Jorcus

I just don't think Thompson should have to play with a rookie and a guy who can't score goals. He should play with very good NHL players. I think a line with Norris and Peterka will work fine. If you don't like Norris then Thompson is center again with Tuch and Peterka. Then Norris has to carry Quinn around for a right wing if they keep him. Maybe that would work I have my doubts about Quinn. We had a number 1 center with an injury who we traded away. Vegas took a chance I would say?

There are a few questions that need to be answered moving forward. Can or do the Sabres want to resign all their RFA's? I am not sure they can sign McCloud, Peterka and Byram plus Docker, Levi and Quinn without moving a big contract. Most likely Power. Can the Sabres convince Thompson that he belongs on the right wing? He likes center. He probably will not mope around if he is going well and the team is winning more but if it's bad again then things could get real ugly. Is UPL a rebound candidate for the number 1 spot? This is the kind of run it back scenario. the team in general sees further growth in it's young players signs most of the RFA's and adds some defensive players to the mix to protect the 2 and 3 goal leads they are so fond of blowing. In the forward group they sign McCloud and Peterka then find a way to move on from Quinn. In his place they find a short term experienced defensive right winger to replace him at a low cost. Anthony Mantha is coming off an ACL rebuild but is a UFA. Taylor Raddysh is a less exciting prospect as a UFA. Others would have to be by trade but a defensive right winger would help. The defense is a lot more interesting. 4 of our current players are right at the point of experience that you would expect a jump in performance. That is Power, Byram, Samuelsson and Docker. Docker has played pretty well since coming over but he is playing for a contract. We know we need a shut down pair. If were going to bring someone in to hold the fort for a year or 2 I would think someone like Jan Rutta might work. Clifton and Bryson have to go. They can not protect the front of the net like we need them to. Novikov has to come up even if he is the number 7 guy. If Samuelsson does not improve then he gets pushed down. UPL had his worst season yet. That makes me think there is a better one in him. Most goalies have bad periods. Look at Saros or Shesterkin. I think I would be looking at a better number 2. Unless Levi goes bonkers and wins the Calder cup allowing less then 2 goals per game in the playoffs I don't see him coming up until there is an injury. You just have to spin the backup goalie wheel to see who you can come up with. A better defense will solve some of the problem. Peterka-Norris-Thompson Zucker -Kulich-Tuch Benson -McCloud- Mantha Greenway-Krebs - Malenstyn Dahlin- Byrum Power -Docker Sammy- Rutta This is the run it back scenario. A lot depends on the Byram situation. If he goes, or Power does then I get 2 Shut down D men. Hopefully Power injury is not very long term.

We can't do that. We do not have our 2026 2nd round pick. Most we could offer would be 6.8 mil a year and that is not enough.

A few differences. Last year was a Saturday night game so lots of people could make a weekend of it. Matthews was going for 60 goals. ( he got it). The stupid boarder situation. Last years game sucked for Sabres fans. Sabres power play was 0 for 6 I think many with no shots on goal. Some jerk Leafs fan threw a Skinner jersey on the ice. Thompson got in a fight out of frustration. It was a rough game to attend.

He should be the center for Tage Thompson. Thompson should have legit line mates that are a threat to score so the defense and the goalie are not shading to him all the time. With Norris and Peterka or even Zucker he has a solid chance of getting a goal scoring title. Pushing Yuri down a line would help him too as he would face 2nd or 3rd line defenders. As far as the injuries go you just take your chances. Chychrun just signed for 9 mil per year with many missed games over the years. A lot of worry about Byram when he came over because of the head hit. He has 80 games this year.

The Avs.have a good chance to run the table. They got a lot healthier and deeper as the season went on. Dallas does not have the defense to hold them off.

Hunter Sheppard getting abused in Columbus. I can't tell if he is a giant troll or a member of Jethro Tull.

Nice to hear Rosen and Davidson on the TNT broadcast of the Rangers Flyers game.

He is the guy I want on the ice at the end of a close game.

The were a rumors going around he would play in last years playoffs. Now it's a year later but he is closer. How is he going to survive NHL playoff hockey after being gone so long?

The Triangle theater for me.

I think Kulich will be a 40 goal scorer at some point. This year reminds me of the Thompson year before he went back to the Amerks. Lot's of chances but just not quite connecting. He won't have to go back down like Thompson did. Many more will go in soon. If that's the case maybe it will not depend on Levi.

The thing about that statement is in the timing. In the near term it's one thing in the long term it's another. Like getting Tage for Ryan O'Reilly. Who would you rather have then? Who would you rather have now? Right now I would still rather have Eichel but he is off the ice again. Maybe it's getting closer in value. Next year who knows.

The Canucks are the king of crazy games this year with this one being the topper. What I can't understand is all the hype about Stars winning the cup. How can they survive without Heiskanen? Lyubushkin is your top line D man. I just don't see them surviving that throughout a playoff run.

I think he one of the most dynamic players on the team and given he has played just 241 games there is big upside. I don't know if we will be able to keep him but I would like to.

What the Canes were trying to do last night was take away the first pass. Canes players stayed on top of the outlet players when we had the puck behind our net. In the first period our defensemen would have trouble finding an outlet to break out of the zone. Canes were hoping for turnovers but for the most part Sabres stayed patient. Sabres seemed to solve it by the second and by the third with the 3 goal lead all they had to do was keep flipping it out of the zone. The Sabres zone defense is much better but they pay the price for blocking shots. I think 4 different players came off the ice in pain. I guess they got all summer for the wounds to heal so might as well try playoff type hockey for awhile.

We are pretty heavy underdogs even though we are at home. The expectation is that Carolina will play hard to erase the stink of the loss to Boston.

Challenger by Adam Higginbotham. A well written documentary of the Challenger disaster. It gives a nice outline of NASA from the early days to lay out who the players were and the methods and procedures for getting ships and people into space. Very detailed account of the shuttle program, the sts-51-L mission and what went wrong. Makes one wonder what is going on now with all these private space companies and how long it will be before the next accident.

One thing to keep in mind is how Lindy has restructured everything as of late and has seemed to find a winning combination. Instead of focusing the best talent on the top line and having a top defensive pair he has spread the talent though the line up. In the beginning of the year it was Thompson, Tuch and Peterka who were on a very good number one line. Dahlin and Byram got put together to be a very effective D pair. Now the talent is spread throughout the line up and it has seemed to lift up most of the players. Tuch, Thompson and Peterka are on 3 different lines. Dahlin, Byram and Power are on 3 different pairs. Think about who tells the other players what to do on a line. If Krebs is playing with Tuch it's Tuch telling Krebs what to do. When he is with Zucker and Tuch he is no longer the line driver like he had to be on the third and 4th lines. At times he was playing with very young line mates and he is just not in position to do that well. I don't really see Krebs as a 2nd line center because I don't think he is good enough to drive a line at this point. His passing is often off the mark or he is not in sync with others on the ice. 3rd and 4th lines playing mostly a defensive roll seems to be ok and getting better.

I guess it beats people blowing off fireworks or smoking so much that the arena was pretty much like building a fire in a chimney without opening the flue. Annoyances change with the times.

I will take a stab a this. This article breaks down the 3 different styles of play when the puck is in defensive zone. https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/systems-analyst-breaking-down-the-best-defensive-systems-for-playoffs/ For most of the year the Ruff system as far as I can tell was a hybrid or man to man type system where there was quick pressure on the man with the puck and if you were able to obtain possession it was quick up and out to catch teams on odd man rushes. This works as long as you don't turnover the puck and having the rush come back the other way in an odd man situation. I think most of our D men are fairly poor at defending 2 on 1`s and that includes Dahlin. Ruff was trying to use our mobile D and speed to always rush the play and keep the other team on it's heels. If we are not turning the puck over this system works pretty well. We score enough doing it but it does leave the team vulnerable to counter attacks. Something has changed in the month or two. We have become a zone team again. Everyone is boxing in trying to keep pucks to the outside and limiting multiple rebound attempts on the goalie. I think that is the issue UPL has the most trouble with. Finding the puck when people are crashing the net is tough but he is not the quickest guy down low. When you think back to when he was playing well last year this is how we were doing it. Playing zone requires people to block shots and that can take a toll on your players but it is probably the most effective way to limit chances. Once in awhile those block shot bonce out of the zone and you go an a break. UPL can be effective in the zone system. You can not depend on him to be a scramble goal tender. I would describe him as leaky this year. Often just letting in one too many goals. It wasn't like he was getting chased off the ice all the time. He needed to be better but I think he can be.

Painting hard to reach areas.

Washington is losing their minds in this one. They have turned into the goon squad but Carolina is just giving it right back.

To be honest he has been in a bit of a slump for the last few weeks. There were games to be won where he let in late or overtime goals. Not all his fault and it happens to the best of them but he is going to have to step up a bit come playoff time. I think the playoffs will give a better indication of where he is at. I would be very nervous if he had to play in the NHL right now.

According to Paul Hamilton The head coach designs the power play and the assistant coach implements it. Does Appert get to say who is on the power play? He may have input but the power play issue starts with Ruff. Appert might stink but Ruff is the one I would hold accountable for the issue. Same as Granato last year. Now if someone higher up is telling Ruff who to play when that would be different. I can't see Ruff standing for that at this point in his life.