Kruppstahl

Analytically speaking, by far the most impactful thing Botterill could do this season would be to immediately improve goaltending by bringing in a better goalie and starting him most nights. I'm not saying he is going to do that, that he is even thinking in these terms, or that the right guy is out there who could be had, however.

My understanding is season ticket numbers are on the decline relative to last year, and are now at a *relatively* low level. As far as actual in-game attendance is concerned, the chunks of empty seats everywhere in the building are noticeable and alarming. I have heard folks mention a ring of empty seats around the entire building up high, and there are always big gaps down low near the glass that can easily be seen on TV. When Pegula first bought the team, he had the entire community including many non-Sabres fans on his side. The building was packed and people were expecting to see immediate success based on pure emotion and adrenaline. Since then, the systemic mismanagement of the franchise has seen fan enthusiasm, particularly among non-traditional Sabre fans, dwindle to a trickle. I get the impression word has finally worked its way around the community that it is not worth the bother/cost to go to a Sabres game as the show sucks on most nights. There is a core fanbase, of course, of Canadians and loyal Sabres fans that are impervious to all this. They'll show up no matter what happens. Whatever that number is is pretty much what we see in the building on most nights these days.

Oh how I loved Defender back in the day. Had the Atari 2600 version of the game, but that always sucked.

NO TRADES? Immediate action plan? Prayer.

As the puck was getting ready to be dropped to start OT, I thought "Miller is going to get the game winner tonight." OK, not really. Good 2 points on the road. Can we now win 2 games in a row?!?!?

Streaming the game on the laptop and I have the Miss Universe pageant on TV in the background. Miss Phillipines is up now and looking lovely.

Mittelstadt and McCabe healthy scratches. Good.

He was terrible. He left 2 and arguably 3 TDs on the field today simply because he struggles with accuracy. He also threw up a lame duck pass while scrambling that should have been intercepted. He has done that before and was supposed to have "learned" from it. He didn't. 43% completion today.

It doesn't help that the intangibles MODO is talking about and which are completely missing from our lineup have clearly not been taken into account by Botterill in evaluating player talent. On the Instigators a couple of days ago, the guys were discussing the Dahlin situation and our total lack of a response to it. Craig Rivet said "The reason there was no response to it is that we don't have the right guys on the team to respond" or words to that effect. He's right. Our team is spineless. How to fix it? Fire Botterill immediately. Replace him with a different GM who values spine and the intangibles our team lacks, and then start re-working the roster around that. I think Botterill is so gun shy from being raped in the ROR deal he is afraid to pull the trigger. He should be replaced on that basis alone.

Darcy Wakaluk comes to mind. As I have written many times here for more than a year now, neither of our goalies are the answer going forward. It's another of Botterill's many failings that we still have the current goaltending.

WGR'5 post game radio show tonight was 11 minutes long. I thought that was funny.

That, and showing up to play hockey for about 1/3 of the game.

Sabres broadcast showing a little documentary during 1st and 2nd intermissions tonight. The subject: Ray vs. Domi May well be more entertaining than the game.

Oh joy.

We only tanked 2 years IMO, and got Reinhart and Eichel in exchange, who are arguably the 2 best players on the team. We than fell into the Dahlin pick, not as a result of tanking deliberately, but he is likely to be the next big player on the team as well. I'm not sure what you mean when you say the tanking failed. It actually did exactly what we hoped for. It could have gone slightly better if we had been luckier and gotten McDavid, but that wasn't our fault.