Practice Lines 12-30-19

[Brawndo]

 

[WildCard]

Lol absolutely pathetic

[Brawndo]

 

D Pairings 

[nfreeman]

So the Reino-on-his-own-line experiment (which I thought worked reasonably well) is over after 1 game?

I suppose they needed to reshuffle the lines to accommodate Dalton "Fists of Fury" Smith.

[Doohickie]

30 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

So the Reino-on-his-own-line experiment (which I thought worked reasonably well) is over after 1 game?

This makes me sad.

[Broken Ankles]

42 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

 

  The mere fact Dalton Smith is in the line up is a good sign.  I hope Cernak has the balls to answer the bell, and he gets lit up light a Christmas tree.  The NHL did not deliver the proper punishment for the hit on Dahlin, so we need to extract our own.  Looking forward to the game. 

42 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

So the Reino-on-his-own-line experiment (which I thought worked reasonably well) is over after 1 game?

I suppose they needed to reshuffle the lines to accommodate Dalton "Fists of Fury" Smith.

Agree on both points.  I think they have to do this for this game, but would like to see Sam back on FL#2 in Jan. 

[rakish]

44 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

So the Reino-on-his-own-line experiment (which I thought worked reasonably well) is over after 1 game?

I suppose they needed to reshuffle the lines to accommodate Dalton "Fists of Fury" Smith.

Nonsense, it was over after two periods

[Taro T]

1 hour ago, nfreeman said:

So the Reino-on-his-own-line experiment (which I thought worked reasonably well) is over after 1 game?

I suppose they needed to reshuffle the lines to accommodate Dalton "Fists of Fury" Smith.

The Sabres are at home and have final line change.  No real need to be balancing the lines like they tried in Bah-stan when they have the final change.  Also, Tampa's top line hasn't been nearly as scary (this year) as Bah-stan's is either.  So, from a let's get our top line and checking lines back together to primarily face Tampa's top 2 lines perspective it makes sense as this SHOULD give the Sabres an edge when the guys getting the bulk of the workload are playing.

Could very well see them keeping the Eichel and Larsson lines together during the home stand and then try balancing them again against the Blues.

Not sure whether the Smith move is a good sign or a bad one.  It's good to see Krueger/ Botterill want to be able to give TB some of their own medicine (yeah, who knew the Bolts would find A team to play physical against?) but kind of stinks that they couldn't find that attitude within the dressing room they had a day ago.

But also, looking at the schedule, unless Ralph wants to give Hutton the Vancouver game for some inexplicable reason, he may very well not get back between the pipes until they're in Detroit on the 12th.

[Huckleberry]

Erod shouldn't be playing over anyone.

[Broken Ankles]

35 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

Erod shouldn't be playing over anyone.

for the season yes.  Last two games, E-rod has been better than Vesey.  

[Crusader1969]

2 hours ago, Brawndo said:

That 4th line is as as bad as any line - up to and including the tank years.

[Brawndo]

Just now, Crusader1969 said:

That 4th line is as as bad as any line - up to and including the tank years.

It’s an AHL Line 

[inkman]

Just now, Brawndo said:

It’s an AHL Line 

So they signed Smith to round out the line? Wouldn't want any NHLers messing with chemistry.

[Brawndo]

2 minutes ago, inkman said:

So they signed Smith to round out the line? Wouldn't want any NHLers messing with chemistry.

I wouldn’t mind if they moved Asplund to the top line and move Reinhart to the second line based on how those two did in Rochester last season. 

[GASabresIUFAN]

Where is the circling the drain meme ?

[woods-racer]

I'm not at all worried about Smith on the 4th line, it's the 2nd line with Sheary.

 

ERod, Sheary, Vesey, Smith, Lazar are all interchangeable 4th liners that Kruger should be able to form some combination of the 5 to  get 6-8 minutes of good ice time out of them.

Smith coming up and replacing little fall down boys with big fighter boys as the end of the world for this team is laughable.

It's not like a production drop off of goals or assist will happen by Smith taking one of their spots.

[Crusader1969]

39 minutes ago, woods-racer said:

I'm not at all worried about Smith on the 4th line, it's the 2nd line with Sheary.

 

ERod, Sheary, Vesey, Smith, Lazar are all interchangeable 4th liners that Kruger should be able to form some combination of the 5 to  get 6-8 minutes of good ice time out of them.

Smith coming up and replacing little fall down boys with big fighter boys as the end of the world for this team is laughable.

It's not like a production drop off of goals or assist will happen by Smith taking one of their spots.

the sad part is that the Larsson Line should the 4th line.

[woods-racer]

6 minutes ago, Crusader1969 said:

the sad part is that the Larsson Line should the 4th line.

They are a decent third line that produces. The caveat is Kyle's cost. 

If we put together a 4th line that produces as much and has as big of an impact as the Larsson line this team would be much better off.

[Thorny]

4 hours ago, nfreeman said:

So the Reino-on-his-own-line experiment (which I thought worked reasonably well) is over after 1 game?

I suppose they needed to reshuffle the lines to accommodate Dalton "Fists of Fury" Smith.

We all love the Sabres, and we all want to believe (and a tiny part of me still does) that Botterill has a plan, a real good plan, that he’s either smarter or is privy to a wealth of information that if we all saw, we’d go “ahhh, ok”. 

But I think it’s becoming pretty damn clearly likely he has absolutely no idea what he’s doing. 

[nfreeman]

10 minutes ago, Thorny said:

We all love the Sabres, and we all want to believe (and a tiny part of me still does) that Botterill has a plan, a real good plan, that he’s either smarter or is privy to a wealth of information that if we all saw, we’d go “ahhh, ok”. 

But I think it’s becoming pretty damn clearly likely he has absolutely no idea what he’s doing. 

I think JB has a plan that is reasonably well-constructed, takes a long-term view and is based on drafting and development, speed and puck-skilled defensemen.

I think it's reasonably likely that he's been assured by TP that his job is not in jeopardy this year, and accordingly JB is not operating with desperation in the short term.

I think though, as @dudacek has stated, that JB's plan (like all plans) requires good execution, and that it is highly questionable whether JB is good enough at talent evaluation (including players, coaches, staff, scouts, etc) to execute his plan competently.  There has been an unnerving number of misses on guys like Hutton, Housely, Mittlestadt, Berglund, Sobotka, Sheary, etc.  It's also hard to avoid the conclusion that most of the bright spots on the roster were not brought in by JB.

It could still work out but this season could be effectively over in a week or so, and at that point it will be hard to be anything other than fatalistic.

[Pimlach]

On 12/30/2019 at 1:45 PM, Huckleberry said:

Erod shouldn't be playing over anyone.

Neither should Vessey.  Maybe we can find a second pugilist?  ? 

[Pimlach]

On 12/30/2019 at 2:22 PM, Crusader1969 said:

That 4th line is as as bad as any line - up to and including the tank years.

D’Agostino - Konopka - Scott 
 

Now that was hockey ? 

[Pimlach]

23 hours ago, Crusader1969 said:

the sad part is that the Larsson Line should the 4th line.

^ This.  The unfortunate reality is the Larsson line  will most likely be the 2nd line in terms of minutes.  They do more with offensive zone face offs than the alleged 2nd line and they do a nice job with the visitors first line.  
 

JBot is working on it though.  Anytime now the surplus of defenseman will turn into a slick two-way 2C and a studly RW sniper.  It’s coming.   

[Weave]

16 minutes ago, Pimlach said:

D’Agostino - Konopka - Scott 
 

Now that was hockey ? 

Konopka was pure entertainment.  What a nut job.