PerreaultForever

I've never liked him, but you can't beat his compete and leadership. I think they went into a slight funk with the Guentzel trade. Thought management had given up on them so why bother, but he's got them out of it and I think it was all him. imo they are now the favourite for that last wildcard. Bruins Panthers game was a playoff type game. Excellent hockey game top to bottom. Like every other year I can't wait for real playoff hockey. As of now it's also Vegas Edmonton first round or rather Eichel McDavid first round 🙂 and that too will be great entertainment and somebody going down early.

You get more strength and control when your dominant hand is higher on the stick. Your shot has control from the right hand (dominant hand for this discussion) but your strength comes from the extension on the left side of the body. Think of it like in a fight, you might throw more right hand punches but that left hook can be lethal if you put your body into it properly. Pretty sure it also evolved for the ability to throw a bodycheck leading from the right and with your right shoulder (you free up your dominant hand in close as well without losing your stick right away in close contact or a scrum). If you are throwing a check from your stick blade side you have a good chance of crosschecking, getting your stick in the feet of the opponent or even breaking the blade. Most solid body checks are going to be thrown from the dominant (non stick) side of the body.

Most likely. Penguins continue their tear. In any event we will miss and end up roughly where we were.

Penguins hold on and now have the last wildcard spot. For the moment.

No, the elements are different as you say, but to the original comment you made : It's still goaltending, specialty teams, and inconsistent efforts (urgency if you prefer) and that will combine together to likely leave us just about exactly where we were last year. I think it will be f'n hilarious if we miss by one point again after another late season push. Total deja vu.

is this not exactly the same as last year?

Oh ya, I get that, but I'd still say the QB is the thing that has truly made Buffalo what they are. If you swapped QBs the Steelers were probably the better team. You might disagree as a Bills fan, but I think if you asked 100 people the majority consensus would be that the QB made the difference. It was the same for pretty much all the playoffs and superbowl. Very different sport to hockey in terms of player importance. Goalie is the only possible comparable but even then not really. idk, I do agree Sabres need a real GM and a good veteran coach though and I think we agree on that part.

That makes much more sense.

But you're proving my point. It's the quarterback.

Interesting game. For most of the game I thought the Flyers were actually the better team. They definitely outworked the Sabres and won more puck battles but ultimately it came down to the goaltending and the fact that the Sabres have more finishers/goal scorers and the Flyers really don't have many at all. The big Russian goalie definitely not NHL ready (if he ever will be). On the other hand UPL very good today. That was the difference. We did avoid their PK scoring threat as they never took a penalty 😉 What this will serve to do is reinforce the false narrative that everything is on the right track and just wait for next year (again).

Okay, maybe. I know Bills fans believe this and I will preface this by saying I no longer follow football closely but there is one asterisk that I'd have to put up on the be the like the Bills theory and that's because of the quarterback. What I see in the modern NFL is you only succeed with an absolute stud/star quarterback and the Bills are lucky enough to have one. What I can't answer accurately and maybe you can, is how good would they be if they did not have that stud QB? If they had just an ordinary QB? I think of that Steelers Bills playoff game and although the Steelers have some star plays like Watt and other positions they had no star QB and the Bills dominated but really, overall, they underachieve do they not? To me it's kind of like a mediocre Sabres team with Hasek. It's that one guy who elevates everything, but the team model isn't necessarily all that solid (and just for the record, Bellicheck was mostly terrible until Brady)

Oh my god no. 4 million for 3 is as high as I'd go and it's a little risky and high but likely Adams has to go that high given UPL's season and his desperation. Your 7 million would mean only Bobrovsky and Vaselevsky would be active goalies paid more. Ideally I'm paying him 3x3.

Umm, there's a dream? Just from a hockey viewpoint this is a fascinating game of contrasts to me. Completely different rebuild strategies going head to head. They should not be where they are. They have overachieved by far. The Carter Hart thing alone should have sunk them but it didn't. We have far more talent than them. A LOT more. They went with a veteran mix and a veteran hard ass coach who punishes them when they play bad rather than stroking their fragile egos. You can go on and on but it's a total contrast top to bottom. Personally I find them fascinating and have watched more Flyers games this year than any other year for that reason. I'm interested to see if Torts gets them to bounce back or if they've finally quit on him. It too is hard to say. Biggest question of the night, will Hathaway taunt Cozens all night long or was it a far less significant moment to him than it was to Cozens? PP better be careful, Flyers attack the points hard in their PK and get a lot of shorties.

Personally, and I'm probably alone, I'd love it if they combined the jerseys and had the logo from the blue and gold on the red black and white colour scheme. There's something about that red black and white that just works for me. (It is probably deeply embedded in my brain because those were the high school colours I wore.) But yes, some sort of pride in the jersey is something lost by Pegula's era. I'd hope winning (if we ever win) brings it back but idk. It isn't easy at this point and gets harder and harder as we get further and further removed from an era like that. If you stop and think about it, there are draft picks coming in now that have probably never seen or known a winning Sabres team. If you consider that the first half dozen years of their life they don't remember much when they maybe started watching and playing hockey, Sabres were garbage and have stayed garbage. What do you think their perspective on that team will be? Thanks Terry.

Not really, just doesn't dye his hair.

Even there, we shall see. I'm not a believer in all the "future" stuff. If they were that good, we'd already be winning. On top of that by the time those 3 are all fully cooked we may have lost somebody else's love for hockey or traded rather than signed or who knows what. Any number of our current players could be winning cups on other teams before anything comes together.

Let me correct that. No, too much POSSIBLY good young kids coming.

It would depend on who is available in that draft. Likely no, BUT I would like them to retool this roster and that would mean trading away SOME talent for grit and toughness and defensive ability. I want some major changes, and I don't think I am going to get them.

So what's your opinion of Skinner who constantly chirps at opposing teams? Doesn't back it up but taunts and chirps all the time. Point being this is far from a unique thing. It happens all over. Rempe is acting like the Heel in wrestling. It's a show to win over fans and win a job. He's huge but he's over doing it and getting his share. He will wear down. Which gets to the point a lot of (often younger) fans who are anti fighting don't get. If you talk to these guys or listen to the stories from the retired ones, having to answer the bell wears on you too and you don't want to have to do it all the time. So when that's a thing, you sometimes think twice before laying a guy out and so that too protects your stars and other players. Less liberties are taken. The Sabres bubble thinks they can get away with the fancy new hockey, but if we do improve enough to be looked upon as a threat or team to worry about it's coming like it or not and we as a team will have to be ready for it. Right now, we are definitely not.

I think so. The team is well balanced and they have all the right parts. They could go out first round but they could also go far. If they end up playing Florida that will be a war, and a hell of a series to watch.

Tampa Bay now only 4 points behind Toronto. Talk about a team peaking at the right time. They will be a dangerous team to face first round.

It was pretty funny, but I found myself wondering if this was Buffalo, if we were in New Jersey's spot and Rempe had run idk say Benson and Peterka for argument's sake and then he'd taunted us like he taunted New Jersey's bench what would we have done? Sadly, I think the answer is nothing. The first fight was Vesey Lazar, ex-Sabres.

You can argue the details but there has been a drop off and sometimes dramatic (Skinner). The point for me really is if we keep rewarding big seasons for individuals on a loser team we will be stuck with a loser team. The make up of this team needs to change and not every goal scorer can have a place in it. If Peterka is your guy and you want to roll the dice on him as a top liner winger you can do that, but you better be sure he is the guy who can deliver the goods consistently. So really, to me, it depends on his ask. If he wants 20 goal scorer money great, if he wants top line money, that's another story and then I'm not so sure so imo better to place safe and bridge.

His asking price is what interests me. We have this obvious situation where contract year players here seem to have their best years and then drop off after. Peterka and UPL are interesting problems for Adams as Mitts would have been. He isn't likely to trade them all is he. I personally think it has to be bridge, but then I wouldn't have opened the vault for Power yet either.

Actually, mathematically, not all that great of a shot as you might think. 6.3% We ended up drafting 13th and who can forget Marek Zagrapan! It wasn't weighted the same way it is now where you can only fall so far. 48 balls and Sabres had 3 of them. (which is 3 more than most of our current players have but that's another topic :))