Kruppstahl

PS: Since Dahlin was mentioned heavily in this piece... He is still making giant mistakes from time to time, sometimes has a rough night in general, and yet clearly shows all the signs of greatness and does many really nice things now. The kid is a baby, aged 18, and won't be 19 until the spring! My God! What will he look like when he's a ripe old 22? He is going to turn into one of the best D-men in the league and will be a minute devouring guy who is on the ice half the game and in all the important, tough situations, controlling games. I believe he will be more important to the future success of the Sabres than Jack Eichel. His development might be the most important single player development on the team.

Terry Pegula strikes me as the lowest information sports fan you've ever known. I don't question his love of the franchise or desire to win. I question how savvy a sports fan he is, and if he truly understands what he needs to succeed in either football or hockey. He is the sort of guy whose success will always be limited by his best advisor telling him what to do. Where he excels is in a willingness to act quickly, spend money, and initiate change when it is deemed necessary to improve the on-field or on-ice product. Many if not most major league sports owners in N. America are not interested--at all--in making their franchise as good as it can be on the field or ice, but Terry I believe is. So that puts him ahead of many owners from that perspective.

He does have a some Flutie in him; also some Brett Favre. The thing is this: running around ad libbing on broken plays and leaning on athletic talent only takes you so far in the NFL as a QB. At some point, you have to calm down, read defenses at the line pre-snap, learn to go through progressions, and accurately deliver the ball even when receivers are "covered" by college standards. You need to throw them open, you need to anticipate where a receiver will be and throw the ball before he is there and see that picture in your mind pre-throw. The QBs who can do that are the best in the league during any era, and the ones you want to have. That entire approach to the game is absent from Allen's game, and always has been. Is he going to find that against NFL defensive talent in the next year or so? I would suggest "no" but time will tell!

Totally agree with all of the bolded; these are the intangibles I referenced in my first post a few pages back. Either a player has these or he doesn't, and I think Josh does. That's a good sign. Ultimately however, that will not be enough to make him a good QB. He needs to do NFL QB things on every play. Right now, most of the time, he is performing like a highly talented college QB with accuracy issues.

What is concerning is that what we saw yesterday--the highs and the lows--is who he has been for his entire football career, and why he was a controversial project type of draft pick. He is a player of extremes. He will leave a TD on the field b/c he can't execute a really simple pass to a wide open receiver while under no duress, but then he'll manufacture something special on a busted play. As someone said, he will need to iron out the rough spots in his game if he is going to stick in the league. How long will he get? That is the question! EJ Manuel got a whopping 14 games and then his career was over in Buffalo. Josh will get the rest of this year, and he'll be the starter for Game 1 next year. At some point next year, he will need to put it together. He probably won't get beyond next year to do that, and the hook may come before the season ends. It all depends on how he performs.

They are tall as a house, and much thicker since the Buffalo Bills website forum closed. That instigated a great migration of ignorant Bills fans over to TBD, weakening the gene pool even further than it already was. My complaint with the place is that for the most part, it is not a forum for intelligently discussing Bills issues in an objective manner. Rather, it functions as a "booster club" for fans who seek approval from like minded posters all engaging in the same group think all the time. Yesterday, one poster straight up accused someone of "not being a fan of the team" b/c that person dared to suggest Josh Allen might not be the Chosen One after all. On top of this, at least half of the posters there operate on about a 5th grade grammatical/comprehension level and that makes spending time there tough.

That is a good way to describe it: toxic. It really is, and the IQ of the forum in general is pretty darned low. I always feel like I need a shower after spending some time there.

My unscientific observation is that he is straight up missing the net a lot lately.

Does anyone here spend any time at Two Bills Drive? The Kool Aid drinkers that predominate that forum make it pretty tough to take for me. The conventional wisdom today seems to be that Josh Allen had some type of statement game. IMO he showed very little of the skills he will need if he is going to remain in the league long term. He simply doesn't read defenses and tends to throw when he sees someone who is wide open. Tyrod did the same thing. He has major accuracy issues and is very quick to forget about passing entirely and start running. Defenses will take that away from him eventually, and it's not game winning QB play even if they don't. I think he a natural competitor and has a lot of intangibles in his favor, but he needs to do a lot of things he is not currently doing if he is going to survive.

Eichel really #&$! the bed on that OT winner. Forgot what he was doing for a second. It's all man on man coverage in those 3 on 3 OTs and he blew his assignment on Barkov for a few seconds. Poorly played game overall, but I give them a pass as they had a really, really draining game last night in Tampa. I want to see a very strong rebound next week in Nashville.

Depends on how you look at it. There's a reason Reinhart is shooting 7th. He should be 1 or 2, considering he was the best forward in the world in his draft class. Reinhart is always going to be less than hoped for, I think.

Loved Wendel. What a player!

I just want to see us continue to play at the same level as though the streak was still going and we knew we were playing one of the top teams in the league. If they do that, they'll win. But how much is left in the tank? NHL should abolish back to back games and move to a more standardized schedule.

Gritty effort, but we were outclassed all night long. Amazing we found a way to keep it a 1 goal game. Eager to see how we rebound in Ft. Lauderdale. I want to see us continue to play a consistently good, high level type of game. If we do, the wins will keep rolling along. Let's start the next winning streak!

I find myself excitedly anticipating the game tonight in a way I have not done in many years. Bad feeling it all ends tonight; hope I'm wrong!

Right now is the most fun time to be a Sabres fan in many, many years. I was trying to think when it was last fun. The last time we made the playoffs with a late season push might be the answer. That was 2010-2011. Lost in first round to the Flyers.

As long as we play a good game, I'm OK with a loss in Tampa as that would be a worthy adversary to surrender the streak to. They can't win ALL of them. Not that I want to see us lose by any means, but I am curious to see how this team responds once we do lose. It will be very important IMO for them to get right back to the same level of play and get the next win on the books once they do lose. Absolutely can't fall into some type of losing skid and throw away the point situation we have built for ourselves. But that discussion is for the future. Now I just want to see us find a way to win in Tampa!

Brings back memories of playing this with some friends as a little kid, on a 45.

You can say the same things about Phil Housley. There was a lot of sentiment among fans that he was not the right man for the job. I said as much myself. He didn't seem right at all last season, and I didn't like his response after games to a lot of our losses. And yet now he seems like a high quality, competent coach, that has this team playing excellent hockey on a consistent level. Last night's game against San Jose was a close to the vest affair, a real chess match, that was kind of boring at time...but it was played on a very high level IMO reminiscent of playoff hockey. I was greatly impressed with how we consistently did the right things as though it was a playoff game. The puck went out of the D zone when it should have, it got put in the O zone when it needed to, the forecheck was good, players were picking up Defensive assignments when a D man pinched, and most importantly, players were choosing the correct, safe play, ALL GAME LONG and not doing dumb ass stuff that results in a goal against. That's why we went toe to toe with a very good team with a ton of experience all game long and even had a 2 goal lead at one point. This team has enough talent, even now (it's going to get much better) to hang with a LOT of good teams in this league. This is why I'm so excited about a playoff appearance. Get this team in the playoffs and see what happens. They can go far IMO.

It may be true that ROR was a "locker room cancer" or something like that, and I'm not really disputing that or agreeing with it, one way or the other. But I do wonder what that is supposed to mean, in reality. I.E., let's assume ROR was a negative influence on this team. How? What was he doing? Like was he picking sides in the locker room and dividing the room into "his guys" and the guys he doesn't like, and trying to pit players against each other, or what? ROR seemed like a decent enough small town Canadian boy to me. What was he doing that was so bad!? Just curious.

I love Rayzor, even if he is not that great of a color analyst. His game-day segments with Schopp and Bulldog on WGR-550 are absolutely priceless. Best thing on in the world of Buffalo sports radio IMO. Rob has a never ending supply of stories from "back in the day" that you never would have known anything about at the time. PS: Risto's goal was absolutely fantastic. His celebration, not so much, but I'm glad he was loose and having fun.

I have to say, watching that game last night I thought there is something that feels special about this team. It's not just the streak, and yet it is about the streak too. But there is a lot of young talent on this team and they are having a lot of fun right now and playing at a consistently high level. Their youth is actually an advantage right now. If we make the playoffs, and IF our PP gets hot at the right time, we can go straight to the Finals. It's happened before.

Will always remember Hextall for the night he snapped, fled the crease, skated over to the boards, attacked Chris Chelios, and made him cry. LOL

Almost forgot...Risto's hit on de la Rose behind the net with about 5 minutes left in the 3rd was fantastic. All of a sudden sticks and legs and skates were flailing around with a loud smack as he hit the ice. Love the physical side of Risto's game, which he has always had.

Can't believe they did it again! There were a few moments there, particularly in the shootout, where I thought the streak would end. But they just keep on chugging along. Now we go for double digits!