Kruppstahl

In all fairness, anyone studying this question has to, in my opinion, agree to the following. It is beyond refute that Ralph Krueger (like many pro coaches) knows how to go about coaching hockey in exactly ONE WAY. He has his ideas on how it should be done, and that's what he sticks to. When it became quite clear his way did not and would not work, rather that completely revamp things and try technique 2, and then 3, and then 4 until he found success, he continued to pound that square peg into the round hole over and over again. In the meantime, he continued to spew his self-help-book-crap at all the press conferences and *say* the right things. Never never *did* the right things. He is an absolutely HORRIBLE coach. And by the way, Pegulas, don't go looking for NHL coaches from journeyman international hockey ranks, please! That which works in the Swiss league does not work in the NHL. It's a completely different game over here played with much greater talent and at a much greater pace. I've been saying it for a few months now, but Krueger was a worse coach than Ron Rolston and his gardening gloves, and that says A LOT!

With the recent NJ sell-off, I'd say we are on board for more points tonight.

Ullmark's initial save on Zacha just before he scored the Devils' third goal was incredible! Save of the year candidate that will be forgotten b/c Zacha scored a second later on the rebound. Still an amazing save though. Mittelstadt and Dahlin both had strong games. It was nice of the refs to blow the high sticking penalty late in the third to avoid a PP tie up from the Devils!

I'm not on the Mittelstadt bandwagon, but he had a very solid game tonight. It's pretty obvious the entire team is consistently playing much better now than under Krueger. Makes you wonder just how bad Ralph really was. I think he was probably worse than Rolston.

I'm good with them eliminating all ritually played songs from all games, forever. I'd love to go back to an organ. I hate our current "goal song" and will get drunk in celebration the day they eliminate it. Can't stand the loud playing of music during games, either. Having said that, they do tend to play a lot of Zeppelin snippets which I always enjoy! LOL

I don't consider Chad D. a legit source, even though a lot of Sabres fans seem to follow this guy for whatever reason. He has gotten a few things right in the past, but he gets a lot of things wrong too. Having said that, other *real* NHL sources have mentioned the name Karmanos in passing, but I often wonder if they say these things just because they hear them as well and want to sound informed. I'm pretty sure Elliotte Friedman mentions Karmanos on one of his visits with The Instigators for example, but kind of in passing, like "he's hearing it might be him" etc. I agree that if this report came from a solid source with a real leak, they probably would have hired the guy by now, right? I mean, get him in there and let him start helping with the GM search and a million other things that are going to need to be address this year. Don't forget the expansion draft, to name 1!

Not close. If he was going to be Bobby Orr, we would know it by now. As I've said before, we now know he will never even be a Norris Trophy candidate. That ship has sailed. There is a lot of room for improvement in his game, and he's going to get better, but he's nothing close to a Bobby Orr, just as Eichel is not close to a generational, once-in-20-years talent. If Eichel was Canadian and it was an Olympic year, and NHL athletes were allowed in the Olympics again, he would not make the Canadian team. Still a great player, and on his best day, probably something like the 10th best center in the league.

You know, for a modern NHL hockey hero, Eichel is a seriously unattractive person. LOL. And his hair is freaking horrible. In his defense, no one can do anything with that hair type, but man, it does look ridiculous sticking out from his helmet like a pair of giant poodle ears. If I was him, I would seriously closely cut it to a very close crew cut look, and go with that. Problem is, these guys don't want to end up bald, and that helmet rubbing on short hair definitely makes you bald. I think it's why they all go with the long hair now, and kind of get a protective "flop" of hair under the helmet to prevent that sandpaper effect that destroys your hair follicles. It's a mess. There's no way in the world we win a trade involving Eichel. Having said that, we don't know if he has already asked for one, or is going to ask for one this off-season, or if that is just around the corner or what. Then again, he may be the sort to never ask for one. I don't know. You have to assume he *will* want to go at some point, if the picture doesn't start to look a lot better around here, and soon. So that complicates things a lot.

I'm not sure what happened. His acquisition was going to make us a Cup contender! It can't be overstated how uninformed a sports follower Terry Pegula is. I'm just wondering what we're getting back; a first would be great but I don't see it.

...combined with hands of stone, as measured over the length of the entire season so far. This is great news; I expect him gone within 24 hours.

Completely inept drafting is as good a reason as any as to why we find ourselves in this sorry situation now. For decades, "scouts" have been jobs given to ex-hockey players, often from within the same organization, as a way to keep them gainfully employed in their retirement years. It was a bigger thing 20 or 30 years ago when players didn't make nearly as much as they do now. I often wonder how many "scouts" actually know what the hell they are doing or even take the job seriously. Further, how many of these guys are looking at analytics and have a clue what that's all about? If anyone in the Sabres organization looked at analytics, Risto, for example, would have been gone 5 years ago. I actually don't blame Pegula for completely blowing up the scouting department as it was said to be one of the biggest/most expensive in hockey and it clearly sucked. But they need more than what they have now. Analytics needs to be a major part of player evaluation, combined with traditional player evaluation techniques as well.

This is good news. I expect a trade announced within 24 hours. I don't think they would sit him this far from the deadline with no specific deal in sight. It's probably already done, or almost done.

He's not the right kind of player to drive a line; don't make a judgment based on a few games against bad teams. He is slow, his defense is pretty bad (always has been), and he is out-physicaled in puck battles CONSTANTLY. I have said this for years, but if this team could ever actually get into a playoff series, we would all see Reinhart's flaws. He just has no physical game whatsoever and when hockey turns into trench warfare in the playoffs, he's going to be blown off the puck constantly, and his production will plummet. That's my prediction at least. He's a finesse guy; needs to be supported by someone like Eichel and be allowed to float around and do his thing. I like Reinhart! He has his role and he's the 2nd best player on the team; don't see him as a center though. I also don't want to see him traded before we get a real HC in here.

His play has clearly improved but I just don't see it with him. I'd like to trade him and see what we can get. When you consider he could have been and should have been any one of Necas, Suzuki, Norris, Thomas, or Vilardi, he looks that much worse.

I said long before this season began that the easiest way to make this team better, immediately, for 2021, was to improve the goaltending. That remains true going forward to 2022. Having said that, I'm not sure goaltending is solely the difference. Our "run support" was atrocious during the streak and if you aren't going to score, unless you have Dom in his prime keeping the other team to ZERO, you aren't going to win a lot of games.

2 things stood out to me in this game. First, I think around 10 minutes into the first period, Dahlin broke out of the defensive zone and passed the puck...he then took off at full speed out of nowhere, and got a nice pass back on a what was effectively a giant give-and-go. He took the puck over the offensive blue line, took it all the way to the net, did a wrap-around, and had a great scoring chance. The entire sequence was the single best thing I have seen him do *this season*. It was easy for him, too. He could be doing so much more than he is, though his game is improving a lot under the new coaching and he looked good tonight overall. Secondly, that wild, lunging chop-shot from Kravtsov with like 1:30 left in the game was wicked. And even more wicked was Ullmark's save, which clearly saved the game for us. Puck was going in and he robbed him. That was the play of the game for me. Overall, this was one of the most entertaining 2 or 3 games we have played all year. Teams were evenly matched, tempo was fast and strong, and neither team took periods off. A rare, enjoyable, night of hockey.

If we aren't the worst team in the league, who is? The team has played better with the new coaching, and it is improving in small increments every game, but try to keep things in perspective here. A shootout win against the NYR is not a playoff series victory.

Is a 72 year old Rutherford minus Pegula better than no Rutherford but with Pegula? Maybe, perhaps probably, but we can do so much better.

It's hilarious how many of the early Christian rituals are total ripoffs of pre-existing pagan rituals. From the timing of Christmas to Easter to almost everything in between.

Our goaltending was actually quite good in that game, but the Rangers dominated possession for periods 2 and 3. They didn't convert possession into scoring opportunities often enough, and when they did, they didn't finish. They let us hang around. Probably should have lost by 2-3 goals. I think it will be more of the same tonight.

Not sure why folks want Rutherford in here. He's past his prime by a lot. I do like the idea of bringing in more minds, which is essential. But there are other, better options out there IMO.

They aren't going to sit him. Only a bit more than a week to go; his days are numbered. When Terry Pegula said he would make us a Cup contender, I guess what he really meant was that he'd be a total zero and was just coming here to milk some solid cash on a 1 year rental--especially in a weird year where he didn't have a lot of other options.

If we are going to go all literary, I would suggest Heart of Darkness is more appropriate. I'm thinking of the manager telling Marlow that Kurtz's methods are unsound. I'm further thinking of the later adaptation in Apocalypse Now when Captain Willard responds to that suggestion by saying "I don't see any method at all."

The bad news is free agents won't want to come here right now. The good news is you don't build a good hockey team by signing high priced free agents anyway. The further good news is that we can turn things around, and if we do, free agents will be happy to come here again when we start winning again. The Buffalo Bills were the dumpster of the NFL for a couple decades, but in a few short, well-managed years, they have become a strong franchise that is in discussion for singing the biggest free agents in the league. It all goes in cycles and people *will* want to come here if/when we get things sorted out. We have to sort things out first, though, but that was always the case, if we want to be a solid hockey team ever again.

We were thoroughly out played for most of this one, but the Rangers weren't converting their chances and it kept us in it.