PerreaultForever

They're not in a drought, they're being shut down.

Of course, and we tend to draft offensive goal scoring guys SO we have to teach them defense. But we don't. The team needs to have a system and a structure and everybody has to do their job and when you can't or don't do your job you sit. You don't just get to keep playing and "developing". That's for AHL teams not NHL teams.

It isn't impossible to do both. In fact we SHOULD be doing both. Cozens is the closest to a complete 2 way player we have but the team as a whole just thinks offense first and has virtually no defensive skills at all. problem is when an opposing team shuts down the offense by taking away the passing lanes, clogging the middle, winning the board battles, controlling the front of the net etc. the offense we supposedly have doesn't fight through it, it just dies and you see the results. Almost shut out by Philly, shut out here with an easy night for the goalie. Meanwhile we do nothing on D and guys like McAvoy just walk through right to the net and score with not a Sabre in the way. The Bruins PP for example hasn't been good as of late but our PK is so incredibly bad we made their PP look easy quick tic tac toe goal. This wasn't even Bruins at their best. Just embarrassing.

Absolutely and unequivocally incorrect.

No wonder they were laughing, Sabres are a joke.

Agreed. I do remember discussing this before the season started and the nay sayers to the idea kept saying Granato will teach them offense first and then he will shift to defense. It's backwards, and you see the results.

There is only one answer to this but it would get me muted. I no longer have ANY respect for you, period.

I didn't want to say too much cause you all know the Bruins are my second team below the Sabres (I think I must be insane for not reversing that yet) but this was downright embarrassing. Everything was set up for a chance to beat them. They were on the 5th and final game of a road trip, back to back after a tough game in Minnesota, Sabres rested, Bruins resting people, back up goalie, what more can you ask for? Do the Sabres not understand that you have to cover the slot and the dangerous shooting areas? I don't get this team's "plan" at all. They don't check in their own end and they don't fight through in the offensive zone. It's pathetic. The sportsnet feed I had to watch was NESN and although jack Edwards is an idiot - no argument there - he said one interesting thing that struck me as a primary difference between the teams and their cultures. To paraphrase (roughly from memory) he said "most people think the Sabres will be a dangerous team when they learn to play team defense. Defense is the hardest thing for young offensive talent to learn and has to come first to make it in the NHL." And that's the difference. Bruins stress that with their youth and it's a team defense concept and everybody buys in. We seem to think it'll magically come later. Dylan Cozens could be a Bruin. Maybe Alex Tuch. That's about it. Anyway, it was really weird to see all those Bruins jerseys against empty blue seats at the end of the game. Kind of sums up the franchise. Sabres are still a joke. (did you notice Clifton wipe out Quinn end of the second? That's why I was saying he's an under the radar cheaper FA to target. If they actually want to become a hockey team that is and not a Disney on ice show.)

I watched the Bruins Wild game today and I can see why the Wild probably decided to dump Greenway. The Wild play really fast, faster than we do (most of the time) and they have many guys who play heavy and physical. They out hit the Bruins and Foligno wasn't even in their lineup. Looking at that team I can see how they might feel Greenway was too slow to play with their top forwards and superfluous in terms of bringing physicality, so they ditched him for what they could get. Adams on the other hand took him hoping Granato could get more out of him. In all likelihood, Minnesota beat us on another trade.

You set up a strawman argument here to prove a non existent point. Nobody said they had to "fight", what we said is they had to stand up, push back and play more physical. All of that is still part of hockey and has absolutely nothing to do with bygone eras. The advocates of soft hockey always make these arguments absolutes when that's not what they are at all. Watch other teams. Watch the top teams. Every single one of them is more physical than the Sabres, and the ones that are a little softer tried to toughen up at the deadline, because they know what playoff hockey requires. He wouldn't know. Probably assumed he'd want to play for Granato.

But how does that make any sense at all. We already have scorers. Converting tougher guys into scorers rather than being tougher guys isn't what this team needs. Granato seems like a smart hockey guy so I can't believe he'd not know that. To me trading for Greenway was a last minute attempt to "do something" to address obvious weaknesses, but Greenway isn't ready willing and able to take on that role. It's not that different from him signing Hayden. tried for a guy with more hockey ability this time, but got less physicality. Marginal moves on marginal players and the glaring holes remain.

Two possible explanations in my mind for why he doesn't play the way he did beside Foligno. One, he doesn't feel this team would have his back and doesn't want to fight for guys like that. Two, he doesn't want to be here.

"one good hit" doesn't equate to playing physical but that doesn't really matter. The team isn't physical, on this we agree. Are you really saying though that they would be more physical or they want to be more physical but Granato tells them not to and doesn't let them play physical? I can't believe that. If so, fire Granato yesterday.

It would be even simpler in the press box.

I don't fault anybody for not fighting DesLauriers, but he could have offered more push back for sure. Flyers had smiles on their faces. They pretty much knew nobody would drop them.

Cause maybe that's not who he is. Tage Thompson is huge, but he doesn't play overly physical. We've had big guys before who played small.

We did this in another thread, and while it's possible, I find the idea of telling him to be less aggressive is just a ludicrous concept. Being aggressive does not stop you from being an offensive threat. You can be both. That's what a power forward is.

Cozens, Dahlin and maybe Quinn are just regular hockey players and pretty average in terms of toughness. The fact that they are "tough" relative to the rest of the team is simply a reflection of how soft the team as a whole is.

I owe nobody anything. Sabres fans are clearly all mentally challenged or insane (myself included). No sane person would put up with this crap for 11 years.

That's what we thought/hoped, but so far that's not who he is or what he does. He did get in front of the net that helped us get a goal but overall, he's not playing like a big aggressive forward.

BUT, they aren't any closer and won't get any closer without making the additions discussed above including the heavier forwards. They could have made some of those moves this year and been in contention. I have zero faith that they'll make those moves this off season.

So Hart's beaten us twice this year but ya, he's crap. Best we stick with the plan of old men and rookies.

It's probably a good thing we don't make the playoffs. Style we play is NOT playoff hockey and no matter who we played we'd go out in 4, 5 games at the most.

and we didn't do this time either.

Better than talking about this game (just another example of the same problems we've had since day 1)