[Incomplete Title] Sabres (21-12-5) & NHL 2018-19 - Game 39 (MSG-B) vs. BOS (20-14-4) at 7 PM ET on 12/29

[plenzmd1]

1 hour ago, K-9 said:

I honestly don't know much about Taylor at all. Got them to the playoffs last year and has them playing well so far this year, anyway. 

 

But can he get more out of Scandella or Okposo? I don't think anyone can, which is why they need to sit, imo. Housley doesn't seem to have the stones to do that, though. Even though it's obviously needed. 

1

said it back on openng day when Julien sat Plekanec and Alzner..he got the teams attention...and the Habs, who by all rights should not be in the Sabres class on paper, have a 4-1-1 record..

 

 

Edited October 19, 2018 by plenzmd1

[K-9]

3 minutes ago, plenzmd1 said:

said it back on openng day when Julien sat Plekanec and Alzner..he got the teams attention...and the Habs, who by all rights should not be in the Sabres class on paper, have a 4-1-1 record..

Well, there you have it. Sounds like Montreal has some hungry young players who want their chance. Sit Scandella and Okposo and get on with it. 10/31 approaches. 

[dhg]

3:30 start for game today

[K-9]

2 minutes ago, dhg said:

3:30 start for game today

I think the Kings will be starting at that time. More like 4:05 - 4:10 for the Sabres. 

[BillsFan4]

On 10/19/2018 at 9:41 AM, JohnC said:

There isn't any curse. When all is said and done it comes down to who has the most talent. When you have a deficit of it and you are not the hardest working team on the ice then the outcome is predictable. When your effort is lackluster game after game then something is systemically wrong. The worst indictment that someone can make about a sports team is that they are a bore. And that's exactly what they are as a team and a franchise. It's just the same shiiit over and over. 

 

Agree. It’s very clear that the Sabres are lacking talent, and the talent we do have isn’t playing up to par. Our best players aren’t playing like our best players... 

 

And when their effort/battle/compete level is also lacking in any given period it’s a recipe for disaster. 

 

I know everyone likes to blame housley, but the thing is we had most of these same problems under Bylsma and I heard all the same stuff about how it was Bylsma’s fault. 

 

When does the blame get put on the players for refusing to accept the coaching? And for lack of executing on stuff the coach goes over constantly? 

 

 

 

 

 

I know for a fact Housley drills this stuff in practice all the time. He’s a lot tougher on them than people realize.

He is constantly working on the stuff they do wrong in games, and (from what I hear) they will execute it well in practice, then come game time you will see them play the right way for brief periods of time and revert right back to doing whatever they feel like. 

 

 

All I head with Bylsma is how we HAD to get rid of him to fix our problems.

 

They couldn’t make tape to tape passes. They weren’t battling hard enough. They weren’t prepared to start games. They were playing too safe. He wasn’t preparing them well enough. He had lost the room. His system didn’t work. 

 

I heard how how they needed a coach who would let them play a fast north south game and open up the offense. The safe defensive game was killing them. Let the players make mistakes..... 

 

Now it’s “they need to play safer and make less mistakes”. 

 

 

 

I am not saying housley is the answer. I don’t know yet. But you don’t hire a rookie head coach and franchise legend, then run him out of town a year later. The Sabres aren’t going to have any alumni left st this rate... lol. (j/k) 

 

I will say that I have been consistently impressed with Housley’s knowledge for the game. It is second to none. He knows exactly what they did wrong after every game. We don’t hear any of that “I need to review the tape” stuff we heard from Bylsma. He can tell you exactly what they need to do better the minute the game is over (which tells me he is also telling the players that stuff during the game).

And again, I know he drills that stuff hard in practice. He will stop the whole practice if guys aren’t executing or doing what they’re told. But he can’t do that in games. It’s on the players... 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 20, 2018 by BillsFan4

[K-9]

16 minutes ago, BillsFan4 said:

 

Agree. It’s very clear that the Sabres are lacking talent, and the talent we do have isn’t playing up to par. Our best players aren’t playing like our best players... 

 

And when their effort/battle/compete level is also lacking in any given period it’s a recipe for disaster. 

 

I know everyone likes to blame housley, but the thing is we had most of these same problems under Bylsma and I heard all the same stuff about how it was Bylsma’s fault. 

 

When does the blame get put on the players for refusing to accept the coaching? And for lack of executing on stuff the coach goes over constantly? 

 

 

 

 

 

I know for a fact Housley drills this stuff in practice all the time. He’s a lot tougher on them than people realize.

He is constantly working on the stuff they do wrong in games, and (from what I hear) they will execute it well in practice, then come game time you will see them play the right way for brief periods of time and revert right back to doing whatever they feel like. 

 

 

All I head with Bylsma is how we HAD to get rid of him to fix our problems.

 

They couldn’t make tape to tape passes. They weren’t battling hard enough. They weren’t prepared to start games. They were playing too safe. He wasn’t preparing them well enough. He had lost the room. His system didn’t work. 

 

I heard how how they needed a coach who would let them play a fast north south game and open up the offense. The safe defensive game was killing them. Let the players make mistakes..... 

 

Now it’s “they need to play safer and make less mistakes”. 

 

 

 

I am not saying housley is the answer. I don’t know yet. But you don’t hire a rookie head coach and franchise legend, then run him out of town a year later. The Sabres aren’t going to have any alumni left st this rate... lol. (j/k) 

 

I will say that I have been consistently impressed with Housley’s knowledge for the game. It is second to none. He knows exactly what they did wrong after every game. We don’t hear any of that “I need to review the tape” stuff we heard from Bylsma. He can tell you exactly what they need to do better the minute the game is over (which tells me he is also telling the players that stuff during the game).

And again, I know he drills that stuff hard in practice. He will stop the whole practice if guys aren’t executing or doing what they’re told. But he can’t do that in games. It’s on the players... 

 

 

 

 

If all of that is true about Housley, then we have the dumbest collective group of players in the league, by far, bar none. 

 

What do you make of Okposo's admission last week, that in the practice before they got smoked by the Rockies, something was "off" in practice and he should have said something, but didn't (the antithesis of leadership, btw) and Housley said practice was good?

 

I noticed Housley said the same thing about yesterday's practice, too. He says that a lot about practice; how good it is. I think he's full of crap on that score because the adage about playing like you practice is true and so far this season, what we've seen on the ice doesn't reflect "good" practices. Aside from goaltending, which has been the difference in our wins this season, we've been a poor team to say the least. 

 

On the positive side, it looks like Scandella has been demoted to third pair after being terrible all season and Okposo has been removed from PP 1 finally. I'll give him points for FINALLY recognizing the need to make those changes. 

 

Not sure I like the infusion of slowness onto the top line in Pominville, but we'll see. Berglund being back in also slows this team down. Then again, a lineup with Pominville, Okposo, Reinhart, and Berglund isn't blazing to begin with. 

 

We don't have any options, though and I understand that. But Housley needs to show some signs that he's capable. I haven't seen any to this point. 

[26CornerBlitz]

 

Game Preview: 10/20/18 at Los Angeles

 

GAME-DAY RESOURCES

Game Notes

NHL Stats

 

LAST GAME
Thursday, October 18
Buffalo 1 at San Jose 5
Goals: McCabe
Goalie: Hutton (34 saves/38 shots); 1 ENG
PP: 0/5; PK: 4/7; Shots: San Jose 39 – Buffalo 25

 

CURRENT INJURIES – (Man Games Lost: 32)
Player (injury, first game missed) – total games missed
Matt Hunwick (neck, Oct. 4; injured reserve) – 7 games
Sean Malone (knee, Oct. 4; injured reserve) – 7 games
Scott Wilson (ankle, Oct. 4; injured reserve) – 7 games

 

TRANSACTIONS IN PAST 7 DAYS
10/16: Activated D Zach Bogosian from IR; Assigned D Matt Tennyson to Rochester (AHL)
10/17: Signed F Matej Pekar to a three-year, entry-level contract

 

UPCOMING GAMES
Sunday, Oct. 21: Buffalo at Anaheim, 8 p.m.
Thursday, Oct. 25: Montreal at Buffalo, 7 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 27: Buffalo at Columbus, 7 p.m.
Tuesday, Oct. 30: Calgary at Buffalo, 7 p.m.
Thursday, Nov. 1: Buffalo at Ottawa, 7:30 p.m.

 

TODAY’S GAME
SABRES at KINGS

• This is the first of two meetings between the Sabres and Kings this season.
• Last meeting: Los Angeles defeated Buffalo 4-2 in Buffalo on Feb. 17
• Next meeting: Tuesday, Dec. 11 in Buffalo
• The Sabres are 4-6-0 in their last 10 games vs. the Kings; 2-7-1 on the road
• This is the 124th game all-time between Buffalo and Los Angeles; Buffalo has a 59-45-19 series record.
• The Sabres are 24-28-10 on the road against the Kings all-time.

[BillsFan4]

14 minutes ago, K-9 said:

If all of that is true about Housley, then we have the dumbest collective group of players in the league, by far, bar none. 

 

What do you make of Okposo's admission last week, that in the practice before they got smoked by the Rockies, something was "off" in practice and he should have said something, but didn't (the antithesis of leadership, btw) and Housley said practice was good?

 

I noticed Housley said the same thing about yesterday's practice, too. He says that a lot about practice; how good it is. I think he's full of crap on that score because the adage about playing like you practice is true and so far this season, what we've seen on the ice doesn't reflect "good" practices. Aside from goaltending, which has been the difference in our wins this season, we've been a poor team to say the least. 

 

On the positive side, it looks like Scandella has been demoted to third pair after being terrible all season and Okposo has been removed from PP 1 finally. I'll give him points for FINALLY recognizing the need to make those changes. 

 

Not sure I like the infusion of slowness onto the top line in Pominville, but we'll see. Berglund being back in also slows this team down. Then again, a lineup with Pominville, Okposo, Reinhart, and Berglund isn't blazing to begin with. 

 

We don't have any options, though and I understand that. But Housley needs to show some signs that he's capable. I haven't seen any to this point. 

 

I don’t know what happened in that specific practice - if housley stopped it and laid into them or if he actually thought they practiced well. 

I believe Okposo that they didn’t practice well. But, in general, I take what Housley says to the media with a grain of salt. I don’t really expect him to say “yeah we practiced terribly”.

 

 

I remember seeing a lot of People who got mad about that last year. He would say they did some things well after a bad loss. He would be generally positive with the media, etc. and it pissed people off. 

But the players appreciated him not throwing them under the bus to the media. 

 

But he is MUCH different behind closed doors. He doesn’t hesitate to lay into the players. He can be heard yelling right through the concrete walls of the locker room after a bad game. 

 

 

As far as what Okposo said, it was one practice. I am not going to read too much into comments on one practice. I’ve heard the players say multiple times that they had great, crisp, up-tempo practices too. 

 

Even Okposo said in his quote that they’ve usually been much better in practice this season. Here’s the quote -

 

https://www.nhl.com/sabres/news/sabres-colorado-avalanche-recap-highlights/c-300873908

 

Quote

I didn't like our practice yesterday," he said. "I just thought it was sloppy. It was a lot like how we played the first period. I mean, we just weren't crisp. All year we've been really dialed in and really ready to go. 

 

"Everybody's been focused and focused on what we need to do. Tonight, it was just a little bit … feeling a little bit good about ourselves."

 

 

 

 

I would be a be a lot quicker to blame Housley if we didn’t have so many of the same problems under Bylsma.

 

I truly worry about some of the core players we have being uncoachable. Like Ristolainen, Reinhart. I used to worry about Eichel too, but I am truly seeing progress from him. 

 

I think its telling that our 4th line has been our best in numerous games this year. They actually do what the coaches tell them to do, and it works. 

 

 

Personally, I think the problems with this team run a LOT deeper than coaching.

I think It’s a culture that has been established through the tank years. I think there hasn’t been any accountability from the players for years (up until this season). I think young guys were handed roles without having to earn them. They fired Bylsma when the players decided they didn’t want to listen to him. They haven’t had the depth to be able to sit some of these guys to make a point, or to make them actually compete to earn their roster spots. And The list goes on... 

 

[K-9]

I found the rest of Okposo's quote more revealing, the part where he mentioned he should have said something at practice, but didn't. 

Quote

 

Kyle Okposo said he saw it in practice on Wednesday. There was sloppiness, not much attention to detail. It carried over. Thursday's 6-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche before 15,396 in KeyBank Center looked much the same.

"That's on all of us. It's on me for seeing it and not saying something before the game," Okposo said. "You could see it coming. It was just not being ready to go. We weren't engaged early. They were. We weren't making passes. We iced the puck a bunch and we weren't ready to go."

 

https://buffalonews.com/2018/10/11/sabres-bad-habits-snowball-in-loss-to-avalanche/

 

Weren't ready to go. A sad refrain this season. It's obvious from how repeatedly poorly they start games that their preparation is lacking. I blame that on poor practice habits. And I put that on the coaching more than anything else. It's not that I expect Housley to admit they've had a poor practice like Okposo did, but I expect him to not sugar coat the glaringly obvious and begin to hold players accountable. 

 

Yes, we've seen the same problems under Bylsma so it's easy to put it all on the untalented players and I understand that. It may also be a case that BOTH Bylsma and Housley are poor coaches, regardless. It's quite possible to have BOTH poor coaches and poor players. And when the two are combined, you have the **** show we've seen. 

 

Just once, I'd like to see this team come out and start a game ready to play. They just don't. Again, that reflects preparation. And preparation reflects coaching. 

 

10/31 approaches and we are on the cusp of being out of the playoffs by more than the magical four points on that date. If the NHL is about anything, it's about getting off to quick starts. The opposite of what this team illustrates so often. 

 

[26CornerBlitz]

 

[K-9]

Pommels with Eichel paying dividends. 

 

Housley is a genius.

[26CornerBlitz]

 

 

[26CornerBlitz]

Sabres win it 5-1. Hattie for Skinner. Ullmark with another sharp performance in net. 

[K-9]

Nice win, much needed. 

 

Still have concerns. We can’t depend on a fluke goal by a defensemen to suffice as our only source of secondary scoring. Once again, if Eichel’s line isn’t carrying the mail, we don’t have a decent chance to win. That has got to change. That said, I like what Mitts is doing and it’s only a matter of time for him. 

 

Kings may be even slower on their skates than the Sabres and it was nice we took advantage. 

 

OK, Phil. You had them ready from puck drop. Have them ready tomorrow as well and I may lengthen  your leash a link or two.

Edited October 20, 2018 by K-9

[Steptide]

Pretty good sports weekend for western NY. Bulls win, Sabres win and cuse wins in overtime. Now just need a bills win

[JohnC]

The Kings looked horrible. Slow, sluggish and lackluster. The fans should ask for their money back. 

 

Housely's shakeup payed dividends. Ullmark looked really good. His style is very calm and he is usually under control. I don't remember many pucks being in play after he made the initial stop. 

 

I thought Bogo played well for a person who hasn't played too much for the past year or so. We sure could use good play from him. 

 

If the Sabres can win tomorrow the outlook on this road trip will be so positive. This is all tough task. 

 

It's not surprising that in all our wins the goaltending has been superb. 

2 hours ago, K-9 said:

Pommels with Eichel paying dividends. 

 

Housley is a genius.

You are mercurial as am I. The roller coaster ride can be gut wrenching. 

[K-9]

16 minutes ago, JohnC said:

The Kings looked horrible. Slow, sluggish and lackluster. The fans should ask for their money back. 

 

Housely's shakeup payed dividends. Ullmark looked really good. His style is very calm and he is usually under control. I don't remember many pucks being in play after he made the initial stop. 

 

I thought Bogo played well for a person who hasn't played too much for the past year or so. We sure could use good play from him. 

 

If the Sabres can win tomorrow the outlook on this road trip will be so positive. This is all tough task. 

 

It's not surprising that in all our wins the goaltending has been superb. 

You are mercurial as am I. The roller coaster ride can be gut wrenching. 

Not sure about mercurial as I was being totally facetious. 

 

And yeah, I think today had more to do with who we played more than anything. Kings are one of the few teams slower than us, but we took advantage, so I give that credit. 

 

We. Need. Secondary. Scoring.

 

Glad you mentioned goaltending. Perhaps not so much today, but it’s been the sole difference in all our other victories.

 

Big test tomorrow. Both teams playing back to backs and we don’t have to travel, while Ducks have to fly from Vegas. It will be more of a barometer for me regarding Housley. I don’t have high hopes. But that’s the Pavlov dog in me.

[26CornerBlitz]

33 minutes ago, Steptide said:

Pretty good sports weekend for western NY. Bulls win, Sabres win and cuse wins in overtime. Now just need a bills win

 

Cuse? You mean UB of course. ?

[26CornerBlitz]

 

[Steptide]

27 minutes ago, 26CornerBlitz said:

 

Cuse? You mean UB of course. ?

Did u read the whole thing?