Doohickie

A little fisticuffs is one thing. Purposely trying to start fights because you're not good enough to beat the other team is BS.

I don't care that his father died. He's still gooning it up. And no, I'm not a fan of goonery, I'm a fan of hockey. If someone starts the fight I don't mind ending it, but the game should be about hockey, not fighting. Besides, it's not like he's reading these posts and crying into his hankie thinking about his poor dad.

I noticed that too.

Why not? If he coaches goonism, he deserves to be called out for it. I've noticed that the Sabres are approaching MFT status.

I liked Sam Reinhart but I like the Sam we have now.

GREAT (John) SCOTT!

Might be confusing him with Pearson.

The Sabres and Lightning have never been good at the same time until now. It seems hard to envision them as a rival but TBL is doing everything they can to establish one. I see the Sabres as simply trying to win games.

I think Carrick was coming either way. We got him for a 7th, right? There's something I like about his journey to get here. He obviously has had to work hard to stay in the NHL; he takes nothing for granted and appreciates everything. I think going from a worst to first situation... that's closer to his summer home (greater TO), and getting an opportunity to contribute right off the bat, must have him absolutely giddy. We haven't seen any of the other new recruits.

I looked at the schedule and saw @TBL twice (out of six games) in February, and then again in March and early April in Buffalo. I wasn't thinking of playoff implications, I just thought, whoa, that's a tough stretch, especially the away games. I really feel the Sabres are taking it game by game and not getting too juiced up, but TBL is afraid of us and trying to intimidate us. As I said earlier in the thread, their attempts to intimidate have failed spectacularly.

One last thought: This was *not* playoff hockey. This was a game to set the tone for the playoffs but little Sheldon Cooper is never going to go into a playoff game with this mindset. The purpose of this game was, even if they lost, to send a message to the Sabres showing what they're capable of. In the playoffs though, you bet they're going to focus more hockey and less on gooning it up.

He's just not that good.

No,not really. Any playoff team has, on average, a 1/16 shot at the Cup. Pres Trophy winners get the Cup more than that.

And Vasilevskiy, who most people recognize as a damned good goalie, allowed 5 goals on 14 shots in the previous game between the Sabres and Lightning. Every goalie gets blow up once in a while.