GDT: Blue Jackets @ Sabres Oct 28, 2025 6:45 pm ET TV: MSG-B, FDSNOH, Radio: WGR 550

[PASabreFan]

10 minutes ago, clink said:

There deffo were glimpses of the above-describrled going on 

Quinn is starting to put it together IMO

BUT, there were also glimpses of the "same old, same old" 

Maybe they're starting to turn the corner??? 

The Titanic started to turn the corner.

The Sabres needed to be steaming safely to harbor right from opening night. Not ready for the season, not ready for games... unbelievable.

But lots of time left. We shall see. Happy Segmentarian Day.

[Pimlach]

12 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

The Titanic started to turn the corner.

The Sabres needed to be steaming safely to harbor right from opening night. Not ready for the season, not ready for games... unbelievable.

But lots of time left. We shall see. Happy Segmentarian Day.

 

Not a word. 

[SwampD]

12 hours ago, Believer said:

When Thompson moved to the slot and drove down the right side, he took Greaves with him.

Benson was wide open at the right post for an easy goal, but Thompson took the shot anyway. Stupid or selfish. 

He tried to do it by himself.

He does it all the time, and not just for shots. For as skilled as Tage is, I think he’s a terrible hockey player. He’s a shinny(shinnie?) all-star.

Edited 3 hours ago by SwampD

[Weave]

3 minutes ago, SwampD said:

He does it all the time, and not just for shots. For as skilled as Tage is, I think he’s a terrible hockey player. He’s a shinny(shinnie?) all-star.

This is about as good a descriptor as I have seen for why I don’t have confidence in Tage Thompson as a featured player.  He just doesn’t strike me as a guy that is as good as the other guys that are around him, points-wise.

[PromoTheRobot]

2 hours ago, OverPowerYou said:

The Sabres always look slow and sloppy. One thing that drew me to this team 20 years ago was how insanely fast and precise their passing was  

They don't "always" look that way. This game ebbed and flowed, with Columbus having the edge early and late. The Sabres were dominant in the middle.

26 minutes ago, SwampD said:

He does it all the time, and not just for shots. For as skilled as Tage is, I think he’s a terrible hockey player. He’s a shinny(shinnie?) all-star.

I don't think he sees the game as well as others like Benson.

Edited 2 hours ago by PromoTheRobot

[PromoTheRobot]

10 hours ago, sabremike said:

At NHL .500 after 10 games with 7 at home.

NOT. GOOD. ENOUGH.

People are badly underplaying the very favorable schedule that is about to get much tougher. They really needed to take advantage of it and simply failed to do so.

Definitely not good enough. But also only 2 points off the pace they need to maintain. Now they have to make up those two points over the next 10 games. Gotta get at least 14 points or else the deficit will grow.

[Taro T]

23 hours ago, Brawndo said:

Is the jersey only for those that bought the ticket package from the Sabres directly? 

As @PromoTheRobot mentioned, they were on sale in the Sabres Store as well.  But by shortly after 4PM, at the absolute latest, all they had remaining for sale were XXL's.  Another cool thought poorly executed.

[Taro T]

8 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

Definitely not good enough. But also only 2 points off the pace they need to maintain. Now they have to make up those two points over the next 10 games. Gotta get at least 14 points or else the deficit will grow.

Make it easy on themselves, win tomorrow in Beantown and then go 3-1-0 the rest of this 5 game segment and they're right where they need to be.

Tonight, Byram played great, Timmons played great overall, Doan was still very good, and the 4th line was completely bought in to doing its job.  Quinn was going to the areas he needs to and was generating chances because of that.

Lyon didn't steal as many as he had been doing, though he did steal several early and at least twice in the 3rd BJ's had thought they'd scored but hadn't.

Benson couldn't connect on a pass to save his life through much of the game but at least he was still working hard and winning battles.  Dahlin had perhaps his worst game under the current and past head coach.  Couldn't make a pass, lost battles, got out of position.  Thompson was bad.  Tuch couldn't make a pass.  Zucker insisted on passing when he should've shot and shooting when he should've passed.  And even with all that going on, and Power having a couple of major gaffes ruining an overall good effort, and with the refs only calling 1 penalty that wasn't associated with a fight/scrum and of all the things they let go deciding THAT was a penalty (and don't know 39's name, but the Sabres get him a LOT and he's awful), they still managed to get a point and really should've had 2 in regulation.  They couldn't have had that many key players being off their game and still get points in a long time.  Hopefully they ALL show up on Thursday.

Speaking of the refs, 39's partner watched Timmons and a BJ beat the crap out of each other in front of the Sabres net for about 10 seconds and then working their way out of the zone including some REALLY viscious cross checks and slashes and called nothing.  Very shortly after that, Tuch and the BJ are shouldering for position, the BJ loses an edge and an arm goes up.  Initially thought it was a linesman calling it an icing because neither Tuch nor the BJ had clear positioning over the other when close to the dot.  Had to do a double take to realize it was 39 blowing another call.

[sabremike]

2 minutes ago, Taro T said:

Make it easy on themselves, win tomorrow in Beantown and then go 3-1-0 the rest of this 5 game segment and they're right where they need to be.

Tonight, Byram played great, Timmons played great overall, Doan was still very good, and the 4th line was completely bought in to doing its job.  Quinn was going to the areas he needs to and was generating chances because of that.

Lyon didn't steal as many as he had been doing, though he did steal several early and at least twice in the 3rd BJ's had thought they'd scored but hadn't.

Benson couldn't connect on a pass to save his life through much of the game but at least he was still working hard and winning battles.  Dahlin had perhaps his worst game under the current and past head coach.  Couldn't make a pass, lost battles, got out of position.  Thompson was bad.  Tuch couldn't make a pass.  Zucker insisted on passing when he should've shot and shooting when he should've passed.  And even with all that going on, and Power having a couple of major gaffes ruining an overall good effort, and with the refs only calling 1 penalty that wasn't associated with a fight/scrum and of all the things they let go deciding THAT was a penalty (and don't know 39's name, but the Sabres get him a LOT and he's awful), they still managed to get a point and really should've had 2 in regulation.  They couldn't have had that many key players being off their game and still get points in a long time.  Hopefully they ALL show up on Thursday.

Speaking of the refs, 39's partner watched Timmons and a BJ beat the crap out of each other in front of the Sabres net for about 10 seconds and then working their way out of the zone including some REALLY viscious cross checks and slashes and called nothing.  Very shortly after that, Tuch and the BJ are shouldering for position, the BJ loses an edge and an arm goes up.  Initially thought it was a linesman calling it an icing because neither Tuch nor the BJ had clear positioning over the other when close to the dot.  Had to do a double take to realize it was 39 blowing another call.

It's mindblowing just how bad NHL officials are at their jobs and that they just keep getting worse. I wonder if over the top abuse at youth level from nutty parents is driving would-be young officials out of the sport, thus shrinking the potential talent pool and leading to quality deterioration?

[Taro T]

30 minutes ago, sabremike said:

It's mindblowing just how bad NHL officials are at their jobs and that they just keep getting worse. I wonder if over the top abuse at youth level from nutty parents is driving would-be young officials out of the sport, thus shrinking the potential talent pool and leading to quality deterioration?

Interesting thought.  That likely plays a role, who wants to deal with that kind of abuse day in and day out just to stay close to the game they love.  (Sheepishly raises hand; would've been cool to be a professional in just about any aspect of the sport.)

[JohnC]

Just some belated quick thoughts on some of our players from last night's game. 

I liked how Kesserling looked. Will be interested to see who Ruff pairs him with. I hope it is Power. 

Samuelsson is really playing solidly and consistently. I would prefer seeing him on the third pair with Timmons. Impressed by Timmons and how he plays. He's a defensive minded player who knows what his talents are and plays to them.

As someone else noted Quinn is coming around. Playing with more speed and aggressiveness. 

Kulich is not ready for a 1C role just yet. Norriss's injury was a setback for the first line.

Doan is a tough player who is willing to inhabit the net area. Specific attribute that this team desperately needed. 

The most encouraging thing about last night's play was the play of Lyon. If we regularly get this caliber of goaltending, we should be in the playoff mix. 

The penalty on Tuch that led to an Ottawa goal was atrocious. 

In general, disappointed at the outcome but encouraged by some individuals performance. 

 

[LGR4GM]

Here's my concern. The team is marginally better but a chunk of that is goaltending. If the goaltending regressed even to average, this house of cards collapses.

[Taro T]

33 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

Here's my concern. The team is marginally better but a chunk of that is goaltending. If the goaltending regressed even to average, this house of cards collapses.

My concern is that they threw away 3 games when they were getting great goaltending because they weren't ready to go out of the gate.  (And they threw 1 other point away because they get no injury luck at all and in response to that put UPL in a game he wasn't ready for.)

They SHOULD have 14-16 points right now, which would give them a very small cushion to get past the inevitable midseason slump or 2.

IF Thompson, Tuch, and Dahlin start playing they way they've been able to in the past and the rest of the crew does what they've been doing this year, they can handle slipping to average goaltending.  But right now, those 3 aren't what they should be and that combined with the PP being hot garbage once again, has them just off the pace they need with pretty much everything else except injury luck hitting on all cylinders.  ANY of that other stuff falls off without the "big 3" picking their full games up and we're looking at 0.500 being tough to maintain much less getting to 0.600.

Am still hopeful (which after the 1st 3 games is something) but not overly optimistic.  They will have lulls where they only get 3 out of 10 points (give or take); will they be able to have a couple/few stretches where they get 8 or even 10 out of 10 to counteract them?  

One thing to be optimistic about is, even though this team isn't much better at cycling than they've been in forever, they are going to the net MUCH better than they did either of the past 2 sesaons and probably even longer than that.  THAT will generate goals even while the guys that create their bread and butter rush offense refigure it out.  They've also been reasonably good at winning battles (though they still have stretches like the 1st 15 minutes yesterday when they aren't); so maybe between those 2 items they can figure out how to effectively cycle the puck which would also help.

[LTS]

2 hours ago, sabremike said:

It's mindblowing just how bad NHL officials are at their jobs and that they just keep getting worse. I wonder if over the top abuse at youth level from nutty parents is driving would-be young officials out of the sport, thus shrinking the potential talent pool and leading to quality deterioration?

The answer to this is unequivocally yes.  You can easily google official shortage and read the horror stories.  I work with someone who is also a D1 college football referee.  I've asked him about it and he absolutely indicated that it's a major problem.

 

[Doohickie]

15 hours ago, HumanSlinky39 said:

We suck at OT

fify