Do you like following the Sabres?

[TrueBlueGED]

I've had an epiphany: I like following the Sabres, I just don't like watching them. That's about as straightforward as I can be about it. Not a great place to be as a fan.

[Rasmus_]

I love the team as a whole, you can see them rounding the rough edges out of their game.  I like following, and I watch most games with rooting intention.  My only point of contention comes to the play from period to period and a lack of improvement on the back end.  

[dudacek]

.

 

Promises were made. Can you blame people for feeling cheated?

 

I hear you, and I think it speaks to the heart of the issue: isn't it time we were rewarded for our suffering?

But realistically, did you expect to be challenging for the cup this year? Did anyone?

 

The individual moments are great. But the problem is, unlike you, I don't see them as representative of a cohesive unit giving me hope. I see the great individual efforts as just that--great individual efforts. And more often than not, they aren't enough to overcome the rest of it, which I find almost unwatchable.

The danger of over-analysis in sport: the science extinguishes the art. Edited January 29, 2017 by dudacek

[pi2000]

I like about 3/4 of this team. Getting better, still a handful of upgrades needed.

[TrueBlueGED]

I hear you, and I think it speaks to the heart of the issue: isn't it time we were rewarded for our suffering?

But realistically, did you expect to be challenging for the cup this year? Did anyone?

 

The danger of over-analysis in sport: the science extinguishes the art.

 

Or maybe I just like a different kind of art than you do.

[Radar]

Now When do you believe?

 

I have a confession to make: I like this team.

 

I know those words fly in the face of seemingly every frustrated sentence you have read and posted on this forum since a certain curly-headed ginger from Massachusetts went down hard on his ankle during the final minutes of the final pre-season practice.

 

I know that reading them can feel like Dustin Byfuglien has skated over your testicles, especially after you’ve just watched Brian Gionta fail to tip another stretch pass, or Marcus Foligno flub another perfect Sam Reinhart set-up, or Josh Gorges jump over the boards to line up next to Risto for yet another offensive zone faceoff.

 

I know it’s not politically correct to say them after four years of mediocrity begat three years of suffering only to begat a return to mediocrity.

 

But I like this team.

 

I like most of the players on it. I like Reinhart and Ristolainen and Eichel as young building blocks. I like Okposo and Kane and O’Reilly as pieces of the core. I like Larsson and Foligno and Girgensons and McCabe as foot soldiers. I like the kind of players Tim Murray likes: smart, competitive, not afraid to get their hands dirty.

 

I like how Murray has a plan after so many years of watching Darcy have no plan — just the ongoing tactic of managing assets to the best of his ability while keeping his bosses happy.

 

I like the plan Murray has executed and I believe in his ability to diagnose and repair the errors and the remaining holes in this roster.

 

Tanking was a precarious strategy, but it was the unfortunate hand Murray was dealt. He has not played it to perfection — few have — but he has played it with a mix of boldness and vision. I see a path, a purpose and a will to stick with his vision despite adversity.

 

I see that adversity — an extraordinary run of injuries that inspired the coach to play the most low-risk, soul-sucking style of hockey imaginable — combining with the scars of the hope-crushing enormity that was the tank to create a jaundiced view here that blinded people to what this group actually is: an emerging team still learning how to win.

 

Going in to the season, we thought the Sabres, with a “normal” amount of injuries, were a playoff bubble team with the ability to score goals. You may find this hard to believe by reading forum commentary, but the numbers would actually seem to bear that out. Since the return of Jack Eichel marked a switch from a skating MASH unit to a team with a “normal” amount of injuries, the Sabres have gone 13-10-4, a .556 points percentage that would place them 15th in the league — exactly on the playoff bubble. And since that time, when their coach has actually started to let them push the offence, they’ve scored 79 goals — a 2.93 goals per game pace that would place them 8th in the NHL.

 

It is a hockey cliché to not use injuries as an excuse: “good teams play through them.” That’s coach speak. More realistically, few teams endure a two-month stretch of injuries where three of their top four forwards and two of their top three defencemen are either out or hampered and “play through it.” Certainly not young, incomplete, still-developing teams like the Sabres.

 

And this is a young team, one trying to rise from a thorough salting of the earth, a team just 130 games removed from an on-ice utter abomination.  They are a work in progress. You know it, even if the progress hasn’t happened as quickly as you had hoped.

 

The Sabres have good players coming in the pipeline, but even the oldest are 21. They are at least a year away from developing the organizational depth to insulate themselves from a run of injuries. They still have a gaping hole in their blueline top four that moves for Bogosian and Kulikov have not fixed. They have a coach who appears determined to outsmart himself.

 

But they aren’t as bad as this fan base is numb. According to nhl.com, the team has come from behind in the third period to win five times this year, third most in the NHL (it feels like more). They’ve also yet to lose in regulation this season when leading after two (that surprised me).  These are not the marks of a bad team.

 

And what seems to be forgotten in the angst about Bylsma and Lehner and Franson and whatever else tends to occupy our attention here is that those debates are mostly peripheral noise. Ultimately, this team will be relevant or irrelevant on the backs of Risto, Sam and Jack. None of them are as good as they will have to be — although Risto usually looks damn close — but I still think they can get there.

 

I know some of you don’t believe in a culture of losing. I do. It thrives where people talk so much about what’s wrong with their situation that it becomes all they know and all they expect. They get paralyzed by their own negative expectations and are quick to throw in the towel at the slightest sign of adversity.

 

Just because the results haven’t been what we want them to be, it doesn’t mean we are not on the right path. It doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate the process.

 

I read about how far the Leafs are ahead of us. I see the angst of our fanbase and the smugness of theirs. I think about the adversity our team has endured this year and compare it to theirs. Then I look at the standings, see the difference as only a pair of one-goal head-to-head Buffalo losses-that-should-have-been-wins and I wonder why these perceptions exist. Perspective. (I miss Neo)

 

This isn’t about recent results; I started writing it after the Leafs loss. It’s about my fandom, about why I watch. It’s about the lens through which I perceive the game and what the Sabres bring to my life.

 

I know that Team Sunshine and Kittens lost.  I know the odds, and the history, and how much safer it is emotionally to be on Team Storm Cloud.  I know how hard it is to hope. I know all about because Buffalo. I’ve been at this for a long, long time. I’ve been wrong before.

 

But I refuse to join the ranks of the scorned and the scornful, or the legion of Sabrespacers who have become dearly departed victims of this trial, this unabashed period of suffering. I hope you can forgive me this heresy: the clouds, they are still parting.

 

I don’t expect the playoffs this year. But I hope and I will enjoy the struggle. I like this team. I see signs. I choose to believe. It’s why I am a fan.

 

I don’t expect you to agree. But I do hope that you can, some day soon, join me in this forgotten bunker where people actually allow themselves to like being a Sabre fan.

 

I’ll leave the light on.

It's long but worth reading. Good job.

[PASabreFan]

By the way, Dudes, that was a great post. You are an outstanding writer. A thorough salting of the earth. Nice. Was that to kill the slugs?

You did throw out three similar questions though. Do you like following the Sabres? Do you like being a Sabres fan? Do you like this team?

I answer yes to the first two. Do I like this team? Not really. Not yet. There are some very solid pieces in place, but someone on here said it best: The Sabres are less than the sum of their parts. More crockpot and more cowbell.

Beyond the players, it's hard to like DDDB and he feels like the wrong guy. As for Murray, his schtick is growing a bit old. And everyone knows how I feel about TP (as owner and in my bathroom).

So I like the braintrust less than I like the players.

It's funny. You said how hard it is for some to hope, referencing Team Storm Cloud. I don't think being critical and hopeful are mutually exclusive ideas. TSC is not a safe place, by the way. Opposing Terry early on was quite a plank to walk.

People can scoff, but I consider myself to be among the most hopeful fans of this franchise. I've said it before. It is destined to win a Cup. Like the Cubbies, it's just too good a story, too perfect an ending to not ever happen. I've always said it will happen when really good hockey people start running things and stop getting in the way of fate.

Just like Taro is still waiting for a faceoff down in Dom's end so Game Six can proceed, I'm still waiting for those people to arrive. (Well, I'm at least a little hopeful that Murray can be good enough if the Pegulas keep their meddling to the southtowns, but deep down I suspect the Cup-winning GM is not yet on board. For the record, I do regard owners who are fans and who care and who are willing to commit the resources to be a critical piece of the puzzle, if... Well, you all know the if...)

[dudacek]

Or maybe I just like a different kind of art than you do.

Sorry, I don't know that you took that post the way I meant it.

 

I was trying to say that understanding the "science" of the game the way you do, you have an informed opinion on what you believe they need to do for sustained success. Until you see that, you refuse to be swayed by the drama of the type of heroics I wrote about up-thread because you ultimately see them as hollow. I was trying to say it's easier to be a fan, to be entertained, when you are innocent enough to just be satisfied by the "art" present in the thrill of moment.

 

And PA, thank you. Sabrespace has always had a high standard.

Good, thoughtful writing is why this forum is more than just a bookmark.

Your voice is one of many that has made this place worth reading.

 

Ive disagreed with you many times over the years only to see time prove you right.

For me you epitomize both the critical and the hopeful.

 

And the bruised.

[3putt]

Now When do you believe?

 

I have a confession to make: I like this team.

 

I know those words fly in the face of seemingly every frustrated sentence you have read and posted on this forum since a certain curly-headed ginger from Massachusetts went down hard on his ankle during the final minutes of the final pre-season practice.

 

I know that reading them can feel like Dustin Byfuglien has skated over your testicles, especially after you’ve just watched Brian Gionta fail to tip another stretch pass, or Marcus Foligno flub another perfect Sam Reinhart set-up, or Josh Gorges jump over the boards to line up next to Risto for yet another offensive zone faceoff.

 

I know it’s not politically correct to say them after four years of mediocrity begat three years of suffering only to begat a return to mediocrity.

 

But I like this team.

 

I like most of the players on it. I like Reinhart and Ristolainen and Eichel as young building blocks. I like Okposo and Kane and O’Reilly as pieces of the core. I like Larsson and Foligno and Girgensons and McCabe as foot soldiers. I like the kind of players Tim Murray likes: smart, competitive, not afraid to get their hands dirty.

 

I like how Murray has a plan after so many years of watching Darcy have no plan — just the ongoing tactic of managing assets to the best of his ability while keeping his bosses happy.

 

I like the plan Murray has executed and I believe in his ability to diagnose and repair the errors and the remaining holes in this roster.

 

Tanking was a precarious strategy, but it was the unfortunate hand Murray was dealt. He has not played it to perfection — few have — but he has played it with a mix of boldness and vision. I see a path, a purpose and a will to stick with his vision despite adversity.

 

I see that adversity — an extraordinary run of injuries that inspired the coach to play the most low-risk, soul-sucking style of hockey imaginable — combining with the scars of the hope-crushing enormity that was the tank to create a jaundiced view here that blinded people to what this group actually is: an emerging team still learning how to win.

 

Going in to the season, we thought the Sabres, with a “normal” amount of injuries, were a playoff bubble team with the ability to score goals. You may find this hard to believe by reading forum commentary, but the numbers would actually seem to bear that out. Since the return of Jack Eichel marked a switch from a skating MASH unit to a team with a “normal” amount of injuries, the Sabres have gone 13-10-4, a .556 points percentage that would place them 15th in the league — exactly on the playoff bubble. And since that time, when their coach has actually started to let them push the offence, they’ve scored 79 goals — a 2.93 goals per game pace that would place them 8th in the NHL.

 

It is a hockey cliché to not use injuries as an excuse: “good teams play through them.” That’s coach speak. More realistically, few teams endure a two-month stretch of injuries where three of their top four forwards and two of their top three defencemen are either out or hampered and “play through it.” Certainly not young, incomplete, still-developing teams like the Sabres.

 

And this is a young team, one trying to rise from a thorough salting of the earth, a team just 130 games removed from an on-ice utter abomination.  They are a work in progress. You know it, even if the progress hasn’t happened as quickly as you had hoped.

 

The Sabres have good players coming in the pipeline, but even the oldest are 21. They are at least a year away from developing the organizational depth to insulate themselves from a run of injuries. They still have a gaping hole in their blueline top four that moves for Bogosian and Kulikov have not fixed. They have a coach who appears determined to outsmart himself.

 

But they aren’t as bad as this fan base is numb. According to nhl.com, the team has come from behind in the third period to win five times this year, third most in the NHL (it feels like more). They’ve also yet to lose in regulation this season when leading after two (that surprised me).  These are not the marks of a bad team.

 

And what seems to be forgotten in the angst about Bylsma and Lehner and Franson and whatever else tends to occupy our attention here is that those debates are mostly peripheral noise. Ultimately, this team will be relevant or irrelevant on the backs of Risto, Sam and Jack. None of them are as good as they will have to be — although Risto usually looks damn close — but I still think they can get there.

 

I know some of you don’t believe in a culture of losing. I do. It thrives where people talk so much about what’s wrong with their situation that it becomes all they know and all they expect. They get paralyzed by their own negative expectations and are quick to throw in the towel at the slightest sign of adversity.

 

Just because the results haven’t been what we want them to be, it doesn’t mean we are not on the right path. It doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate the process.

 

I read about how far the Leafs are ahead of us. I see the angst of our fanbase and the smugness of theirs. I think about the adversity our team has endured this year and compare it to theirs. Then I look at the standings, see the difference as only a pair of one-goal head-to-head Buffalo losses-that-should-have-been-wins and I wonder why these perceptions exist. Perspective. (I miss Neo)

 

This isn’t about recent results; I started writing it after the Leafs loss. It’s about my fandom, about why I watch. It’s about the lens through which I perceive the game and what the Sabres bring to my life.

 

I know that Team Sunshine and Kittens lost.  I know the odds, and the history, and how much safer it is emotionally to be on Team Storm Cloud.  I know how hard it is to hope. I know all about because Buffalo. I’ve been at this for a long, long time. I’ve been wrong before.

 

But I refuse to join the ranks of the scorned and the scornful, or the legion of Sabrespacers who have become dearly departed victims of this trial, this unabashed period of suffering. I hope you can forgive me this heresy: the clouds, they are still parting.

 

I don’t expect the playoffs this year. But I hope and I will enjoy the struggle. I like this team. I see signs. I choose to believe. It’s why I am a fan.

 

I don’t expect you to agree. But I do hope that you can, some day soon, join me in this forgotten bunker where people actually allow themselves to like being a Sabre fan.

 

I’ll leave the light on.

I like this team for many if not all the reasons you potsed.

 

I have no choice but to love following them.  The first professional hockey game I ever saw was in 1970 vs the Canadiens. 

 

I understand the angst many feel. You are entitled to feel how you feel but we all should at least try and figure out where that may be coming from and whether it is worth it.  But i truly believe that TPegs is incapable of dreaming small and thinking short term.  While all are fallible, but I bet on track record morenoften than not.

 

The Chinese bless the kindred with "may you live in interesting times!"  No one can't say all on this board aren't blessed.  These are interesting times. 

 

Always forward seldom straight.   Go Sabres!

[DirtDart]

Now When do you believe?

 

I have a confession to make: I like this team.

 

I know those words fly in the face of seemingly every frustrated sentence you have read and posted on this forum since a certain curly-headed ginger from Massachusetts went down hard on his ankle during the final minutes of the final pre-season practice.

 

I know that reading them can feel like Dustin Byfuglien has skated over your testicles, especially after you’ve just watched Brian Gionta fail to tip another stretch pass, or Marcus Foligno flub another perfect Sam Reinhart set-up, or Josh Gorges jump over the boards to line up next to Risto for yet another offensive zone faceoff.

 

I know it’s not politically correct to say them after four years of mediocrity begat three years of suffering only to begat a return to mediocrity.

 

But I like this team.

 

I like most of the players on it. I like Reinhart and Ristolainen and Eichel as young building blocks. I like Okposo and Kane and O’Reilly as pieces of the core. I like Larsson and Foligno and Girgensons and McCabe as foot soldiers. I like the kind of players Tim Murray likes: smart, competitive, not afraid to get their hands dirty.

 

I like how Murray has a plan after so many years of watching Darcy have no plan — just the ongoing tactic of managing assets to the best of his ability while keeping his bosses happy.

 

I like the plan Murray has executed and I believe in his ability to diagnose and repair the errors and the remaining holes in this roster.

 

Tanking was a precarious strategy, but it was the unfortunate hand Murray was dealt. He has not played it to perfection — few have — but he has played it with a mix of boldness and vision. I see a path, a purpose and a will to stick with his vision despite adversity.

 

I see that adversity — an extraordinary run of injuries that inspired the coach to play the most low-risk, soul-sucking style of hockey imaginable — combining with the scars of the hope-crushing enormity that was the tank to create a jaundiced view here that blinded people to what this group actually is: an emerging team still learning how to win.

 

Going in to the season, we thought the Sabres, with a “normal” amount of injuries, were a playoff bubble team with the ability to score goals. You may find this hard to believe by reading forum commentary, but the numbers would actually seem to bear that out. Since the return of Jack Eichel marked a switch from a skating MASH unit to a team with a “normal” amount of injuries, the Sabres have gone 13-10-4, a .556 points percentage that would place them 15th in the league — exactly on the playoff bubble. And since that time, when their coach has actually started to let them push the offence, they’ve scored 79 goals — a 2.93 goals per game pace that would place them 8th in the NHL.

 

It is a hockey cliché to not use injuries as an excuse: “good teams play through them.” That’s coach speak. More realistically, few teams endure a two-month stretch of injuries where three of their top four forwards and two of their top three defencemen are either out or hampered and “play through it.” Certainly not young, incomplete, still-developing teams like the Sabres.

 

And this is a young team, one trying to rise from a thorough salting of the earth, a team just 130 games removed from an on-ice utter abomination. They are a work in progress. You know it, even if the progress hasn’t happened as quickly as you had hoped.

 

The Sabres have good players coming in the pipeline, but even the oldest are 21. They are at least a year away from developing the organizational depth to insulate themselves from a run of injuries. They still have a gaping hole in their blueline top four that moves for Bogosian and Kulikov have not fixed. They have a coach who appears determined to outsmart himself.

 

But they aren’t as bad as this fan base is numb. According to nhl.com, the team has come from behind in the third period to win five times this year, third most in the NHL (it feels like more). They’ve also yet to lose in regulation this season when leading after two (that surprised me). These are not the marks of a bad team.

 

And what seems to be forgotten in the angst about Bylsma and Lehner and Franson and whatever else tends to occupy our attention here is that those debates are mostly peripheral noise. Ultimately, this team will be relevant or irrelevant on the backs of Risto, Sam and Jack. None of them are as good as they will have to be — although Risto usually looks damn close — but I still think they can get there.

 

I know some of you don’t believe in a culture of losing. I do. It thrives where people talk so much about what’s wrong with their situation that it becomes all they know and all they expect. They get paralyzed by their own negative expectations and are quick to throw in the towel at the slightest sign of adversity.

 

Just because the results haven’t been what we want them to be, it doesn’t mean we are not on the right path. It doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate the process.

 

I read about how far the Leafs are ahead of us. I see the angst of our fanbase and the smugness of theirs. I think about the adversity our team has endured this year and compare it to theirs. Then I look at the standings, see the difference as only a pair of one-goal head-to-head Buffalo losses-that-should-have-been-wins and I wonder why these perceptions exist. Perspective. (I miss Neo)

 

This isn’t about recent results; I started writing it after the Leafs loss. It’s about my fandom, about why I watch. It’s about the lens through which I perceive the game and what the Sabres bring to my life.

 

I know that Team Sunshine and Kittens lost. I know the odds, and the history, and how much safer it is emotionally to be on Team Storm Cloud. I know how hard it is to hope. I know all about because Buffalo. I’ve been at this for a long, long time. I’ve been wrong before.

 

But I refuse to join the ranks of the scorned and the scornful, or the legion of Sabrespacers who have become dearly departed victims of this trial, this unabashed period of suffering. I hope you can forgive me this heresy: the clouds, they are still parting.

 

I don’t expect the playoffs this year. But I hope and I will enjoy the struggle. I like this team. I see signs. I choose to believe. It’s why I am a fan.

 

I don’t expect you to agree. But I do hope that you can, some day soon, join me in this forgotten bunker where people actually allow themselves to like being a Sabre fan.

 

I’ll leave the light on.

Well written, almost brought tears to my eyes. And YES, I do believe.

[nucci]

Not a matter of like....I've been doing it since 1970.....I have no choice

[Cityo'Rasmii]

Yesterday, today and ALWAYS!!

 

Great post dudacek :worthy:

 

go Sabres

Edited January 29, 2017 by tfighter

[GoPre]

Of course I do.  If I didn't I wouldn't be visiting this board.  Go Sabres!!!

[etiennep99]

... I think qwk has it right and that we should be able to discuss the state of affairs in this country with one another.  I wrote a detailed request for reinstatement of the politics thread or a new politics thread in my "report."

 

 

 

Please don't do this.   I grew up when the Sabres had Hall of Famers and were fun to watch.  Today, I cannot afford cable TV, money nor timewise.   Until NHL allows *local* games on internet, the Sabres will remain the internet stream that helps bore me to sleep at nights.

Injecting politics will only make me ill. 

 

The world has gone insane; people cannot discuss things logically anymore.   When I look at the Sabres and I look at the nation, I see a world like D-FENS saw in "Falling Down".  When I watch Matt Cooke, Marchand, Gudas, etc. get away with their evil while Kaleta was run out of the game, when I see "No Goal" time and again in Dallas games, when I see people sweeping Kane's off-ice evils under the carpet, I get ill.  I just don't want to watch anymore.  

 

Where is the grace and artistry that Perreault and Gretzky embodied?  When Gretzky scored 77 goals and broke Esposito's record, he interviewed after the game with Esposito himself. He didn't brag.  He said he was lucky to arrive in an era of free-wheeling, open hockey.  It was a jovial interview; they respected each other. People today are not respecting each other, nor this nation.  And the Sabres are little relief from that.

Edited January 29, 2017 by etiennep99

[PASabreFan]

Can't people who aren't interested in politics just avoid the thread? The only time politics got injected into other threads, predictably, as when the politics thread got shut down.

 

What am I missing here?

[inkman]

Can't people who aren't interested in politics just avoid the thread? The only time politics got injected into other threads, predictably, as when the politics thread got shut down.

 

What am I missing here?

Not sure either. Seemed like a nice working solution but I guess some posters, who voluntarily sought out the Politics thread, became enraged that posters different from them had views that, ya know, we're different from them.

[PASabreFan]

Not sure either. Seemed like a nice working solution but I guess some posters, who voluntarily sought out the Politics thread, became enraged that posters different from them had views that, ya know, we're different from them.

SDS' argument is that once the curtain is pulled back and we know each others' political views, it leaks into all other discussions. I've never seen it here, TBH. I can easily compartmentalize. When the Sabres win a Cup, I will kiss bobis on the lips.

[inkman]

SDS' argument is that once the curtain is pulled back and we know each others' political views, it leaks into all other discussions. I've never seen it here, TBH. I can easily compartmentalize. When the Sabres win a Cup, I will kiss bobis on the lips.

There is a fair amount of truth in this. Now that I know some posters are wing nuts, everything they post I almost completely disregard.

[Peppy22]

It's tough at times... like last thursday vs. dallas.

 

You get the feeling they are about to take the next step and then it's 2 periods of terrible terrible hockey. Even with a 2 goal lead nothing went to "control mode"

 

The game started 2:30 am here and when you stay up the night to watch something like that its really really depressing. I do like watching the games but it is really really hard at times and you asking yourself "Why am I doing this" .... but a few days later you are in front of the TV again hoping for better results...

[woods-racer]

That might just lead to more vacations on my part.  the negativeness was pervasive.  Much less negative energy around here.

 

:thumbsup:

SDS' argument is that once the curtain is pulled back and we know each others' political views, it leaks into all other discussions. I've never seen it here, TBH. I can easily compartmentalize. When the Sabres win a Cup, I will kiss bobis on the lips.

 

It was every where. 

 

It is brutal. 

 

It's here now again.

 

 

There is a fair amount of truth in this. Now that I know some posters are wing nuts, everything they post I almost completely disregard.

[PASabreFan]

:thumbsup:

 

It was every where. 

 

It is brutal. 

 

It's here now again.

I'm not following. What is "it"?

[pastajoe]

Not sure either. Seemed like a nice working solution but I guess some posters, who voluntarily sought out the Politics thread, became enraged that posters different from them had views that, ya know, we're different from them.

 

Having different views isn't the issue in PPP, it's that many of the posters can't just debate the issues, they feel compelled to personally attack posters they disagree with.  One recently attacked another poster by stating that people who think like him should be beaten or die.  And the moderators allow it, while giving warnings when they don't like what someone says about an elected official.

[Drunkard]

I like the Sabres, but I don't know if I "like" like the Sabres.

 

Oh and bring back the Politics thread. This place is no where near as fun to read or post on without it.

[TrueBlueGED]

Sorry, I don't know that you took that post the way I meant it.

 

I was trying to say that understanding the "science" of the game the way you do, you have an informed opinion on what you believe they need to do for sustained success. Until you see that, you refuse to be swayed by the drama of the type of heroics I wrote about up-thread because you ultimately see them as hollow. I was trying to say it's easier to be a fan, to be entertained, when you are innocent enough to just be satisfied by the "art" present in the thrill of moment.

 

Nono, I got that, I just didn't articulate my side well. Is some of where I'm at with the team that I think there's a ceiling on where they can go under Bylsma? Absolutely. I'm not going to pretend I can ignore that overarching umbrella entirely. But more to the point, I'm simply not entertained by the product on the ice, and a few sparkly plays by Jack each game, or one extra goal since his return, or even a win, does not change it. Totally made-up numbers incoming, but watching a team play a game that is boring for 90% of the time isn't meaningfully more entertaining to me than watching a game that's boring for 95% of the time. If I watch what is to my eyes a dreadful game that ends in a win, the outcome does not suddenly erase the previous two hours of time spent where I am not entertained. I appreciate the win, but not the means through which it arrived. That's how I got to my "I enjoy following them but not really watching them" epiphany. For some, seeing a win inherently justifies the time investment. For me, that's simply not the case. 

 

Plus, as with some others, my free time and energy is increasingly being drawn to "other stuff" which is not only more interesting than the current Sabres product, but considerably more important. So yea, put these two things together, and I'm spending a lot less time here.

[WildCard]

Feel pretty much the same way as True. I'm on here cause I'm friends with the people on here, not because the team is good or exciting.

 

Btw, cause I'm nosey, whatcha got going on True? If you don't mind me asking that is