Kruppstahl

Who cares. This will probably mean 2 more losses however; I don't see us winning without Eichel in the lineup. The more losses the better. I'd like to see us lose out actually.

Hey Fushetti, I'm right there with you. I'm a bit older than you but my experiences are pretty much the same; I'm even a fellow Red Sox fan. I grew to cheer for them some time around 1980 so their years of failure always blended in well with the Sabres and Bills. The Sabres and Bills are both 2 very middling franchises that have always existed, for the most part, to make up the numbers. It was supposed to be different now with Pegula and his passion/money to right the course, but unfortunately he has quickly shown to be an incredibly low information sports fan. I wish I could say things are now on the right path with the Sabres, but they really aren't. I don't like Botterill, Housley is terrible, and we don't have a ton of prospects in the system that make you feel happy. We do have elite talent in Eichel and Dahlin already on board, and both are still young. That's really good. We also have Reinhart and he's a pretty solid guy too. I think Mittelstadt still has a shot at developing into something so there's that. After that we don't have a lot. I do think that if we get the right GM, we can progress much more quickly than we have done with Botterill at the helm. However, I don't get the feeling Pegula will replace the GM, but historically that's right around when he drops the hammer on these guys. Hang in there.

I mentioned this in another thread, but what the team lacks, it is not going to find in a single signing. Toughness (and by that I am not talking about fighting at all) is sorely lacking as a core attribute in most of our players. The good news is that at least half this roster needs to be turned over and may be turned over soon. If they start looking for grit as a trait in players, we could change the look of the team in a relatively short period of time. I enjoyed (was it Calvert?) really going at Montour after a whistle pretty hard, behind the net. Montour quickly retreated and backed down from any altercation. Great. Add him to the list.

We started Season 1, Episode 1 of "Secret City" last night on Netflix. Political intrigue set in Canberra, Australia. The show was just OK and didn't really suck us in. Don't think I can recommend it.

I understand where you're coming from. I think we all feel more or less the same. But here's the thing. We have had quite a few of these "breaking points" in the last decade or so, haven't we? We keep striving to find new organizational depths. As you point out with Snyder and the Redskins...when an organization continually finds new ways to screw things up royally, while all the key names keep changing...there is only place you need look for the root source of the problem: ownership. I firmly believe Housley and Botterill will both be replaced if and when we get this thing turned around. By the time we are firing on all cylinders, we'll have a different HC and GM. So then all we can do in the meantime is hope the transition comes sooner than later, and that Pegula basically lucks his way into getting the right guy on board. Until the right guy is here, it's not going to get better.

I think Eichel will get 1 or possibly 2 games, no more. No big deal. The losing we suffer while he's out will be good in the long run! LOL

I drew this comparison last night after watching the game. It was somewhere, if not this forum specifically. The team that was broken up and rebuilt in the aftermath of the Lucic Incident is more or less what we have now. In fact, Pommenville has managed to find himself on both teams, even with a departure in between stints! Pretty good! We do not have nearly enough talent to pretend to be the Penguins and go with a speed/finesse game. We do not have anywhere close to the size/toughness/team speed to battle the heavyweight big dogs in the Western Conference in the playoffs. We're just a garbage team that is poorly built. I'm dying to see if anyone gets fired when the season ends. Maybe no one will be fired. That will be just as telling.

Oh, not touching Big Z was a good part of it too! Our overall talent level is quite poor. We have zero toughness. The stars we have are not gritty nor do they exhibit any leadership whatsoever. That starts with Jack. We also have a lot of professional floaters. The modern NHL is rife with these guys. They like the 7 figure pay check, bur don't really care if they win or lose. Bogosian, I'm looking at you, among many others!

I loved Big Z's hit, complete with that little flourish at the end where he ripped Eichel's helmet off for good measure! Big Z had that mean streak in him from the very beginning. He would actively look to line people up in open ice and kill them. His defensive play was not very good and I can see why we let him go, but it always stung. You can't teach that mean streak, and boy does Z have it! A mile wide!

LOL. Do you actually watch Sabres games or just talk about them at chat forums? LOL

How old are you? 22? Something like that?

Nylander is not ready to do anything at the NHL level. Don't get me wrong, it can't hurt to bring him up here. This is indeed management's way of saying the season is over. I wonder if BOGO still believes in each and every one of his teammates in the room to get it done and make the playoffs? Does he think we are toast now?

I agree with all of this, but I don't think this is a priority for Botterill. He is trying to build a Pittsburgh Penguin finesse team, which is the last thing in the world I would try to do, but I'm not the GM. We had the best gritty 2-way forward in the league in that second tier of talent in ROR and he gave him away for nothing. Then again, who knows. Maybe Botterill is about to get fired at season's end. I don't know.

We're going to sign Duchene and get the second pick in the draft, huh? I guess we can accuse you of pessimistic thinking.

So he's learning on the job, huh? Just figured out that ROR is a good and valuable player now, after trading him for nothing, huh? Great.

In theory, this entire rebuild goes back to that night in Boston when Lucic lit up Ryan Miller and no one did a damned thing about it. That was a LONG time ago, but the Lucic incident shined a giant spotlight on the shortcomings of the group of players we had amassed at that time. Several tanks later and several GMs and a bunch of HCs and where are we? More or less right back where we were when Lucic slammed Miller, just for the fun of it. We need a huge injection of talent on this team, and an even bigger injection of competitiveness.

Just finished watching on DVR; one of the worst efforts of the season. Has the team quit on the coach? Do they just totally suck and lack all character? I did enjoy big Z's hit on Eichel; he seems to have gotten his attention. Z always did have that mean streak in him... The game had a strange chippy-ness to it which was the only thing holding my attention or which could be described as entertaining. Wow, what a ***** show!

How about keeping your mouth shut, Carter, and stopping a f-ing shot during the shootout, for example? Guy is a sieve. Really enjoyed Pat Foley's call of the game and the OT was wildly entertaining. So there's that, I guess. We can only hope; he needs to be replaced and should be easily improved.

Your'e not kidding. It's amazing how much leverage the players have now, especially when you consider management is not afraid to miss entire seasons to hash out the CBA on more positive terms. Next go around ownership has to figure out how to get rid of guaranteed contracts. That would justify a missed NHL season IMO, as much as I hate when this league shuts down.

Scandella is terrible; he's just another negative Sabre player. I.E., when he's on the ice, we don't have the puck, we don't shoot the puck, we spend more time in D zone than O zone, etc... Reinhart is one of the very few positive players on the team who looks good in connection with stats like this.

Add something to the discussion. Like "Go Sabres!" "We can do it!" "Whose sweater are you buying in the gift shop?!" That sort of thing?

And best play by play guy in Pat Foley. Will be listening to Chicago broadcast for sure if offered on Center Ice.

Hutton needs to be replaced; Ullmark would be a solid backup to a real #1, which we don't have right now. Hutton makes way too many fundamental mistakes, too often.

Travis suggested the save percentage for the last 2 months or so was alone bad enough to support a lost 6 points in the standings. But let's not forget his much larger points which were: 1) this team is just not good or one with enough talent to be a playoff team. 2) Neither Botterill or Housley have given an "A" effort this season. 3) the measure of a HC should be his ability to find ways to give minutes to the best players and steal minutes away from the bad players. Housley hasn't done that all year long and continues to make fundamental mistakes in terms of who is on the ice and for how long. 4) Unlike other organizations trying to put it all together, like Edmonton, the Sabres are not particularly strapped b/c of a lack of cap space. We should have the ability to move players and Travis suggested that deals are there to be made and we have a lot of contracts that actually can be moved. We should not have to "pay" other teams to trade for our player contracts with additional draft picks or other capital to offset the trade. So, where's the movement? If Sabotka is on this team next year, my head will explode...and he very well might be. This organization does not adequately assess talent or efficiently use the talent it has. He also points out that our window for success is RIGHT NOW. Yet Botterill is on the "lets take our time" plan.

I love Travis every time he comes on their show and listened intently today. Here's the thing. Travis is much more informed into what's going on with the Sabres than their owner is. That's a problem.