Kruppstahl

I have center ice and watch a lot of hockey from around the league. The Sabres produced TV broadcasts are among the worst in the league, from a technical perspective. RJ is so far removed from the old, true RJ, Rob Ray is pretty terrible, the team in general is back to being disappointing most nights....and then throw in the horrible Sabres broadcasts...and I am now actually choosing the other team's broadcasts when I have the chance, much of the time. It's also interesting to get alternative views on the Sabres from around the league.

I would never confuse Julien or Trotz (two great coaches going way beyond the merits of this season in particular) with Dan Bylsma, who is terrible.

Kane is a terrible hockey player. ROR is a great hockey player, but had no interest in playing in Buffalo, apparently. So there you go...we need to look forward, not back.

Floating has been a problem of Jack's for quite some time. He struggles to play at the threshold of his capability on a consistent basis. When he is 100% driven and on his game, he immediately stands out and you can't avoid him, b/c he is so talented. He has a bad habit of going into invisible mode all too often IMO. As to how much of this relates, at the moment, to some type of hidden injury, I have no idea whatsoever.

I agree. You don't want size at all costs and at the expensive of things like speed, but size/strength is huge, especially in the playoffs. It's worth remembering that NHL playoff hockey is absolutely nothing like regular season hockey.

Looks like someone got to him and ordered him to issue a retraction. He never seemed this stupid before, but who knows.

So Reinhart is throwing the net minding under the bus now? Jesus, Sam. Wake up boy! Go lift some weights and put on a few pounds of muscle and shut your mouth.

Now that everyone has played this game, can we elevate this to an actual conversation and discuss ideas beyond a single word? Please?

Nothing says crap regular season hockey like a Thursday night tilt between the Sabres and freaking Hurricanes. Ughh.

typical

A little game I like to play is noting when a Sabre passes the puck OUT of a good scoring area, to a much worse area, leading to a shot attempt from there. I.E., pass out of the prime real estate into the cheap stuff for shot attempts from there. It happens all the time.

Does anyone have an opinion on where Pegula stands on the situation right now? Is he at DEFCON 5 thinking everything is proceeding as planned at it will take more time? Or is he at DEFCON 2 and about to take us to DEFCON 1 when he fires Botterill and Housley on the same day? Where is he?

I would have no problem firing him tomorrow. And yet I highly doubt that would turn things around.

Strongly disagree with that. We are playing nothing like we did during the win streak, particularly on 5 on 5 play.

There's no point in talking Xs and Os with this team when they continue to not bother showing up, play with toughness and desperation, or refuse to play as hard as they can for 3 periods. I'm not a big believer in things like "culture" in sports, but in this case, I have to wonder. I assume there is an attitude in the room that says "just ok is good enough." When we were on the W streak I really thought all that crap was behind us, but clearly it wasn't. How you fix this, I don't know.

That's not necessarily true. Before the season I predicted a big bump in points but no playoffs. That looks like what we are going to do, and I wasn't the only one envisioning that sort of season. We are a whole bunch of key, important pieces away from being a solid playoff team. Looking back on this whole thing, it was not worth the pain. This is easily the worst period in Sabres history as measured from any angle, and it's not over yet!

Meh. A crap performance from the team as a whole. Sadly, predicted by me pre-game. I was expected zero out of them on the second leg of back to back games. Eichel is up to his old magic disappearing act again, too. I will be surprised if we make the playoffs. What a shame! It could have been a lot of fun. And to answer a question posted up-thread: Housley is, was, and will always be a soft guy who I never came close to liking as a player. That he would be coaching a soft team was entirely predictable. Well he is a kid. And if you think he looks young, have a look all Mittelstadt! He looks like a baby. Not sure he shaves yet. Boy, that's a heck of a lot of WNYers marooned in Texas. Feel sorry for you guys!

I fear a letdown as we just played last night. Hope I'm wrong. I would love to see a new win streak started.

Check out Jack's hair in the photo above ^ What the heck is he doing? Looks like Butthead from Beavis and Butthead. I concede he has the worst head of hair on the planet to work with, but come on man! Pull it together!

There is still a long way to go. If we can find our form we had during the win streak, the whole situation will be a lot different. The win streak wasn't just a lot of dumb luck; we were playing really solid playoff winning hockey there, very consistently, game to game and period to period. Then it all went to hell.

She's a solid 7; I used to be a big fan of her back in the day. And she does kind of have a whisker problem on her chin area. She's still a big celebrity in Germany, you see her in the media all the time over there.

This was discussed last night during the Sabres/Vancouver telecast on the Vancouver feed, which anyone watching Center Ice had to watch. They all concluded it is absolutely still Pettersson's to lose.... But they also pointed out that our boy is on pace to have the most points, in a rookie season, by any defenseman in the NHL in like 20 years. And he's 18 years old. I have said it time and again; he's going to be more important to this franchise than Eichel.

Ouzo is nasty! But it looks like you are having a lot of fun and Athens if f-ing fantastic! Enjoy your time there!

On the bright side, at least he did not quit on the team between periods of a game while it was being played. LOL!

I always liked Bailey from Day 1, but it always seemed like he was not in the future plans of this organization. He showed flashes of skill and way above-average talent at times, but it never manifested into anything more than flashes. He sort of reminds me, in some ways, of Maxim Afinogenov. So much talent but it never translated into being a good hockey player.