PerreaultForever

I personally think he lacks a work ethic and it rubs off on the rest of the locker room. We need some hard "subtractions" like Philly did to start their rebuild. Skinner is simply too inconsistent and he plays like an individual. He is, as has been said in the past, uncoachable. He will quit on a play at any time, he will be out of position at any moment, and most of all he will giveaway the puck at the worst moments. I have said it before and I hold to it. We will not win until Skinner is gone.

Not exactly or that simple but sort of. We could have started the season much like they did. We'd have had to make the same sort of moves/additions they did. Get a Zadorov type. A Lindholm type. Make a few bold moves and a little roster rearrangement to suit the coach but overall I think we could definitely be in the hunt and maybe even ahead of the Leafs.

Veteran leadership and good goaltending, but the big thing is how they responded after the cancelled frill, the trip to the U2 show in Vegas. They were slumping and it was taken away, they responded. No country club without earning it. Similarly I read today in a Vancouver article how their locker room is now lightening up and having some fun. The words used were "we earned it". In other words they were not rewarded first as an incentive. The bar was raised and when it was met then and only then were they rewarded.

This is definitely possible but that's why I said 2 years not 1 (like Tochet has done). Skinner fits that bill no question. After him, I think the surrounding atmosphere may bring some of the others to where they need to be. It's optimistic, but I think many of them are young enough to be able to be turned around in the right climate. You look at the departures. Eichel, Reinhart, now Mitts. Their competitive edge is there in their new competitive environments. It may take less than you think here. I may be deluded, but I have to believe that.

imo if you took the players we have now (plus the prospects) and gave them a coach like Tochet or Tortorella in 2 years we would be a cup contender. We might have to add a few spare parts and maybe a tough guy, but the talent is more than enough. We are grossly underachieving.

I don't think they are better, just better coached.

Looking over that roster player for player I don't think so.

I found the Flyers response tonight and their excellent effort against the Leafs to be an interesting point of contrast. Torts causes a stir benching the captain and yet the team rises and plays better. Full accountability. Now would Granato have the balls to sit Skinner in the press box?

I was thinking a lot about Vancouver tonight. They are not more talented. Matter of fact they probably have less talent than we do. But up there they sit, and it's all on the coaching. They battle harder, they have stronger position play, they play better team D and most of all they battle really hard in front of the net. This all comes from the coaching and their team system. There is absolutely no reason we could not be just as good if we had a good coach. But we do not.

It's a hockey trade for sure. No question. Not sure BB filled a "need" for us though. We have two #1 picks on D and the need was more of complimentary pieces for them than another top pairing guy. I'm not saying he isn't a D upgrade, but now we have a big hole at center. How they fill that this off season is crucial. Trading Mitts away seems to go against the grow our own model they spout.

They filled a need they had so of course it clicks. They also don't miss BB because they got Walker and he is playing outstanding hockey this year. You can see how Philly misses him.

Does Vancouver care? idk. If they do, it'll be a hard game to win. They have a little trouble with shutdown hockey against them but we don't play like that. Curious to see if we go with Levi or not. As for the music side thread, music, like hockey, has changed. All those old guys listed like Dylan and Young and others wouldn't even get in the front door of the industry these days. They came out of a different era. They'd be back room songwriters today at best. My daughters like Swift. Just another pop star to me but then I heard those songwriter albums she released during the pandemic with the guy from the National arranging and producing and they are actually very good. idk if she actually writes all her own stuff but if she does, she is more talented than some of the older generations (like me) generally give her credit for. imo this is one of the best She said/He said songs ever written:

idk, it'll never happen but maybe I'd like to hear him say "we have a lot of really young guys on this team. We have to get them off their phones and into the weight room." 🙂

I can bet you Caps are looking at that thinking we got this.

Well I guess if you're the Sabres this is what you want but man that was a dead dog of a hockey game. I've seen quite a few Kraken games and that was the worst I've ever seen them play. No fight left in that dog. Playing out the string and the warm weather has them thinking summer vacation. Glad I didn't go to it. Sabres were adequate, but they really didn't have to be very much tonight. Vancouver should be tougher. I agree about Dunleavy. He's as flat as the Kraken played. Just dull.

You will hate this, but I have to go back to Boston again. The line there is always "we have to better" "we weren't good enough" "no excuses". imo Tuch is just towing the party line. Players on this team in general buy into the propaganda the team puts out and I think they forget the kind of competitiveness that some of them had before they go here.

imo this gets added to the improbability of Sabres making it pile. They had a drop with the Guentzel trade. I'd assume they felt the GM had given up on the season so they did to, but Crosby is a leader and he don't take that as acceptable so he's got them back on it and, although they are not that good, they have the kind of veterans who know how to win big games and so they might be dangerous down the stretch. That's one more team added to the mix imo so if Philly and Detroit both keep dropping the old guys in Pittsburgh and Washington as well can't be counted out.

Ya, because they want to win not "develop". I think the soft country club thing has been here as long as Pegula has. It gets debated but there's enough evidence to conclude it's a reality.

I personally don't find the goal differential thing hard to explain. We start slow because we are not well coached, we are often unprepared for the specifics of the opposition, and as well, the opposition comes at us harder and if/when they get a lead they coast thinking "it's the Sabres, easy night". We have a good third because we are young and fast so the opposition on back to backs and road trips can be tired and/or they get caught napping with the lead and we play loose and attack and that's our strength. It's not stressful. It is to be expected.

Huh? How is it stressful? Stress is such an overused word these days. There's zero stress sitting on your butt watching a hockey game. ZERO. But in terms of relative angst I can't see it with the Sabres either. Stress (even in that lightweight definition) would imply some sort of cardiac kids thing where all your games are 1 goal games, OT, everything is close. Sabres are definitely not that.

I was just thinking if I was right that they've never beaten them so I guess that's it. Kraken play with pace as we like to claim and that's why we can't handle them. They have pace combined with tenacity and that's the key. BUT, they are hurting this year, lost some people. Soucy was obviously more important than they thought as he's made a difference in Vancouver. They did not replace Sprong's goals. Beniers has had a bit of a sophomore slump. Goaltending not quite a s good. Wright looks like a long term project at best. Most of all right now Dunn and Schwartz are out so they are not the team they were last year. Very beatable, but Sabres will have to be at their best. One has to hope the Kraken have given up after their last loss. Not that it will matter.

Penguins up 4-1 and dominating as I type this. Not sure it's good though. Penguins could pass us soon. I liked them better when they were in their post Guentzel funk and not trying.

How is it next to impossible? If he is one we've already got 3. All you have to do is suck bad for a decade.

This is a short term memory spin that makes KA sound like a success but it isn't really true. Do we have a bunch of unproven high end prospects? Absolutely. Ranked top prospect pool I think or close to the top by just about everyone. (Meanwhile Boston has the worst prospect pool every year and sits atop the league, but that's another discussion). But did KA magically make this happen with some sort of great management skill? Absolutely not. He traded away all of his top players. Eichel went on to win a cup remember. Reinhart's likely over 50 goals this year. So we have a bunch of prospects instead, hoo-ha! We traded a 2C finally coming into his prime for a top pairing offensive D man. Fair deal, but the improvement in one area is a decrease in another. We were deep at center, now we are thin again. Krebs as 3C come on man, he's barely 4C, We now have a new hole to fill and that's how it goes. Don't pretend trading Mitts was some great hockey move. He moved a player he knew he wasn't going to pay what he wanted and to avoid that he traded him while he was in demand. It's a strategic move but it's not really an improvement. What we "are allowed" to have is a discussion of just how crappy KA is as a GM. Right now, imo, he's worse than JBot and maybe not even as good as Murray. If he hadn't gotten LUCKY with UPL (a JBot pick) we'd all be calling for his firing. UPL saved him on that so now we wait to see how badly he botches UPL's contract and the rest of the off season. I am not optimistic.

Bryson in the line up has a better win percentage this year than Dahlin so I guess Dahlin has to go.