K-9

One mediocre month. One amazing month. Three suck ass months. That is the synopsis of this season of watching the same mistakes over and over and over and over again. This suggests no answers can be found by everyone involved; management, coaches, or players. We are not close, no matter how much one wants to throw the “but we compete and play hard and are in games” crap. That’s the bare minimum of expectation. And I don’t accept it as some symbol of great progress being made when, for the last three months, I see the same mistakes night after night over and over and over and over again.

But, but, they try so hard.

In short, you need as many blue chip players at high impact positions as you can get. Blue chip prospects are mostly found in the top half of the first round. You can't by-pass a star prospect at a high impact position in favor of reaching on a prospect just to fill a need high in the draft. Fill needs in the mid to late rounds. Sometimes need and BPA meet when it's your turn, but most often not. Playmaker is ALWAYS a position of need.

Yeah, X was awesome. Loved talking Sabres history with him and PA at times. And MODO is one of my all time favorite forum participants. But it will be a cold day in hell before I go back to that place. And I enjoy participating in John's and PLenz's debates. Heck, I do my own share of slapping and getting slapped. But I'll say this for John, he is passionate about his view and does a good job defending it. Gotta respect that.

I spent several years as a regular at Sabrespace and I agree. It’s also a great place to discuss hockey with a few very knowledgeable hockey fans who know the game. I learned a ton from various posters there. I doubt I’ll ever participate in that forum again, but if a newcomer can tolerate a certain level of territorialism initially, it’s a good place to discuss hockey in general and Sabres in particular.

Housley needs to come right back with Hutton tonight.

I don’t feel sorry for them in the least. I think they’ve spent enough time feeling sorry for themselves already, which is one of the things I can’t stand about Housley. His post game pressers in games like this are always a litany of things that didn’t just didn’t go our way. I don’t need him to tell me we hit posts, we missed wide open opportunities, we had bad bounces, etc. There are no moral victories. We lost. End of story. That said, they played a defensively deficient Toronto team very well. It was a fun game to watch.

Oh well. Bad puck luck. We are just not ready for prime time. I don’t think the Leafs are either. As great as they are offensively (and they are a fricken juggernaut), they are that much worse on the back end. Not built for a long cup run.

Is it still so cliquish over there? Haven’t been there in a long long time.

Good points. This team has far worse problems than goaltending to be sure.

I think he pulled Hutton to light a fire under his lifeless, clueless team. I don’t think it was dissatisfaction with Hutton so much as sending a message to the rest of the team. Third period will tell us a lot.

You’d think we’d make an adjustment on defending the long stretch pass, but no answer seems to be forthcoming. Why is that? Eichel got his head out of his ass just in time for everyone else to screw the pooch. This team is Charmin soft.

Head up his ass Eichel showed up so far. He needs to bear down and join rest of the team in a good effort to this point. Our PP is a momentum killer and the Leafs PK got their crowd into it. Like I was saying...

His Kracken?

No emails, but I have hundreds of messages chiseled in stone and hundreds more on papyrus scrolls. I am impressed with how important you folks are. I’ll betcha you were the first to get pagers back in the day.

Can you imagine Eichel paired with Hall and Skinner? I hope Risto isn’t traded as he is one of our few players with any amount of “jam” in his game. Granted, he’s a middle pair D man at best, but if he is traded it better be for what you said and no less. I trust Botterill will get a commensurate return.

Good article. He’s not the first prospect Edmonton has rushed and ruined in recent years. Given his defensive shortcomings, I can see why Hitchcock won’t give him meaningful minutes and a change of scenery is needed. I’m not sure he’s what we need at this time though as we have a similar prospect in Tage Thompson, imo.

Mitts belongs in this league. You’ll be singing a different tune in a couple years.

One of their best in a long, long while. Having November Hutton really helped.

That’s all anyone needs to know about Skinner. I have to change my choice to him over Panarin. Can’t coach what has got.

Love Skinner, but I’d rather have Panarin for his better playmaking ability.

We need 33 out of the remaining 44 points to equal Bylsma’s two year point total of 159. A .750 clip (stifled laughter). I’m gonna go out on a limb and predict Phil and the boys can’t do that.

Guess they aren’t happy with Mahomes.

Agree entirely. But Housley won’t be held accountable for anything by his boss. Because he “communicates with the players” and they “give effort” and they are “in games until the end.” But most of all it’s because they are “progressing.” Not sure how being the third worst team in the league since the streak adds up to “progress”, but that’s where we are. Seems to me that the players have bought into the front office idea that losing is ok as long as they try hard. I’ll just leave it at this: if anyone in that locker room, ANYONE, was happy with last night’s game, they should be cut immediately. Players like Drury wouldn’t tolerate that for a second. The losing culture is deeply ingrained in this team. Confusing effort with results is a disease.