pi2000

All the taller athletic kids in NA are playing football or basketball, two sports you can't play competitively if you're a club hockey player as a kid/teenager.

If he continues to play well in Lehner's abscence he'll be a very attractive piece to add to a larger deal for somebody like a Tyson Barrie (pending RFA). Murray has too much invested in Lehner who is only 2 years older than Ullmark.

I grew up playing in the 80's and 90's,high school through college and a year of minor league in florida... I still play competitive mens league and it's much much more difficult to score 1-on-1 vs the goalie simply because of the size of their equipment. It used to be that if the goalie was butterfly style you could shoot up top. If he was stand up, shoot 5 hole or under the blocker/glove. These days, every goalie is putting up high 900 sv % because all they have to do is learn how to cover angles as a butterfly goalie. You don't need to be as athletic as the top goaltenders were in the 80s and early 90s. Just wear massive gear and hope the puck hits you vs tracking the puck and stretching out to make saves. The giant chest protectors take away so much of the top of the net, especially with bigger goalies. Just look at how bad it's gotten.... Is all that necessary? The size of those arms and the height above the neck line isn't for protection, it's to take away space. Get rid of that stuff, make it more form fitting and give them tighter jerseys. This will open up way more of the top the net. If all you do is increase size of the nets the goalies are gonna end up looking like this.... The modern NHL has become a game of just throwing pucks at the net through a crowd and hope it hits something or goes in by chance. That's not going to make the game more popular. In the 80s and 90s you had guys flying up and down the ice end to end shooting and scoring for all areas of the ice. Now it's just, dump in, retrieve puck, send to the point throw at the net, wash rinse repeat.... it's not as fun to watch as a fan. If you make the goalie smaller by reducing the size of ALL their equipment, then you have better shooting %'s from other areas of the ice and the game changes drastically.

It's all about that PDO.

The pads can be the same thickness, they just need to fit properly and not make a 160lb player look like he's 325lbs. This is just ridiculous.... his pads are up to his ears. ..and look at how oversized Bernier's goal pants are.... The padding can be nice and thick, but make the pants and chest protector more form fitting so it's not sticking up 6 inches above their neck line.

As far as their poor shooting % goes... the stat you want to look at is PDO. Over the season, PDO's gravitate toward 100, meaning your team shooting percentage is generally on par with your opponents shooting %. Last season the team with the worst PDO was CAR at 97.1%, the best was NYR at 101.7%.. not much variance. BUF was 8th from the bottom at 99.5%. So far this season, BUF is 2nd worst at 93.5% even though they have more offensive talent than they did last season. What does this mean? As we progress through the season, that number will self-correct, meaning we'll start seeing more pucks go in and fewer against, which will translate to more wins..... eventually? Why would the players union fight it? Don't they want to score more goals as well (make more $ for their players)? I could see where the goalies might complain, but unless they have their own union, they're only a small % of the players.

Buffalo is 4th worst in the league with a -10 goal differential through 10 games. After the past few years we're all familiar with how that works itself out in the standings.... folks, we're headed for a bottom 5 finish, at best bottom 10. And I'm OK with it because they're getting better.

They need to make goalie equipment smaller. I'm not talking about leg pads, glove and blocker. I'm talking about pants and chest protector. I'm not talking about thickness. I'm talking about width, height and length. I'm not talking about making goalies more susceptible to injury. I'm talking about making a 160lb goalie look like a 160lb goalie and not a 325lb goalie.

[redacted] "Snack Master"?!

i like it. after 1v1 they should start adding pucks to the ice 1v1 with 2 pucks, 3 pucks, 4 pucks.. until somebody buries.

confirmed

That's not even a goal of the year candidate. Probably top 10 on this weeks "Top Shelf" show on NHL network. Its more lucky than good... I mean he just hacked at it and the goal didn't have the far side angled off enough. It's not like he went bar down, he just threw it at the net from the goal line. GOod idea, sometimes pucks just find their way in. That save tho. Anderson had a sparkling save in OT last night against CGY. 3-on-3 OT is going to produce some spectacular plays, it's good for the game. How long before they just go 3-on-3 the entire time? Or drop one additional player each period as the game advances until it's just 1-on-1. Eichel vs McDavid all alone on the ice? I'd watch.

true. he could eventually replace Yandle or Cambell. am i getting ahead of myself. yes. Owner Terry S? M? Pegula told General Manager Tim Murray to tell Head Coach Handsome Disco Dan Bylsma to play Hometown Boy Mike Wiener?

Blo-go is a nice sounding hockey nickname.

gone next season will be M. Weber, Franson and Gorges (imo he's too slow for what this team is trying to become)... some pending UFAs which could be upgrades in the speed department: Nikita Nikitin Yannick Weber Dustin Byfuglien Brian Campbell Kieth Yandle Tyson Barrie and Sami Vatanen are cream of the crop RFAs on teams with cap concerns (they'll need to sign McKinnon and Lindholm)... deals could be made. I'm a big fan of Barrie, he's still learning the NHL, but his speed is just fantastic.

confirmed

Deslauriers and Larsson on the top two lines? yikes. Both playing ahead of Moulson and Gionta? I'll allow it.

Last year they had 4 (sekera, mcbain, regehr and mcnabb), and they have Enroth now as well. Living here in socal, I'd argue they're no longer one of the best teams in the league, I'd put them in the middle of the pack, they didn't even make the playoffs last season and often go long stretches struggling to score goals.

sooooo.... tank part II? no lehner or kane... send Eichel, Reinhart, Pysyk, McCabe down to Roch. Call up Ellis, O'Reilly, Akeson, Donovan, Sanguinetti. finish 30th, lose the lottery, pick 4th.

The thing about Chicago is that their 3rd/4th lines were just so much better than any other 3rd/4th line. Guys like Shaw, Teravainen, Versteeg, and Bickell played huge roles in their Cup runs. Their entire D were above average skaters with speed (Keith, Seabrook, Oduya, Hjalmarsson, Leddy). Always first on the puck on dump ins with the ability to carry the puck up ice with ease. IMO that's the biggest issue Buffalo has at the moment. speed on defense.... they don't have it... at all. Weber, Franson and Gorges have beer league level foot speed, those 3 are absolutely killing this team in their own end. Ristolainen isn't particulariy fast although he's improving, McCabe isn't particularily fast, neither is Pysyk. That said, I like where Murray is headed, he trades for Bogosian and drafts Guhle, both have plenty of speed. I wouldn't be surprised to see guys like Pysyk and/or McCabe moved as part of a larger deal.

The current version of the Bills remind me of the late 80's Bills teams. Emerging talent, but undisciplined. Lots of penalties and turnovers, basically just beating themselves. They're a young team, if they can stick it out another season or two, they'll be OK. I hope they stay the course. Sabres are about where I thought they'd be. They're better than last year and certainly more fun to watch with Eichel and O'Reilly. However, don't forget how bad they were last season... one of the worst teams in NHL history. It's going to take more than one offseason before "playoffs" even enter the conversation. The most important thing for them right now is growth and development. Just imagine how gloomy things would be around here if they didn't finish last in the standings and ended up with the 3rd overall pick?

IMO, NHL Gamecenter is mess, which is why they made the move to outsource the product to MLBAM.... http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=776246 ...MLB At Bat is the gold standard for internet sports subscription services. Looking forward them fixing up the NHL app, it's long overdue.

NJ is 22nd in 5v5 CF%, BUF 6th... http://www.puckalytics.com/teamstats.html 29th in PDO is what's killing the Sabres (namely poor shooting % for).... NJ is 25th not much better, They're 26th and 27th in goals for %. PDO is telling. As the season wears on, each teams PDO should move toward 100... which for Buffalo translates to more wins and more losses for teams near the top like Montreal, Arizona, and NYR.

..add Gorges to that list. Loses every single puck race. Any time Weber/Franson or Gorges is on the ice, the other team dumps the puck into his corner and beat them to it every. single. time.