Jorcus

I really like Kulich and think he a lot of upside to his game. It's hard to find any real flaws other than he could be a better playmaker. He has a great trigger which he has always been able to use even when he is under duress from the defense. To think he has gone from a non roster player to start the season, then a call up/4th line substitute, to 1st line center over the course of 51 games is astounding. That is a lot of jump even on this version of an NHL team. In a way he reminded me of when Thompson first got here before he was sent to Rochester. He was creating a lot of chances for himself but was just not putting them away. In the fist part of the year Kulich was creating a lot for himself but shots were getting saved time after time. Now things are going in and they are often important goals. What surprised me the most was how fast he is his year. I watched a few games in Rochester last year and he was not exactly burning up and down the rink. That was my biggest worry with him was weather he could keep up at the NHL level. So far no problem. He is good back checker and does a lot to bother opponents. He helps this team in a lot of ways.

Rosen is now in second place in the AHL in goals. Hope he is able to keep it rolling. On the other hand the current AHL scoring leader is Andrew Poturalski from Williamsville. If he holds on it will be the third time he has won the AHL scoring title but has only played 6 NHL games. Sometimes it is a world of difference between the 2 leagues. It's amazing how much skill and physical talent it takes to be even a marginal NHL player.

A couple of points. He was good here when Granato was here. I just don't think he would be better under Lindys system or demeanor. 10 of his points this year were playing on a power play with MacKinnon and Makar, and sometimes Rantanen. After awhile his production on that power play fell off to the point he was removed from it. If he could not thrive playing next to 2 or possibly 3 hall of fame NHL players how is he going to move the needle here. Then there is the remainder of the 5.75 M per year contract. At there very least there has to be a different option than the return of Casey.

I am still taking Cozens because of his age, He would have 2 more years to get to where Mitts is right now. Which is no better than what Cozens is right now.

If you read the last 2 pages of this thread on the Colorado boards I think you get some ideas of what is going wrong. The Colorado group can be overly harsh on players and if you want a good laugh see who they were comparing Casey to in the beginning of the season in terms of how great he is. To me he is just the same guy who left here. When he is playing well he good at puck possession and distribution. He can win faceoffs but beyond those traits he does not stand out. He has a lot of trouble scoring around the net. He had a chance for a tap in last night but got there a tad too late and muscled out of the paint. He never had much of a shot from beyond the dots. I don't think Colorado is going to trade him. They are in a weird situation with Rantanen who really wants to be the highest paid NHL player. That would mean paying him more than MacKinnon. He reportedly has rejected a big offer. Until that issue gets resolved I can't see a lot of movement. https://forums.hfboards.com/threads/mittelstadt-re-signed-3-years-5-75m-aav.2969559/

Casey was on the 4th line of Colorado last night vs Jeff skinner on the 4th line of the Oilers. Not that we can throw shade at anybody but I can't imagine either of those guys changing our circumstance this year.

Dahlin's minutes are affected by power play time. We only had 1 so that is what cut his time back a bit. 1 extra power and one less PK by us and I think you are right back to normal.

On the positive side they only gave up 8 shots in the third with a good team pressing them. With a 3 goal lead I think you would take that. There were stretches in the third where they played pretty good defense then at other times they had a hard time controlling the puck. After the second Carolina goal they played with determination to not sit back and go after the puck handlers. Way too many icings though.

This is the problem when you do not have straight line skating speed.

I am not sure of the context of that Hamilton quote but I remember hearing him a number of times last summer that Dahlin should be the captain. A lot of that was Hamilton's view of Dahlin in practice. Either way he is the captain and despite a number of issues of the what he does inside the context of a game he has not done anything nearly so bad to get demoted. Why create a new problem you don't need to.

Grants promotion was after the victory of Vicksburg so the West was left to Sherman at a later point. Much of Grants reputation as a butcher seemed to come from the battle of Shiloh. His political opponents in the west would use that against him.

I just finished reading the Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. There was a method to the madness as well as political pressures to get something done or just give in and let the country be cut in 2 It was very close to that point. In some sense it was a war of attrition as well as a war of perception. According to the Grant the Southern press kept feeding the idea that they were winning everything until Sherman was turned lose and brought the war to Atlanta and the sea. It was at that point the the Southern population could not ignore reality.

Maybe part of it is UPL but the style of play in front of him I think is a bigger issue. When did UPL get good last year? Ironically it was a January 9th 5-2 loss to the Kracken with Levi in the net that ended up sending him to the Amerks. After that the Sabres became one of the better defensive teams in the NHL. UPL only gave up 4 goals 3 times in 23 games. All the rest were 3 or less in that stretch. The wheels came off against Edmonton where the Sabres gave up 8 to them on the road. UPL was pretty played out by then. The big difference was the style of defense. The Sabres started to play a zone keeping almost all shots to the outside. They would give up the one shot and then control the rebound and handle the puck behind the net if needed to maintain control out of the zone. UPL is good at playing with in that structure. Where he comes apart is if there are too many repeat chances in front of him. He is too big to be a scramble goalie. The third period against the Senators resembled the good defensive structure of last year. A lot of that style has to come from the forwards. If they are not all back in the zone working as a unit that goes away. It would have all worked if the power play could have supported the lack of 5 on 5 production during that stretch but it did not. Granato got fired and instead of building on that foundation it got reworked to the detriment of this team. I think the danger of playing a fast game is that when you get tired, (we only had 3 lines yesterday) the intended result goes away. The Sabres with few exceptions got very slow and could not play in a form to chew clock and counter attack. Add the lack of shot blocking and you get what you ended up with, another blown lead with a broken defense.

Yes

I don't think Dahlin played well at all. Early in the first period did he really have to flip the puck out of the zone? Maybe, he did but he does it way to often and it just kills any chance of clean breakouts. His zone entries on the power play are a mystery to me. Power and Byram are way better at getting the puck in the zone on the PP. We don't see Byram enough on the PP but he made great move to gain zone entry. Then there was the tripping call after the back to back scores in the third which lead to the fifth goal. When he get frustrated he some how finds a way to hurt this team.

Cozens had a terrible game, The whole first line did but the first goal was all on Gilbert. They went 2 on 1 to get control of the puck and when Gilbert got it he had an easy behind the net outlet to Byram but he backhanded it up the ice to no one really. Quinn was up that way but behind the opponent. Just not a good play on his part. The second line were the only decent players on the ice. I like the speed of that line with McCloud and Peterka but McClouds passing skills are not the best. It does not matter though Lindy will change the lines again by next game.

I have a 1990 American Fender Telecaster plus with the lace sensor pick ups. My wife had bought me a fender acoustic for Christmas but let me trade it in. Went to Airport Music and they had this barely used telecaster for about the same price so I came home with that. It is very different than most telecasters in that it's heavy and does not get that country twang without a lot of help. It does have a versatility and is easy to play. It's popular mostly because Jonney Greenwood from Radiohead often used one and they only made them for 4 or 5 years. I don't play it often. I really need a better amp to play it though. I have acoustics that I play more often. The most valuable guitar I ever played was a very early Stratocaster. A guy I worked with got it from his fathers closet and it pretty much sat in his closet. I swear the serial number on it was in the teens which did not make any sense in the Fender numbering plan but it was authentic. He called the shop where his father bought it and they remembered his father and that it was the first one that they had sold. Being the early 80's guitars were just starting to command big collectable prices. I think the Japanese were getting really big in to collecting then and started to blow up the market. He took it to the House of Guitars who were just dumbfounded. At first they thought it might be a fake I think because of the odd serial number. They were like this can't be but then decided to offer him a fairly large sum for it and to put it up in the big glass case above the door. He passed, He just wanted to get an insurance value. Neither of us could play very well and it was not an easy guitar to play for an electric. You needed strong fingers for the heavy strings. It was probably worth 10,000 then. If he still has it who knows. Well north of 100K because of the shape it was in. Truly a classic.

I did not see it that way. Benson was driving to the back door which is good. Chabot the defender did not engage Benson but tried to intercept the pass and whiffed on the attempt. McLeods pass was pass was probably not getting though to Benson given Chabots position by the time Benson got there but good things happen sometimes.

The Sabres did play a good game. Except the bad breakdown the third period with the lead was much better. They just can not seem to go into turtle shell mode and get a stop when they are tired. The best thing about the last few games is the power play coming around. The first unit has some chemistry. Keep it going and things will get better.

If you need a center I would bring up Kozak If you want a winger I would bring up Rousek. I think Rousek would have to clear waivers so I don't think you would want to call him up to sit on the bench for 2 games. Same with Murray.

The takeaway numbers could be better but the Giveaway numbers are not bad when compared to the other good full time defenders in the league.

On Benson, You have to remember that he got on the roster because there was no better option at the time to replace the injured Jack Quinn. Adams failures are long but not addressing that issue last year hurt the team and Benson was not productive enough to play a top 6 roll on any team even this one. He still is not productive enough for that roll. For all the good things he does, and there are many he is very limited in his up and down the ice speed and has a very slow shot. He can be a useful player in the right situation but when talking about youth vs vets the 2nd line wing has been the festering open sore on this team that never gets healed. I have my doubts about Bensons celling being very high. Maybe a couple of years of physical maturation can improve his needed skills but that is a big unknown. A year in Junior would at least have let the strength level come up. He never should have been here last year and to be honest I am not sure even this year because we needed something different. I hope he works out, I am sure he will in the right situation with the right team structure but a wide open end to end team is not this guys game.

A lot of whether a player thrives or dies comes back to systems and coaching vs what that player is good at doing. If used correctly, Why is Jokiharju is in purgatory? I have no idea other than he is not a Ruff guy or can't play the Ruff system. What is the Ruff system anyway? He acts like he wants a transition system but gets upset when it leads to increased turnovers and lack of possession. I really don't think a lot of this team knows what Ruff wants them to do. Maybe they are just not able to do what he wants them to do. I agree that for the most part it is not the players.

I think there are a lot of competent hockey people who would look at this situation and take this one. The assets alone are enticing, you can't do much worse than the guy you are replacing, and how often do GM jobs come up? As far as Pegula being invisible, It's true but it's not like he is super visible for the team that is going well. I don't care if I ever hear from Pegula, I just need him to make the change we all need to be made.

Just to add on he is third in the AHL overall plus minus. Now plus 40 in 97 games. I have said this before plus/minus in the AHL is a good indicator of who is ready to come to the NHL. I don't see the need to bring him up this season unless it is in spot duty. At the very least he should be on the Amerks at the trade deadline so he can be in the playoffs. Now if the Sabres could get a trade for Yan Kuznetsov from Calgary and throw those 2 giant Russians on a shut down pair our end of game worries would be over.