Fitz - you're the worst poster hands down.

You deserve everything you get around here.
- Boss34

Sorry you’re upset about the 1st line of my post
If u can get over that, there’s plenty more there
to digest

Guys make mistakes. Staal making one is totally fine.

I just don’t get the beef with Skinner-

He’s a bonafide top 6 forward who’s just chilling on line 4

His contract his bad. His place in the lineup is worse
- sbroads24

Whoa there... get it right now, it’s skiMMer

The problem is that NEITHER of those options gets us where we wanna be

If we have to ease Dahlin in a bit more, then that might be our best option
Risto isn’t as bad as u make it seem,
you just hate the guy so much that every mistake he makes is magnified in you mind

And if we get some better goaltending,
it’s helps mitigate the effects of some of those mistakes

I know we agree that some good goaltending will help this team a lot
- jdfitz77

Risto is an absolutely terrible top pair D man. There’s just no denying it anymore. He’s 8 years into his career. He’s fine as a 4/5 guy, PP specialist. He needs to be nowhere near 20-22 minutes a night

Dahlin is a 20 year old #1 overall pick. Remember when we drafted him? He was supposedly the best D prospect in 20 years. Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. Let’s find out now. It’s his third season

Risto is an absolutely terrible top pair D man. There’s just no denying it anymore. He’s 8 years into his career. He’s fine as a 4/5 guy, PP specialist. He needs to be nowhere near 20-22 minutes a night

Dahlin is a 20 year old #1 overall pick. Remember when we drafted him? He was supposedly the best D prospect in 20 years. Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. Let’s find out now. It’s his third season
- sbroads24

Time is relative
If he’s not ready for 25min a night then he’s not ready for 25min a night
I’m not saying play Risto that much,
but i don’t wanna rush Dahlin if he can’t handle it either
Don’t wanna ruin him

I like your idea from a few weeks ago....
play Risto & Dahlin together & see what happens
I don’t see any harm in trying it out at least

Whoa there... get it right now, it’s skiMMer
- jdfitz77

says the girl whose syntax is historically terrible in every regard.

Time is relative
If he’s not ready for 25min a night then he’s not ready for 25min a night
I’m not saying play Risto that much,
but i don’t wanna rush Dahlin if he can’t handle it either
Don’t wanna ruin him

I like your idea from a few weeks ago....
play Risto & Dahlin together & see what happens
I don’t see any harm in trying it out at least
- jdfitz77

mind blowing stuff right there

mind blowing stuff right there
- TheHank

Is Lehner outta the league yet?
Did u prove the bet was for a beer?

NOPE to both
Way to lose BOTH bets... loser

Unfortunately 2nd shift prevents me from paying close attention but from what I saw it was alot of the same old sabres. Not going to panic because 10 months off, get a split here and everything is OK still

Should have been 5 and a game for the hit on staal, how do they miss that? 5min PP down two could have been a turning point for us

Cozens looking up to speed shouldnt surprise anyone, hes the only one on the team who has been playing. Contributing and being effective 5v5 in his first NHL game is very promising

Above all the other things like risto, krueger/skinner, line combos ect, it truly baffles me why we are still expecting to win games with carter hutton. Seriously, this team is a goalie away from being competitive. There are so many question marks in net in our division that at the very least an upgrade to split with ullmark should have us competing for 4th place

Unfortunately 2nd shift prevents me from paying close attention but from what I saw it was alot of the same old sabres. Not going to panic because 10 months off, get a split here and everything is OK still

Should have been 5 and a game for the hit on staal, how do they miss that? 5min PP down two could have been a turning point for us

Cozens looking up to speed shouldnt surprise anyone, hes the only one on the team who has been playing. Contributing and being effective 5v5 in his first NHL game is very promising

Above all the other things like risto, krueger/skinner, line combos ect, it truly baffles me why we are still expecting to win games with carter hutton. Seriously, this team is a goalie away from being competitive. There are so many question marks in net in our division that at the very least an upgrade to split with ullmark should have us competing for 4th place
- ieetbred

Yeah, i agree
A goalie upgrade would go a long way imo

Time is relative
If he’s not ready for 25min a night then he’s not ready for 25min a night
I’m not saying play Risto that much,
but i don’t wanna rush Dahlin if he can’t handle it either
Don’t wanna ruin him

I like your idea from a few weeks ago....
play Risto & Dahlin together & see what happens
I don’t see any harm in trying it out at least
- jdfitz77

Everything he said was spot on. If dahlin is good enough he wont be ruined by it. We need him to be good enough for it and we need it now. Time isnt relative. Hall will leave, apparently eichel will ask for a trade, staal will have been a waste.. the list goes on

Get a goalie in here and win 4-3 instead of losing 6-4. Its (frank)ing embarassing

Everything he said was spot on. If dahlin is good enough he wont be ruined by it. We need him to be good enough for it and we need it now. Time isnt relative. Hall will leave, apparently eichel will ask for a trade, staal will have been a waste.. the list goes on

Get a goalie in here and win 4-3 instead of losing 6-4. Its (frank)ing embarassing
- ieetbred

I agree on the goalie 100%

I disagree on Dahlin. Guys develop at different speeds. I think asking too much from a young talent *before he’s ready* can hurt him
We’ve seen it before with plenty of guys:
Grigorenko, Girgs, Mitts, Myers, etc etc etc
I don’t wanna make that mistake with Dahlin,
he’s too important for us

They are being coached and from what I saw it was a totally bad effort mostly due to the rust factor. I don’t want to get blasted but Ralph is a good coach and I want to see where their at after 15 games or so.
- Camel

Where is there any evidence of that statement, unless you believe his never ending stream of corporate buzzword bullpoop means he's a good coach.

The staal play is disappointing on so many levels

Killed momentum
Bad debut
Bad example

Guys are expected to lose a step , but not lose any hockey awareness.

I think the thing about risto, he may make bad plays, but it's not by lack of effort. Lack of hockey awareness for sure. Sad that trying hard is the barometer.
- Boss34

Ristolainen has always had the hockey IQ of a ham sandwich. It's why he consistently makes mind numbingly bad decisions on the ice, like constant passes to nowhere and bad reads on plays.

Ristolainen has always had the hockey IQ of a ham sandwich. It's why he consistently makes mind numbingly bad decisions on the ice, like constant passes to nowhere and bad reads on plays.
- kingcong39

His icetime was significantly down at least

Sabres defensemen 5v5 icetime tonight :
Dahlin 21:04
Montour 19:36
Risto 17:19
Miller 15:13
Jokiharju 14:
McCabe 14:22

Where is there any evidence of that statement, unless you believe his never ending stream of corporate buzzword bullpoop means he's a good coach.
- kingcong39

I understand the complaints against him....
but it’s really odd to me just how many on here BLAST him, when just about all of the PROFESSIONAL hockey players who he’s coached utterly disagree & LOVE the guy

I’m not saying he’s perfect by any means,
and i too am mystified by some of his moves....
But I’m thinking the overwhelming criticism is a bit over the top

Fitz - you're the worst poster hands down.

You deserve everything you get around here.
- Boss34

Doing ding ding ding ding

Doing ding ding ding ding
- 3rd GM's the charm

Lol...ok 5xs perma-banned

I understand the complaints against him....
but it’s really odd to me just how many on here BLAST him, when just about all of the PROFESSIONAL hockey players who he’s coached utterly disagree & LOVE the guy

I’m not saying he’s perfect by any means,
and i too am mystified by some of his moves....
But I’m thinking the overwhelming criticism is a bit over the top
- jdfitz77

Players loved Rex Ryan
Players hated playing for Belicheck.

Ryan was a bad coach. Billy is a winning coach.

Sometimes being likable isn’t enough.

Players loved Rex Ryan
Players hated playing for Belicheck.

Ryan was a bad coach. Billy is a winning coach.

Sometimes being likable isn’t enough.
- ImThatGuy

Ding Ding we have a winner!!!

Sloppy game last night, I pretty much expected it after 10 months. Defense needs to hold the line more, were backing off and giving up the zone to easy. A lot of hesitation, can see they still need to mesh, definitely potential there, Cozens didn't look out of place. If Staal is out I would put Cozens at Center and put Skinner and Rhino at wing. See what Ullmark brings to the table, see what adjustments Krueger makes.

Sloppy game last night, I pretty much expected it after 10 months. Defense needs to hold the line more, were backing off and giving up the zone to easy. A lot of hesitation, can see they still need to mesh, definitely potential there, Cozens didn't look out of place. If Staal is out I would put Cozens at Center and put Skinner and Rhino at wing. See what Ullmark brings to the table, see what adjustments Krueger makes.
- Buff36

Let’s see, with Staal out, I like what you propose. So that means, Ralph will sit skinner, put cozens at 4LW, move Lazar to 2c, draw Okoposo in (if healthy). And start Hutton to shake off last night. I mean he looked good before the puck dropped.

wandavision is a steaming pile of dog crap

Just watched it on the dvr.

Sloppy game, from BOTH teams. But isn't that to be expected? Short training camp with zero preseason games will do that.

We scored 4 times. We shouldn't lose a game where we score 4 times. But, alas, Hutton blows.

Hopefully Staal isn't out too long.
- Powerslave

Slightly disagree. Sloppy sure. But one team skated to the puck and the other team floated. Our nuetral zone play is beyond horrible. Think coaching would help that but he took the day off.

This is year gazillion of bad passing. Beginning of the season ill give that a pass. Effort I wont. Eichel looked gassed in the first. Last night looked like the last 10 years[/img]

http://www.mynhldraft.com/NHL-Mock-Draft/

I understand the complaints against him....
but it’s really odd to me just how many on here BLAST him, when just about all of the PROFESSIONAL hockey players who he’s coached utterly disagree & LOVE the guy

I’m not saying he’s perfect by any means,
and i too am mystified by some of his moves....
But I’m thinking the overwhelming criticism is a bit over the top
- jdfitz77

Players loved Rex Ryan and he was total dog poop.

Think we all know that Ralphys out of his league but some dont want to admit it. The coaching carousel has to stop but not with this guy.

Tage on the first line, skinner on the 4th and hutton in goal for the first game of the season after 10 months!! Synergy. That sh*it does not get a pass.

Alot of good coaches out there right now but im sure Pegula is paying for a helicopter pad upgrade on the Yacht