Post-Game Talk (GBU): Groundhog Day

[Rasmus CacOlainen]

G B and U: Housley is an incompetent fool.

 

[Sabre the Win]

We must have had 278 turnovers at the offensive blueline or on the offensive side of Center ice in the neutral zone. Insanity. Sloppy as hell

18 to be exact

 

[sabremike]

I totally get people being tired of losing and wanting at least a goal, I get it. Trust me I do. But there are two teams in a game. One team wanted and arguably needed this more. Boston wasn’t going to lose tonight. No chance. What did people expect? This is a team that took out the leafs last year. They already got lit up worse then we did tonight. The second Boston lost seven nothing I knew it didn’t matter how good we played. Not saying we were good but at At the end of the day while the team looked lost they did have fire at times they just didn’t put it together and showed signs of rust. As if it was the first game of the season it somthing. Boston lost worse in their first gamr. At least this team showed signs of talent at times.

I’d be worried if we lose to the rangers.

But losing to a great team who got embarrassed in their opener and were highly emotional and had a goalie in halak play like it was 2010?

Meh.

I’ll be worried and mad like I said Saturday.


Teams can build off momentum they built outshooting the bruins 15-4 in the third or whatever it was until the empty net.

We will see how that goes.

The shots were totally misleading. Boston had complete control of the game in the 3rd and was more than happy to let us take garbage shots that had absolutely no chance whatsoever of becoming goals and were basically just padding the total. Tonight was a complete and total embarrassment on every single level. Also yet another Phail Housley Home Loss tm.

 

[sabremike]

Casey did look good but dumb Phil kept matching Eichel's line up against Bergeron who shut down Matthews and that Leafs line all playoffs last year.

We need a shut down line to put out against teams top lines to give Eichel easier matchups and Mittlestadt even easier.

When on home ice you try and avoid an unfavorable matchup. Phail deliberately chose to do unfavorable matchups. I don't even know what to say at this point. It's like God is trying to tell us "Fire Housley" but Botts just won't listen.

 

[Duddy]

To the surprise of nobody, a team that f***ing sucked in preseason after sucking for years is still bad.

Fire Housley and get a real coach.

 

[Revelate]

This is McCabe with the puck. He doesn't even look to the middle of the ice where he has at minimum two open teammates for the breakout. This results in an icing, which leads to the Sobotka penalty, which leads to a goal. Perhaps this is just McCabe being McCabe, but this happens with an incredibly alarming frequency.

 

[Sabre the Win]

This is McCabe with the puck. He doesn't even look to the middle of the ice where he has at minimum two open teammates for the breakout. This results in an icing, which leads to the Sobotka penalty, which leads to a goal. Perhaps this is just McCabe being McCabe, but this happens with an incredibly alarming frequency.

Hockey IQ is non existent. He got by so far with talent unfortunately not sure his talent can keep him in the NHL forever. He would probably be a rock star down in the AHL.

He was by far the worst defensemen tonight for the Sabres.

 

[Revelate]

We must have had 278 turnovers at the offensive blueline or on the offensive side of Center ice in the neutral zone. Insanity. Sloppy as hell

Imo there are two things driving this and neither is pure sloppiness.

1.) We do not use the entire width of the ice with any frequency. We make the ice smaller for ourselves and make life way easier on the opponent.

2) The nature of our breakout and transition. We have everyone leaving the zone at the same time without any layer or depth or whatever you want to call it. We are frequently running 3 forwards in a straight line into the defense like we are kicking the ball off in the NFL. OR we are attempting a stretch pass all the way to the offensive blue line which gives our forwards absolutely no time to do anything before the D is on them but get a tip on it or turn the puck over. This has to be systemic.

 

[sabremike]

To quote Richard Pryor: "How long? How long must this bullshit go on?????". In an entire calendar year this team hasn't made a single solitary ounce of progress. Nothing. Not a bit.

 

[Revelate]

Hockey IQ is non existent. He got by so far with talent unfortunately not sure his talent can keep him in the NHL forever. He would probably be a rock star down in the AHL.

He was by far the worst defensemen tonight for the Sabres.

Problem is it's not just McCabe. Here's Scandella. Where does this puck go? I'll give you a clue, not Reinhart. I could find an example of everyone of our defenseman doing something similar tonight.

 

[Kublakhan]

It was a bad start...I hope things get better,well they only can right??

 

[Royisgone]

I do appreciate your centered mentality to the Sabres, and I'm trying to evoke that.

This game was shellshock of 17-18 again. It sickens me to think I'll watch 81 more of that. As great as the top of the draft looks again, I don't really want to prospect watch this year. I want the god damn team to take a step, any kind of step, forward.

I hear you! An entire season of sucking got us, one year, Sam Reinhart. What has that done for us? Not a lot.

I do think last year's season of sucking will prove very fruitful indeed with Dahlin, but we have seen it's a hit and miss kind of thing. Even Eichel has his warts.

I'm done sucking; it's been long enough.

I'd rather have a team that steadily competes and can give me some playoff games now and again.

 

[Tage2Tuch]

The shots were totally misleading. Boston had complete control of the game in the 3rd and was more than happy to let us take garbage shots that had absolutely no chance whatsoever of becoming goals and were basically just padding the total. Tonight was a complete and total embarrassment on every single level. Also yet another Phail Housley Home Loss tm.

Oh I know the shots were misleading and it was embarrassing in ways, but I think it’s because of our patience what we’ve been through with this team. Had the last few years not happened, and we just looked at this game objectively it really wasn’t as awful as some are making it sound though.

It’s a long season, I have no problem losing to a damn good team with probably the most underrated first line in hockey with Marchand averaging 90 pts a game and pastrnak on the rise, they were all minus two last night.

Hey got a great coach.

They were beyond ready. I think we had enough Juno that had a couple of our early chances gone in the game could of been different. But it wasn’t.

The second period was awful, that was dreadful but honestly i am not about to lose my mind over one game.

This game was so bad but I see talent in this team. More-so then I’ve seen in any sabres team in ten years and we played a top team in the east who wanted to get the bad taste out of their mouths and were humiliated, halak is one of those goalies who come out of no where and stings you he is 11-3 vs buffalo now. I mean had just one or two of those chances gone in it’s 3-1 or 3-2. The empty netter makes it look worse as does the booing off the ice and the fans being tired of losing.

Believe me I’ve been patient too. I’ve been a fan since 1992 born in 87 and that’s not as long as many of you but that’s still a long same time of suffering.

I just think we come back and beT the rangers 4-2 or something.

I won’t be all positive and excuses and sugar coating everything if we lose to them too.

But tonight? I saw some jump and I saw a team that literally got no puck luck st all. Should they of put a better game together, absolutely.

It’s just one game. And it’s not like we lost to a bad team for no reason. It was a great team and they had a damn good reason, I cringed when I saw them get blown out, you never want to play a team (if there good) after they get blown out. I’ve been around hockey long enough to know that. Especially if it’s the next day. When teams lose the whole trip home they can’t smile they can’t laugh, teams have motivation to win for that alone. No way they wanted to carry that sting and star 0-2, I thought Hutton was good not great but good enough. If we play. Better I think we do okay with him.

If anyone actually thought Boston losing like that last night was good for us, I’d want to check if they were sane.

 

[HaNotsri]

Ugly:
One game and we’re back where we ended last year.
Last place.

 

[wunderpanda]

G- it was like ROR never left

B- Jack wasn't able to play against Bruins top lines. Sad to think Sabres may need players better than Jack just to shelter the franchise center.

U- fans started booing after the first period of the season opener. Same people cheered the tank cause the race for 9th wasn't good enough.

I'm trying to over react, but its the first game of the season.

 

[Sabresruletheschool]

I liked Okposo

I thought he was a turn over machine most of the night.

 

[Royisgone]

G- it was like ROR never left

B- Jack wasn't able to play against Bruins top lines. Sad to think Sabres may need players better than Jack just to shelter the franchise center.

U- fans started booing after the first period of the season opener. Same people cheered the tank cause the race for 9th wasn't good enough.

I'm trying to over react, but its the first game of the season.

Man, you can say that again. He's massively inconsistent and just not a difference maker too often. I was hoping that would change this year. We'll see.

 

[ozpensfan]

no offensive creativity, looks like it comes from a beer league 101. The 1st 4 games look tough followed by a west coast trip. could be 0 and 7 very quickly

 

[Revelate]

Housley makes Eichel look worse than he is. He actively matched him up against the Bergeron line which is the best line in the league. That line thorougly outplays just about every matchup in the league, including the young Center up the QEW. A good coach wouldn’t be playing his top scoring line against them if they could help it. Why would you sacrifice your #1 line when whoever they face is going to get caved in possession regardless. You are making them twice as impactful. A good coach plays the Berglunds and Girgensons of the world against that line and gets Eichel out against the Kuraly and Bjorks of the world.

 

[Dreakon13]

LOL

Of course they get shut out in the season and home opener. This is what we get for all of our efforts in combating the toxicity over the offseason, and trying to stay a little optimistic as Sabres fans. Thanks a lot guys.

At the end of the day, it's just one game and I've always said this wasn't going to be our year. There will be growing pains aplenty and there's still some demons that this team needs to exorcise. It's disappointing to see some of our best players have lousy games... but I like this group. The effort was there, they were just making a lot of bad decisions. Which may just be stupidity, coaching, etc... but could also be that there's a lot of new faces on this team and that intuition/chemistry that comes from learning where your teammates are on the ice at any given time hasn't quite cemented itself yet. Probably a touch of all those things.

I liked Risto and Sobotka turning things up in the third. Dahlin is amazing. The kids (Mittelstadt, Thompson, etc) are alright. Okposo had some good looks and kept the energy up. Reinhart had some tasty moves too. Hutton did the best he could for being hung out to dry over and over and over again. Everyone else was anywhere from invisible to bad. Too many passes to no one, awful defensive reads/plays.

 

[RogerCroziersGhost]

Lighten up, The Sabres were in 1st place only yesterday

 

[SatanwasaSlovak]

The only way is up. The Sabres needs some consistency and build a foundation. It's hard work, especially when you continue to shatter the consistency but they will get there eventually.

I'm against firing Housley. Get him some help instead, someone who will shout and give direct orders. They were outplayed last night by Boston, i mean, Boston sat back and basically could score whenever they needed to, The Sabres weren't even close in the offensive-zone to be a threat there.

But it's time to do the hard work. Bench the players if they don't show up as you expect to. There's a lot of pressure on a lot of guys but they need to do the hard work. I was the most disappointed with Eichel last night. You can't expect other teams to not match his line with the best defensive lines. It doesn't work like that, Boston will continue to match their best line against them because that's how they will win games. If Eichel ever wants to live up to his salary, captain-status and wanting to be a star in this league, he have to be better than that. A true franchise center isn't going to let the opponents beat him like Boston did last night.

Oh, and i would've preferred Stafford on a contract-year compared to Skinner. Completely invisible.

 

[old kummelweck]

What was concerning to me this game was how quickly the Bruins adjusted and disrupted the Sabres game plan. I also thought after they went down 1-0 they started to play WAY too conservative - giving up the neutral zone and the blue line uncontested.

 

[Der Jaeger]

I don't like the GBU construct. Here are my thoughts.

Beaulieu and Nelson need to go. They were lost in the back end. McCabe needs to be on the third pairing ideally. Pilut will be up soon.

The breakout is terrible. At least under Disco Dan, there seemed to be a plan. It's terrible now. I don't know what the defensemen are being coached to do, because they all to the same thing: go up the boards. The center ice for the breakout is wide open and they don't even look.

1st line looked dangerous at times. ERod line looked good. Liked how 17 played chippy. Mittelstadt's line was ok. Okposo is still creating a ton of turnovers.

Dahlin had a solid game. He kept it simple and broke in by playing physical, the same way he did in the SHL when he was 16. Served notice that he won't get pushed around.

Eichel was back-checking and stalking in the d zone well. I liked that he was engaged. His line changes were even better.

Reinhart was good. Skinner was good but you can see why Canes fans were frustrated. Too much fancy, too many times bailing on the D zone.

Team overall tried too many fancy things. Keep it simple.

The team needs a power forward to go to the net badly.

Hutton was solid. Of the three goals, none were bad. Chara's shot was perfect. The other two were not his fault.

Game 1 looked bad. Hopeful though.

 

[Dubi Doo]

I'll be honest and admit I wasnt very excited for this season. I haven't looked forward to the opener like I usually do. I'm pretty numb to it all, tbh. I just feel like this team is going no where while we still have the same coaching and management. Who knows? Maybe the talent level will overcome poor guidance from above, or maybe Housley and Botterill will develop well in their roles. I'd love to eat crow, but I'm certainly not at all optimistic.

Good:
Dahlin came as advertised

Bad:
Eichel

Ugly:
The brand of hockey being played

The repulsive:
The team got booed off the ice after the first period of the first game. That is so demoralizing. Must be a record!