 5-6 forward on that team that have an overall game better than him?

It is early in the season so looking too deep into how the coaching staff is awarding ice time might be premature to figure out what they are thinking, but it is something I like to look at. So far this year. D-men, Power is getting his ice time, mostly at the expense of Bryson, with Joki getting less too. Forwards. Most guys close to last year, Mittelstadt and Cozens getting a big increase. Girgensons and Krebs with a LOT less than last year. Dahlin. 28 seconds more per game than last year Power. 29 seconds more than last year Jokiharju. 1m 41s less than last year. Samuelsson. 47s more than last year Bryson. 4m 26s less than last year Forwards: Tuch. 15s more than last year Thompso. 14s less than last year Mittelstadt. 1m 26s more than last year Cozens. 1m 25s more than last year Skinner. 28s less than last year Olofsson. 14s less than last year Asplund. 7s less than last year Girgensons. 2m 31s less than last year Krebs. 3m 29s less than last year

I am wondering how much of it was that it was an ugly win, vs how much of it was the way they decided to play, going into a shell in the 3rd. It seems the Sabres figured out that by collapsing the D and Forwards toward their own net, the Oilers would control the puck AND they would get off shots but those shots would not be of the extremely dangerous kind. A lot of Edmonton's goals are of the tick-tac-toe passing variety, but last night they had very little of that puck movement. 1 pass maybe and then a shot that Comrie could see. I'm sure they would rather control the puck more than they did in the 3rd, but maybe part of it was a strategy call based on how Edmonton was playing. Add to that the Libyuskin injury and a shorter bench for the D-men, and that adds to the possibility.

Krebs is the next guy that could use a day in the press box. He just needs to 'slow down' and let the game come to him, and be aware of his limitations and play to his strengths. I think last night was his best game so far. However, he has had some giveaways so far and lost some battles on the boards (that led to opportunities/goals against). Also, the coaching staff must recognize something is 'off' in his game, or maybe, just maybe he has a slight injury? He only had 9:51 ice time last night, with only about 6 minutes being even strength. For the year, he is only getting just over 11 minutes ice time per game and just over 8 even strength. Very, VERY low ice time minutes, especially even strength. Again, either he is nursing a slight injury, or the coaches just think he needs to work on something because they are not using him much and as each game goes by he is used less and less. (compared to last year, in 3 games this year he is getting 3-4 minutes less ice time per game, most of that coming out of his even strength ice time.)

It is kind of a curse of being good and having high expectations. The reason the Sabres have the potential to be fun this year is the expectations are kinda low. Beating expectations is fun. The Oilers after going deep into the playoffs last year with probably 2 of the leagues top 10 players, expectations are deep, deep playoff runs and probably a Stanley cup appearance or win. When you have those high expectations, every loss, every bad PERIOD can bring angst and hand wringing for fans. Its not that different than with the Bills right now. If/When the Bills play a team that is drastically inferior and they lose (or just are losing at halftime), for many fans, that is not going to be a fun game and instead will be stressful for them. As Sabres fans, its nice we get to enjoy the 'ride up'. I have said it here many times, in Pro sports, there are really just 2 things that make a fanbase happy: 1.) winning the championship. 2.) Exceeding expecations. If you can do neither of those, many fans are going to be upset with the season.

Power leading the team in ice time through 2 periods, even more than Dahlin. After playing over 25 minutes the first couple games, maybe just trying to walk back Dahlins ice time tonight?

The difference between Quinn and Peterka this early in the season is Quinn still seems to be adjusting to the pace of the game, where Peterka seems like he is a half second AHEAD of what is happening on the ice. Peterka adjusting to the speed of the game and is making quick decisions.

Hinostroza has only looked good tonight. Have to find a way to keep in the lineup. Even if he only gets 12 minutes of ice time he makes the most of it.

OK, it is early in the year, but if there were 3 things I was sure about going into this year, it was Philly would be awful, probably the worst team in the league, Boston would be considerably worse, and Vegas would continue their 2nd half of last year slump by being average-to-below-average. Well, as of this very moment, they are a combined 9 wins and 1 loss between them.

Joki was late getting back on the Edmonton goal in the 1st, so a lot of that is on him but to be honest I haven't really noticed much else bad out of him the first couple games. Hes not playing like a star, but I don't think hes been awful so far.

About halfway through the game and 2 things are really standing out to me: 1.) Dahlin really really good, like top 25 in the league good. Not only is he scoring, but on many odd man rushes HE is the one who gets back first. 2.) Hinostroza needs to be in the lineup. He is noticable, doesn't make a ton of mistakes, and is around the puck a lot more than you would think a 3rd/4th liner would be.

Take a look at the replays of the Goals the Sabres allowed this year. The Collin White goal vs Florida was a direct result of Krebs not being able to handle a chip on the boards and the puck right away going to the front of the net where the goal was scored. The goal allowed vs Ottawa, Krebs was backchecking the eventual goal scorer but he simply could not catch up to him. One more step closer and he could have disrupted the goal but he was either out of gas, just too slow, or both. A bunch of other times when the puck was on the boards, it was pretty much a him on a one on one and very few of those times did the Sabres end up with the puck. He only got 9.5 minutes of even strength ice time in game 1, he was down to 8.5 in game 2, and now he looks to be on the 4th line. I'm not saying he is a bad player, but he is causing this team to lose possession by not winning numerous battles along the boards, and played a major role in 2 of the 5 goals allowed so far this year. He's not bad, but in the back 2/3rds of the ice he had a bad game for sure the first 2 games. I don't want him benched, but I agree with cutting his ice time unless/until he can 'figure out' that part of his game or until he can be slotted back in at Center.

I don't want to 'bench' Krebs as a punishment this early, but to me he has had the worst opening 2 games of any forward. Late backchecking, fumbling around some pucks in his feet, losing battles easily on the boards. Nothing 'intentional' on his part, but it just so happens the limitations of his game were very visible in the last 2 games.

This win was probably more important for the psyche of the fanbase than it was for the team itself. If they would have lost....Doom and gloom. Would have only Beat KC 1 time in the past coupe years in a game that didn't mean much. Behind KC for the bye, and home field. If you see them again, its probably going to be in KC AGAIN! With the bye week, 2 full weeks to think about this one. But with the win.....You beat them 2 of the last 3 ties (almost 3 out of 3) and all in KC..You are in the drivers seat for the bye and home field over them, and they just MIGHT have to come to Buffalo in January if you see them again, Enjoy the bye week and rest up.

Seriously? I thought they were about as split down the middle as could be. They had a lot of great things to say about the Bills. No idea where you are coming from with that.

Interesting, but it is a small sample size. The problem with that line for me is that Skinner and Olofsson are pure finishers. Its great they finish in different ways (Olofsson has that 5-15 foot shot and Skinner is honestly a good-handed garbage man), but neither really carries play, neither carries the puck well through the neutral zone, neither battles and wins along the boards. I'm all for putting them on the same line on the PP, where they can score goals different ways but I don't think their skills complement each other 5-on-5. (unless Tage is going to just dominate the puck through the neutral zone and control it in the offensive zone all the time.) Krebs is who I think needs to step up the most. In 2 of the goals scored against the Sabres so far this year, his play was lacking. Not lack of effort, but his lack of speed/positioning and his inability to control/win battles along the boards.

I agree. I can't argue he isn't great and it is hard to not say he wasn't the 'best ever' simply because of the numbers. Numbers rarely lie. That 92 goal season was insane. You can look at it another way through...for the first segment of his career (from when he started in the NHL until the year before Lemieux came into the league) 1977-78 to 1983-84, he had 356 goals. Bossy had 416 and Dionne had 351 over that same time period. Gretzky did have more goals-per-game though. From 1984-85 (When Lemiuex came into the league) until 189-90 (when Lemieux first started missing major games due to his injury/ and or illness), Gretzky had 321, Lemieux had 345 and Lemiuex did it in less games. Take nothing away from either of those guys, but a lot of it has to do with Goaltending just not being as good decades ago as it was now. When looking this up I looked at shooting percentages...over the course of multiple seasons, guys like Lemieux had a 20.6% shooting percentage, Gretzky was at 17.4, and Jari Kurri was 23.4% over 5 seasons.

I agree. Mario Lemieux always makes the top 10 lists, but I think a case can be made for him at #1. He did not have the longevity for sure, that is the biggest thing going against him, but of all the players I have ever watched play hockey, he was the one that could take over the game and be totally unstoppable more than anyone (including Gretzky). Lemieux and Hasek are the only two players that had players on the other side shaking their heads because at times there was NOTHING the other team could do against them.

I don't expect him to score every game, I'll give him a few games before I make any observations that are firm. I did not like his blind pass giveaway that led to one of the FL goals. That was the worst part of his game today.