Pimlach

Marty’s analysis is spot on Muel on the second goal. He made a hit, and the puck went into a high danger area leading to a goal. But he made a hit. Blame the goalie, but this team does not play smart defense. Maybe they should have <sarcasm on> taught defense sooner in theIr system. <sarcasm off>

Rob Ray stop apologizing. That was not a good period in any way, shape or form.

Happened 3 times last night. Sabres are watching the game.

15-17-71 is a bad line.

I have the Sabres feed on ESPN+

Dahlin can handle that guy. Let’s get a goal for now.

Good Evening Teammates, Punch checking in. Go Sabres. Let get a Dub and stay in this race. MUSCLE WEIGHT

Invest in player development, but don’t send a 22 year old goalie to Rochester?

He should have already been looking intensely once he saw how the season started. Is there any sense of urgency with the Sabres FO? They set a goal for playoffs. They better get moving.

I remember seeing bunches of the Bisons home games the final few seasons, especially the last season. Which got me listening to the games on the radio at night. I was listening to Rick because I wanted that Calder Cup championship, not because he was anybody. I was still too young to care who Rick was or what he would become and I do not remember any special calls - "he shoots, he scores" was a biggie to me. Since I was very familiar with the game and how a rink is configured I could just closed my eyes and picture it. The quality of the play by play coverage was important back then. Now there is so much other "content" mixed in. Most of Ricks antics on his calls came much later, in the 80's. Lets not forget Ted Darling, the original Voice of the Buffalo Sabres. He really excelled at PBP, and telling you exactly where the puck was and where the play was going.

You know its called progress. One day your laying in bed, listening to Rick Jeanneret on this clever little transistor radio calling Buffalo Bisons and then Buffalo Sabres games, painting a picture of a hockey game in your head with his voice. That seemed good enough. Now you can watch just about every game on demand, while listening to two idiots babble about everything but the game, and then afterwards you can look at charts that tell you what you should have seen.

Yup. Good one. I can remember Dec 26, 1965 very well. Day after Christmas, which is always a good day. AFL Championship Game: Bills 23 - Chargers 0 I watched it with my Dad and my Uncles. My Bills and Chargers football cards out of the shoebox, and spread out on the living room carpet. Mesmerized by it on TV. I cannot remember what I did last week with as much clarity as that particular afternoon.

Me too piesie

No, of course we would not honor Hitchcock, he never was a Sabre. Pierre was in Buffalo for four full seasons and was traded in the beginning of his 5th for Pat LaFontaine. We made the playoffs every year with Pierre, but never got past the first round, something he took the hit for. He also had a 4 year stint with the NYI were he put up some big numbers. Then a few years with the Habs before he landed in St Louis. He played in 5 full seasons for the Blues, logging a few more games and a few more goals than he did on Buffalo, even though it was later in his career. The Blues last night commented on his playoff scoring ironically. When I think of him I don't think of one team.

Puppa a fan favorite? First I've heard of that. You make this stuff up all the time. I had season tickets and I can tell you Puppa was never a fan favorite.

UPL was bad at times and so was the effort. Three straight goals came off of face offs. Losing the draw cleanly is one thing, but them standing around watching the play is worse. 4th goal, Muel gave the puck away carelessly. 5th goal, 20 seconds later, they were slow to get back, odd man rush. They should be fired up to get the next goal and instead they showed no effort after the Blues scored. 6th goal, Power falls and they give up another odd man rush. We need UPL to bail out some of the mistakes, and there were many. Too many. The weirdest part of the game is that we did outplay them for long periods of time. Team defense is still not important to them.

Are the Sabres doing anything to recognize Turgeon this season? The Blues had him come out, get cheered upon, they rolled the highlight reel, and he was part of the puck drop. It was fast, easy, classy, and he looked like he loved it. Ditto for Hitchcock. Well done.

Panger is gone. He used to do color on blues games and he knows a ton about all the teams.

Just a few more observations and thoughts after watching them live last night. This team could be much more physical, they are in position to be, but they chose not to be. Finishing a check is not going to slow them down from the Granato system, but they play like it is. Very passive and easy to play against. Rosen is not ready for this level of play.. Second period, a loose puck fortuitously comes to him while he is standing in the slot. Instead of firing it on net for his first NHL goal he did a backward pass, gave the Blues time to recover and Binington made a big save. Not what I wanted to see. Good prospect but needs 2 more years to earn a spot on an established team. Benson was very good. A few Blues fans asked me about him. You notice him, his passion and his motor. The time out after we tied the game at 3 was classic good coaching and bad coaching. Blues get two in 20 seconds. Sabres literally stopped playing for some reason. The Sabres overcame a lousy start and then this timeout was the turning point. Wonder what Matty and the boys told them? Blues 4th goal was atrocious. Samuelsson with an unforced turnover. Samuelsson has become a lazy hockey player. Looking like a 3rd pair guy lately. Blues 5th goal was worse. Little Johnson strolled insteaded of skated and let Kyrou get behind him. The rookie probably does not know who he is. Power gets blamed on this one but it started in the neutral zone with Johnson. Power had another rough game. Everyone is on him, no need to add more. He and RJ are not a good pair, Johnson was -3 and Power -2. Bad night for sure. UPL is back. He looked just like last years model. The first line was out there for a bunch of goals against, they played a lot of minutes, but no points. Can’t win if they have a night like that. Lazy effort that was compounded by bad goaltending. They tried hard for awhile, but for the most part they looked like a young team that doesn’t listen or respond to their coach. Pregame - the Blues had a nice ceremony for HoF inductees Ken Hitchcock (6years as blues coach) and Pierre Turgeon (5 years at center for Blues) . Very classy. Atmosphere was great, the Blues game experience is a really good one. Lively night, their fans expect to win at home. It’s a habit.

Hmmm. Judging by the clothes and hats, this looks like old Aud, pre Orange balcony expansion. Are you sure this wasn’t Bisons vs Hershey Bears. And your seats were in the greys. You old timers forget everything.

Good evening teammates, Punch checking in. I was at the game. Pretty frustrating. I had great seats on the end where the Sabres shoot twice. The first two or three goals came right off of face-offs. Only get one replay. Looked like we weren’t ready to play when the game started. . UPL let in some softies. I recall he had a big save and then let a bad one for the first goal. Are we that bad on d-zone face-offs because 3 goals came right off of face offs? Not much to like Way too much passing and we still got 40+ shots. Missed open nets, my god Mitts killed us on the feed from Skinner. I have a lot more to say. Some players are very timid and you see it live better than on tv. More to come from me. Best part of the game was seeing some retired friends and having a little reunion. The Blues game day presentation is really good. Loud and energized, lots of fan participation. Lots of energy. Opposite of most Sabres home games in the morgue.

The bus better keep going down I70 to St Louis.

I thought EJ would be more steady. Didn't expect to see Ryan J up until later in the season - he keeps a cools head and make a fine breakout pass. Clifton does some things well, and we may miss him against big gritty teams like we could see tonight, but then he seems to be involved in some unfortunate (some may call boneheaded) plays on occasion. Three deflections off of him already - so he is trying to clear out the front of net but he is also not aware of everything going on around him.