PerreaultForever

Sloppy game. So many turnovers and a terrible start but fortunately Philly is garbage so we took it to them in the second and finally beat those hacks. Great game for Tuch. Obviously, the Florida game is indeed a playoff like game. Levi against the team that traded him? I think it should be.

Well we have Philly and then tomorrow Philly plays Pittsburgh so this is it. If we win and they beat Pittsburgh we have a possible pathway. If it goes the other way the season's over. Not mathematically, but it is. idk, sometimes Philly doesn't show up but if they do we have a lot of trouble with their style and we haven't beaten them yet. We have to get them playing our game and not let them play their game but so far we haven't been able to do that. It all depends on how we manage the areas around the blue paint.

Are you just playing the contrarian role for fun? Where did you read that I was invested in anything? Yes size matters. A big goalie covers more net and a small goalie has to make up for that with speed and agility (etc). Of course there are good small players and good slow players but the best players are rarely slow (can't think of one at the moment) and small guys have a harder time succeeding and staying healthy. You really going to argue that Tage Thompson would be an all star if he was the size of Nathan Gerbe?

Refs really tried to give Crosby the win but you can thank Pasternak for keeping the Sabres slim playoff hopes alive. (Then you can go back to hating him) So we have to beat Philly and then hope Philly beats the Pens tomorrow to make it a real possibility. If it goes the other way it's over.

But they're winning more than losing since the trade and doing it without Barzal. Not everything is about offensive numbers.

It's not "irrelevant". As I said, he may be able to overcome it, but he will have to be better than many other goalies to do that. Maybe he will be. Don't know yet. Rangers were not shooting high. As for puck control, he lost it several times between his pads, once resulting in a goal. Maybe first game nerves, but if he does that a lot there will be a lot of dirty goals against and teams knowing that will drive the paint harder. With our D, that may be a big problem. He is an exciting prospect, but it remains to be seen if will be set him back by rushing him in and/or how he develops. Looking at UPL's failures and lack of development I'm not sure we have the right goalie coach either. Possibly. Have to see more to be sure.

Dumb goal maybe, but his body positioning was perfect and he drove the net with his physicality. Something woefully missing on this team.

Well that was fun. late season fun game, has meaning, what more can you want? Rangers kind of only showed up for one period but that doesn't really matter, a win's a win. Great to finally see Greenway do something positive. Maybe there's still hope for him after all. Cozen's line was our best aside from what happened in the OT. Thoughts on Levi: He's very quick, agile, positions himself well, and seems focused in. Lacks good rebound control as most young goalies do. No surprise there. He has real potential, but (and it's a big but) he really does look small in there for current NHL standards and when he goes down and spreads those pads, he covers a lot of the lower net, but there is an absolute ton of high open net. Once teams get the book on him I see them shooting high and that could end up being a serious weakness. idk if he will be able to cover/adapt to that or not. Time will tell. If he had UPL's size, with his quickness, he'd be absolutely perfect. Keep winning and playoffs aren't impossible.

Well this is the night Sabrespace goes crazy and predicts huge things for next year, Stanley Cups and division winning playoff games or all hope for the future gets burst like a chinese weather balloon. Ya, just another game.

idk I watched that game and it was crazy. The arena was nuts over Ryan Reynolds being there (and maybe buying the team). Guys were being physically destroyed all over and fights galore. It was almost like 1970s hockey. DesLauriers has 2 fights with 2 different guys on the same sequence. Just nuts but also kind of fun to watch. Ottawa was playing hard. Philly just does that to people lately. Torts and Briere up in the press box pointing at people and (presumably) discussing who to "subtract".

Ya, pretty much supports the eye test. Offensive much better, defense the same or worse. Just out of curiosity, are the teams with the best D stats also the ones at or near the top of the standings?

So is there a timeline where we still have Ralph Krueger as coach????? Wow, the expectation bar is set high here. Going to make Friday's game interesting to say the least. I believe in Levi. I was one of the first to say so when we traded for him. I'm not sure I believe in instant Levi though. 3-5 year Levi absolutely.

Reinhart and Montour doing their best to keep the Sabres out of the playoffs...........again.

Yes, and the experience for the kids will be priceless. Not to mention the positive vibe that will follow this team into the off season and into next year.

Offer sheet Swayman. That'd be interesting. So according to him Greenway is here for physicality. Okay, I will believe it when I see it. Team's identity is forming. Okay, so what is it? Did he say? At least playoffs is a goal but with that little side note of not mortgaging the future so again, we shall see how committed to playoffs next year they really are.

If the Russians are eventually NHL players that will be huge as landing later round picks is one of the ways teams become contenders, if not dominant franchises. Have to wait see if it's hype or reality. The looking 3 to 5 years down the road bothers me though. While all GMs do have to have long term plans and look down the road, they also have to try to win now. Any time this is discussed here people always jump to "mortgage the future" and it's an extremist and polarizing argument as a result. There is a middle ground where you make SOME moves and keep SOME future and thus start to win now AND still build for the future. Once you are a real playoff team and you have a prospect pool you don't need to keep adding to it. You do have the draft capital to make moves and you don't have to win every trade, you just have to make your team better. It's time. Get these kids a winning tradition, not an it'll be better next year one.

Depends which team he's traded to.

Clifton isn't big, but he's tough. Surprising to many here I imagine he leads the Bruins in hits. Was watching the Bruins Preds game tonight. If people here had seen Clifton absolutely wipe out Jankowski on his breakaway attempt they'd be sold on the idea. My biggest reason for pushing Clifton though is he's grossly underpaid and with the Bruins D depth and their salary cap squeeze I can't see them being able to bump his pay up where it belongs. Likely Zboril's their #6 next year instead purely for economic reasons.

I still say they need 2, but 1 definitely. If you don't want to spend the coin on Orlov (or he doesn't want to come here) my choice is still Conor Clifton.

No, I don't think they are either, but somehow they haven't been as bad as people thought they'd be (a tank team) and they do have some character guys and decent younger players. Their rebuild strategy is different than ours. idk how fast it'll come together there. We will have a more talented team and hopefully a more winning team too but those two things don't always go together.

I know. Just looking for positive shreds wherever I can find them.

I don't like either but I think the golden ones are the worst. They both reflect light in a weird way and look like something out of a video game.

Pretty even game between pretty even teams. Their rebuild strategy is different and so is their team make up, but overall pretty even. It will be really annoying if they make the playoffs before we do as their rebuild hasn't been for as long. Rousek didn't look out of place. Quinn's getting stronger on the wall, more like Cozens. This bodes well for next year. idk, it looked like Montreal wasn't really interested in winning the shoot out sending out D men and such but whatever, shoot outs are stupid. Neither team will make the playoffs. Comrie better than UPL.

I don't care who plays, I just hate Montreal (almost as much as I hate the leafs) so just beat them. Hopefully badly.

and on the other hand Ovechkin (and some of the others I'm sure) are Putin supporters and Putin's been named a war criminal, there's that whole little thing in the Ukraine and we sanction Russia and they can't go to the Olympics as Russia and all that other stuff but despite what Hasek wanted, nobody kicked any Russians out of the league did they. Putin going to take his heroes and lock them up when they go home cause they put on a pride jersey for 5 minutes over here? I think not. and the Staal's aren't Russian, they're just homophobes.