triumph_communes

The ads moving the screen two directions at the same time made me sick. They need to ditch one of the vertical or horizontal bars entirely and it’d be an acceptable evil. Both at the same time, sliding, is painful to watch The NFL only pulls it off because they do it instantly during screen transition. So it’s not jarring. When I’m trying to track the puck and it’s moving multiple directions it’s sickening. The NHL equivalent would be after whistles before next face off when it’s not TV timeout time. But they’re too greedy for that.

I uninstalled and reinstalled NHL apps on phone and roku before trying this year. It worked flawlessly so far. First year it did so. MSG stream no problem (out of market) Problems I saw were jerky camera men on MSG and these god awful new ad pulls that make me angry every time to screen tears in two directions and I remind myself to never patronize whoever puts their ads there.

If I were to change the lines based on last nights play, Staal and Okposo still out, I go with the below: Hall-Eichel-Thompson Skinner-Mittelstadt-Cozens Rieder-Eakin-Reinhart Oloffson-Lazar-Sheahan And only reason Skinner/Hall aren’t swapped is because of an unwritten agreement. I also doubt the coach swaps Cozens/Reinhart like I did here too

Ggghh

Game is full of rust it’s wrong to be too judgemental That being said, Staal is an uninspiring statue. Reinhart sucked. Oloffson was invisible except on man advantage Eichel turnover machine. Hall is good but turnovers too. Thompson fits on that line I’m excited for it Rieder is shaping up to have a great season. Eakin looks fine. Cozens will stay on the team if he is like this Skinner actually looked good tonight. I don’t think his linemates held him back. In fact I think Staal and Reinhart would have the way they were playing. Mccabe is awful. I expected more out of Jokiharju but there’s still time. I thought Dahlin was just fine Hutton is a tire fire. We win this game with an average goalie We scored goals. This isn’t a team who can’t score anything, and that’s a major step forward. That is something to be happy about. Most of the goals against came from silly turnovers that were mainly due to 10 months of rust. Go watch highlights of all the other games every team is like this. Wish we would have won. Capitals are a good team. We need a new goalie ASAP

Reinhart sucking hard. Disappointed in him

Hutton sucks McCabe isn’t good Eichel is turning it over way too much Cozens stepped it up Rieder is fast. Isn’t just some plug, I’m curious why he struggled so much in Edmonton

Super slow and sloppy start. They woke up after they scored a PP goal for sure though. I can get used to Eichel and Hall two on one breakaways. Skinner barely getting ice time but hasn’t looked bad when he has. Cozens getting a lot of time in Okposo’s spot. He’s experiencing that he can’t be cute with the puck against Chara. Also his low percentage shots are all getting deflected. Competition it’s clear he isn’t used to playing against. Rieder is fast. McCabe is looking bad. Dahlin still missing the net wide all the time.

Great pass by Eichel and Oloffson there. Hall with the quick one. And Dahlin with a great opportunity

The passing is horrendous The fake fan noise is distracting. The new ad screen adjust is infuriating. If it was just bottom up it’d be okay but the vertical panel is annoying as hell

Optimism: New line pairings have a chance to work well. Coaches might change the failing special team systems. New room may be renewed, buying Hall for 9$MM does change the room, and Staal, etc. do too. Young guns have size and maturity now Pessimism: We lack a bonafide match-up line for other top lines, which means we will need to outscore to win games. Once other teams figure them out, our coaches won't change until the season's lost. Hutton is a tire-fire and will lose us enough games to barely miss the playoffs just like last year.

I believe our philosophy and talent on the middle/bottom 6 for the last few years being off has been a huge part of the problem, but the philosophy being first. When they have no puck possession, don't forecheck hard, and don't forecheck quickly, then defenders can rest. It doesn't matter if Lazar is a sub-par NHL player, if he is getting out there every shift and forcing defenders to get dog tired, he is softening them up lategame for the top lines to take advantage. If their strategy is to fail to carry the puck into the zone and barely move the puck around, then we are playing into the other team's comfort zone and simultaneously making it harder on our top lines. Get me some speedy grinders and who cares if they don't score. It'll boost the production out of the other lines. Put Skinner on a 4th line and defenders will never have an easy shift since they'll always have to be looking behind their back for his such awkward playstyle. I wouldn't get hung up on how many points some veteran bottom-6 NHL player made. The question I want to know is do other team's defenders groan if they have to play against them. Now you can argue whether they need to be physical or fast, but we've had neither in our middle-6 for years (if you call the GLO line a 2nd line like they were honestly deployed). Now I see serious offensive threats on three lines and the third line with speedy Rieder and Okposo who has a real shot to worry about and the body to be in dangerous positions. If you just rely on talent to have an effective bottom-6, you'll never have an effective bottom-6. That's where you need culture to get the most out of those guys. It's a team game. When players don't trust each other then every player plays 30% worse than they are capable of, at least. That's what bad culture gets you. Yes, you can still try to 'out talent' that gap, but how did no Bills team of the 90s reinforce to you that excessive talent still didn't matter when push comes to shove? And hockey playoffs are 7-game series. Teams don't fluke their way through. Talent first teams always drop out of the second round. We paid top dollar for talent. We sucked for a decade to draft the rest. We have the talent where it's needed. The game changer now will be culture, to ensure we get the most out of the other 40% of icetime, which will translate into helping the other 60% when they're working hard.

I had mentioned originally Cozens looked tired more than anything, and understandably so. His wear down started in the finals of WJC. Krueger also just made it clear he made the team full time. He must have looked better in practices since then

I watched him play

R2 isn’t good. Shiny new toy syndrome. Tweener just like Smith

On paper, the points you make may seem plausible. In two scrimmages it was clear that Cozens was struggling to keep up physically against AHL players, Skinner was killing all the momentum Staal and Reinhart would build, Thompson was a good fit, and Mittelstadt is a renewed hope. and the coaches got to see a whole lot more than we did in the scrimmage.

You’re missing the part where Diggs wasn’t brought in until the room had transformed. McDermott also brought in people like Benjamin who went nowhere because it wasn’t there yet. Skinner is more like Dareus

I like being in an area where nobody knows what hockey is and being blacked out of TWO markets who are both many hours away At least we don’t play those teams this year

Lindy Ruff had Thomas Vanek as a playoff healthy scratch because he didn’t believe he was trying hard enough. He came out years later and made Vanek cry right after the offer sheet because he thought he was the MVP for the team. Now, in hindsight we all would have taken those four first rounders that turned into 1OA picks, but don’t let that undermine the original point here. We haven’t had a good coach in Buffalo since Ruff Human factors matter. That is why ‘trust the process’ works. That is why McDermott was hired, and had all the leeway to buyout contracts of star players who didn’t fit the system. Took him three years to turn around the team and now we can pick up ‘cancer players’ and turn their angst into a weapon. Look what San Jose has done with Evander Kane— nothing we could get out of him here, or in Winnipeg. Why? They had such a strong room Krueger is a hire of a similar fashion- maybe not the best tactical mind, but his attention to human factors will revive the team and get more out of his players than they’ve been giving his predecessors. The tactical part of the game is for the assistant coaches. I don’t see this team making strides until Steve Smith is replaced, but that’s another fight for another day. Skinner isn’t listening. We should first all be happy there’s 6 players capable to play in front of him. Second, ‘trust the process’. Third, Skinner has been through this exact same charade on other teams, and he put up points with grinders. Let’s do some simple math: 40 goals with Eichel or 30 goals on the third line. Meanwhile Eichel can turn any winger into 30 goals, whereas that same player on their own may make 10 on the third line. Skinner on the third line has the team 10 goals ahead. I’ll pick option 2 every time Driving the coach out of town because a known charlatan isn’t living up to his contract? You must have not been paying any attention to the Bills and shame on you if you’d rather bring the Ryan brothers back

Our owners have every reason to ‘trust the process’ and this is Kruegers attempt to enforce that. We were so thin last year he had to play Skinner in a second line since we had no third line to speak of. Now we have players and prospects and Skinner can figure it out at 10 min a night or he will waive his NMC. There’s vets in the room that the youth look up to more than Skinner and he’s losing the others.

Guess I’m higher on Joki than most then. He’s not the most physical in our own zone but I think he and Dahlin are our best at fast break outs that turn into offense (as opposed to slow predictable break outs that go nowhere)

With so many back to backs I can see big rotations with the bottom 6

The D pairings are set. I think there will be more balance to their minutes than traditionally. Miller and Joki arguably are the best pairing some nights. Montour is best on the right, it was his off hand he struggled with— not every defense can just switch and righties are rarely asked to do so. I look forward to when the game is on the line and Dahlin-Joki are out there to maximize offense.

Lots of narratives going on here I think fans have a hard time disassociating cap hit and prospect status with the player.

I want to see Skinner-Mittelstadt-Lazar Rieder-Eakin-Okposo idc if it’s just a scrimmage, Mittelstadt and Okposo are skating faster than they had in two years. Cozens couldn’t keep up. Skinner was slacking off and has already been demoted to the bottom 6 three days before the season starts, and the only player he would replace is Oloffson who wasn’t slacking off