Porous Five Hole

To make the playoffs next year, the Sabres will need a team or two to fall off a cliff. Being 30 points better next year is a lot…

⚡️⚡️⚡️ High event hockey. Love it. (I know people have a gripe with LTIR/over the cap stuff, but that gripe should be directed toward how the rules are written, not the teams)

Yes, but that assumes the Amerks win their season finale as well.

@Carmel Corn, This chart sums it up: https://mobile.twitter.com/CMDeDominicis/status/1518341143011942400?cxt=HHwWgICz0bPOnZIqAAAA

Vegas beat reporter for the athletic

Yes it is getting downright goofy. Robin missed a dozen games, returning April 3rd. In his six games back, he has given up 17 goals and a save percentage of .892%. This includes the stinker against NJ. So head coach says he’s totally healthy this whole time and pointed the blame of the Devils loss on Lehner (coach said, “This time of year, you’re looking for your guy to be better than the guy at the other end, and that wasn’t the case tonight.”) So then the last game against the Caps, Lehner gets the start—but got yanked to start the second period in a 1-1 game. Made 12/13 saves. Puzzling. Then yesterday The Athletic announced Lehner is having season ending surgery from an injury he suffered in March that he was trying to play through. So DeBoer lied about him being heathy?? But now that has changed and Lehner is the backup for the game tonight. Is this a case of the team deciding what a player should or should not be doing with his body (Lehner wants surgery and the team said oh no you’re not…at least not yet)? If so, how ironic.

Sam Reinhart shot someone’s cat???

It has been mentioned before, but one factor is how the scalpers got booted from the season ticket base. And gone are the $16 tickets people were used to. The price expectation will take a while to reset for fans, and the team will have to be good to justify the cost in the short term.

Guess I should lock it up 😂

To be honest, I don’t quite remember my moment. It was probably the LaFontaine/Mogilny offensive explosions. However, my first Sabres home game was the first season of the goat heads and the Hasek era of domination at MMA. What spurred this post was the flick of the matchbox match for my wife last night. My wife is a slow to develop hockey fan. We haven’t been married too long, and the Sabres have blown butthole our entire relationship. Her dad isn’t a hockey fan, so other than the casual Amerks game…she never really had an introduction or love for the game. She thinks the game is one period too long for her taste. With that said, she has casually watched this season with me, sometimes multi-tasking on her phone/work laptop. She knows I care a lot about this franchise (it shocked her that I told her my love for the Sabres exceeds my love for the Bills). She knows this franchise is important to me and she has seen me get slightly emotional reliving the calls of RJ all season. Anyway, we were watching together last night (no phone distractions) and after Power scored, I said, “When he gets inducted into the HOF (I know, I was being cheeky), you can say that you saw his first NHL goal.” She smiled and her Sabres heart grew three sizes bigger last night. What was your moment? Let’s Go Buffalo.

This is such a poignant comment and something I was thinking about in relation to TB. No doubt they’re good or really good. But they’re not the President’s Trophy winners. Can they just switch on the playoff caliber level of play? Or has the Eastern Conference caught up to them? They appear to be healthy and have all-world goaltending, but they’re certainly not the team to beat…unless they are the defacto team to beat because of B2B champions?

I do not play golf. I suck at it and figured anything else is a more efficient use of time and effort. I might watch a major tourney on a Sunday afternoon. So with that said, I went to the last PGA Championship at Oak Hill (2013??) and I had an awesome time! I chose Thursday thinking the crowds would be lightest and I could move around. I watched Tiger birdie a par-three and kind of felt like that was a bucket list kind of thing. I drank beer all day (!!), moved around the course, saw some great golf shots, loved the course, and people watched. Most interesting at the time were Phil’s weird fans fawning all over him (one kid was super pumped to have Phil’s flying grass divot from a shot out of the rough. He showed it to me like it was a trophy with an indescribable look in his eye…I just kept drinking lol). Anyway, GREAT time. You should consider it.

Glad to hear analysis of someone watching. I saw 21 pts in 30 GP and a +6 during a period of terrible team goaltending, and just assumed he was slowly making his way back. Although I don’t know how to read fancy stats, I really enjoy when someone reads them for me. Those old benchmarks can be deceiving.

Just so everybody knows, it’s a gag.

I’m so sick of the Marlies. I hope this happens. Belleville did their job with the front end tonight!

All I know is that this photo was sent to me when I goofed on a friend and I was triggered 😂

Thank you. The point still stands that we don’t want them winning either round of the lottery 🤞

I think it does. The max jump a team can make is ten positions. So if they finish 13th worst, winning the lottery can vault them to third overall. So my understanding is we absolutely do not want them to win either round of the lottery.

Yes something like this. I remember Thurman Thomas stating something along the lines of, “If the fans boo after we score a touchdown one more time, I’m going to (be very upset).

While you’re being cheeky, I agree with this. Erie County should make modest improvements to their building.

Watch the most recent Sabres Blue & Gold episode. You’ll come away with a respect for him on that front.

Man, this might just be old school versus new school…but Tage is hard to play against. I don’t need him throwing punches at a face shield for any occasion ever. Save that crap for someone who doesn’t score 40 goals.

You think he is fast enough? Looks can be deceiving, but I don’t see elite level burst/size/puck creativity. But I’m not watching him closely. How big of a step would you expect?

You might be right. But after B2B Cups, they lead the league in attendance. And they never had a huge runoff from their 2004 Cup win. At this point, they’re an established hockey market.