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GAME DISCUSSION THREAD


Corp000085

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7pm

 

 

 

 

 

 

For as much as this board dismisses the hurricanes, they're always a wonderful matchup against hte sabres. I'm thinking 5-4 or something to that nature. This one will be fun, but the sabres seem to be for real again, so i really can't see them losing unless they don't show up.

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I keep looking for a sign that this team can challenge Anaheim and win. Anaheim just keeps rolling along. They went in to SJ and beat them.

 

So for me.. Beating Washington, Carolina, Atlanta and Ottawa in a row would be a sign. Good, capable teams. Lets get it started. No more excuses.

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I keep looking for a sign that this team can challenge Anaheim and win. Anaheim just keeps rolling along. They went in to SJ and beat them.

 

So for me.. Beating Washington, Carolina, Atlanta and Ottawa in a row would be a sign. Good, capable teams. Lets get it started. No more excuses.

 

Anaheim's finally facing some adversity. Giguere is out and so is Beauchemin. Let's see Pronger and Selanne go down, and then they'll be even with the Sabres in games lost to good players.

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Anaheim's finally facing some adversity. Giguere is out and so is Beauchemin. Let's see Pronger and Selanne go down, and then they'll be even with the Sabres in games lost to good players.

Yeah I caught that. But they have already won this season, in Edmonton, with their 3rd stringer under much the same circumstances.. My bet is they don't miss a beat.. They have Carolina tomorrow, so these two games will be an interesting comparison of styles. No breaks for Carolina having to play the two best teams back-to-back and travel. I hope they lose both of them..

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I don't like the GF and GA numbers for the last 5 games. This will be a difficult test.

 

This from SabreSFans.com....

 

Last 5 games - Buffalo: 2-2-1 / GF - 18 / GA - 14

Overall Record - Buffalo: 26-7-3, 1st in East / GF - 144 / GA - 106

 

Last 5 games - Carolina: 5-0-0 / GF - 17 / GA - 8

Overall Record - Carolina: 20-14-4, 5th in East / GF - 119 / GA - 115

 

SabreSFans.com

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I don't like the GF and GA numbers for the last 5 games. This will be a difficult test.

 

This from SabreSFans.com....

 

Last 5 games - Buffalo: 2-2-1 / GF - 18 / GA - 14

Overall Record - Buffalo: 26-7-3, 1st in East / GF - 144 / GA - 106

 

Last 5 games - Carolina: 5-0-0 / GF - 17 / GA - 8

Overall Record - Carolina: 20-14-4, 5th in East / GF - 119 / GA - 115

 

SabreSFans.com

Just confirms what we have all known, the heady days of October/November are over and this team has been hovering around .500 ever since.

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Just confirms what we have all known, the heady days of October/November are over and this team has been hovering around .500 ever since.

 

Yeah, or you could say they are 2-0-1 with 15 GF and 8 GA in the last 3 games and so they are back to normal ... 7-4-1 in December really isn't "hovering around .500" ... 6-3-1 in the last 10 still top 5 in the league over that stretch ... 11-0-1 on the season with Tallinder in the lineup ... it's all about where you draw the line, the numbers can be twisted to make them look hot again or cold compared to the start ...

 

Still, I agree, these next two games are huge ... home games against, in my opinion, the biggest threats to the Sabres in the East (along with Montreal). Win them both, it creates a nice cushion and sends a message ... lose them both and it will be a dogfight all season. Split them and ... well, I have no idea what that means.

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This team took a big step backwards when tallinder went down. compound that with the injuries to briere, afinogenov, hecht, lydman, etc. and we showed our weaknesses. The team lost some games that they probably should have won had they been healthy. However, that major dropoff was still around the level of the next best teams we've played. The caps game was the first game when the entire team was back and playing in synch. We'll get better from there, and i think we'll go on an october like tear in january. If the sabres can make it through january, relatively uninjured, and with more wins, i think we're looking at one or two, at the most, poor stretches of play. We're in the middle of the long season, the part that nobody remembers a few years down the road, but the playoff push is just around the corner. I'm very excited to see what the 2nd half of the season provides. There's a game in a few hours though, against a quality opponent, so its time to get the cans ready to open...

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Wow....I just spent a few minutes looking at some of the posts on the Canes message boards. It would seem that the average age of those "fans" is somewhere around 12 or 13. Anyway, now would be agreat time to get a 4 or 5 games streak going against some legitimate competition. I hope the guys are up for a challenge, because Carolina is going to come hard and fast to avoid the sweep. Should be a fun one to watch, I'm thinking Sabres 4-3 and we score one shorthanded tonight.....it has been a long time.

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I'm interested to see how the physical play goes tonight. In the last game, we went up 3-0 in the 1st, went to sleep, they tied it 3-3 early in the 3rd, then we ripped off 3 more to make it 6-3. The game ended 7-4. One of my lingering impressions of the game was that when we opened up our leads, Carolina started taking a bunch of runs at our guys, some of which led to big hits and others which were borderline cheap shots (Erik Cole in particular being guilty of cheap shots IIRC).

 

At the time I was concerned that we didn't answer a physical challenge. 6 weeks later, having seen how we responded to the Ovechkin incident, I think Lindy's approach is that we should fight when directly challenged, but otherwise back away from tit-for-tat exchanges of cheap shots. I think he keeps the team focused on skating, scoring and winning as the best form of payback.

 

On the other hand, Carolina may have concluded from the game that they can push us around, and that this is a necessary part of a winning strategy to beat the Sabres.

 

Prediction: Miller heats up. Sabres, 4-2, in a thriller. Pominville, Kotalik, Vanek and Hecht with the goals.

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