GDT: Sabres @ Avalanche | Wednesday January 20 2016 | 8PM MT | The Return of Jame Mcginn

[jsalz16]

No offense, but it's like you didn't watch the 2nd or 3rd period either. He was trash all game and was gifted a goal by a great play by Soderberg. To be fair, no one was particularly good tonight, but Tanguay was noticeably bad tonight, despite what the stats say.

edit: and I couldn't care less about pretty

Personally, I thought Duchene was brilliant. Seemed like a threat almost every shift. I only saw the last half of the game though and maybe I'm easier to impress. Lol

 

[Tweaky]

I watched it. And to be honest, Tanguay was invisible for much of it. To the point that I thought he was hurt. But once I saw him again, I did not see this plethora of horribad plays that he apparently made.

Lets look at the categories Tangs led the team in for this game:
War On Ice BUF@COL 01202016

5v5: G, A1, P, iHSC, iSC, C+/-, F+/-, G+/-, CF, FF.

So he led in Goals, assists, individual scoring chances, individual high danger scoring chances, on-ice shots attempted (blocked or no) count AND differential, plus most of the same categories for all situations, but Duchene passes him in some, thanks in part to almost double the PP time.

And his goal was not gifted to him by Soderberg. That pass was deflected about 45º...it did not go where Soda intended. Tangs had to see it, get to it, and lift it backhand right away, with enough pace to beat the goalie. All skills an NHL player should have, yes. But the consensus around here seems to be that Tangs is not an NHL player anymore. And if it was that easy to score in that kind of situation, why didn't Duchene, MacK, Barrie, etc. score when given like 20 seconds of goal mouth scramble? Do they suck even worse than Tangs?

But wait, are we going back to "stats don't matter, wins matter"... cause we won the game, thanks to Tanguay. I will be the first to say that stats are not the whole story. And I will admit I might be giving him more leeway than maybe he deserves at this point. But it is plainly obvious to me that many folks are seeing what they want to see from the old man. Or for some, maybe it is because he is a shell of his former self, back when he played here as a kid, so he sucks in comparison to what they expect and are used to.

As for fans at the rink saying he sucked....is that the same rink I heard people shouting "Yzerman sucks, he's a worthless piece of..." back in the day? General fans are not the most reliable judges of skill. Here is generally better....but one problem here is the attitude that youth>>>>>>all. Tanguay is getting older. He may not have many (or any) years left after this one. But his play tonight was NOT that bad. Yes, he had some mistakes. Yes, he is going to look slow next to MacK or Duchene. But he is still easily the best hands on the team. Would I like him on the 3/4 line with Iggy...yes, I want Rants or Grigs to get the chance on the top line, and Tanguay's chemistry with Iggy will help that line produce, especially if you put a speedy center between them to chase everything down.

But I am done arguing about it. People want to bash the guy that won the game for us, fine. Gotta have something to ***** about, and no way it is gong to be the young stud that took a bad penalty, and was team worst in shot differential. Or the face of the franchise that was a team worst -6 in C+/- 5v5. It will be the guy that made a couple visible mistakes early, is not as fast as his linemates, and did not make enough flashy good plays to make up for it (despite the G and A).

 

[Tweaky]

lol
I read that as shut outs
OMG head shake and asked for more coffee.. I actually started pasting copies of the schedule where we have shut outs!

and no shoot outs...
ok Go Avs.. maybe we will continue to win in regulation

I did the same thing. Could have sworn it was shutouts until I saw your post about it.

 

[The Mars Volchenkov]

I watched it. And to be honest, Tanguay was invisible for much of it. To the point that I thought he was hurt. But once I saw him again, I did not see this plethora of horribad plays that he apparently made.

Lets look at the categories Tangs led the team in for this game:
War On Ice BUF@COL 01202016

5v5: G, A1, P, iHSC, iSC, C+/-, F+/-, G+/-, CF, FF.

So he led in Goals, assists, individual scoring chances, individual high danger scoring chances, on-ice shots attempted (blocked or no) count AND differential, plus most of the same categories for all situations, but Duchene passes him in some, thanks in part to almost double the PP time.

And his goal was not gifted to him by Soderberg. That pass was deflected about 45º...it did not go where Soda intended. Tangs had to see it, get to it, and lift it backhand right away, with enough pace to beat the goalie. All skills an NHL player should have, yes. But the consensus around here seems to be that Tangs is not an NHL player anymore. And if it was that easy to score in that kind of situation, why didn't Duchene, MacK, Barrie, etc. score when given like 20 seconds of goal mouth scramble? Do they suck even worse than Tangs?

But wait, are we going back to "stats don't matter, wins matter"... cause we won the game, thanks to Tanguay. I will be the first to say that stats are not the whole story. And I will admit I might be giving him more leeway than maybe he deserves at this point. But it is plainly obvious to me that many folks are seeing what they want to see from the old man. Or for some, maybe it is because he is a shell of his former self, back when he played here as a kid, so he sucks in comparison to what they expect and are used to.

As for fans at the rink saying he sucked....is that the same rink I heard people shouting "Yzerman sucks, he's a worthless piece of..." back in the day? General fans are not the most reliable judges of skill. Here is generally better....but one problem here is the attitude that youth>>>>>>all. Tanguay is getting older. He may not have many (or any) years left after this one. But his play tonight was NOT that bad. Yes, he had some mistakes. Yes, he is going to look slow next to MacK or Duchene. But he is still easily the best hands on the team. Would I like him on the 3/4 line with Iggy...yes, I want Rants or Grigs to get the chance on the top line, and Tanguay's chemistry with Iggy will help that line produce, especially if you put a speedy center between them to chase everything down.

But I am done arguing about it. People want to bash the guy that won the game for us, fine. Gotta have something to ***** about, and no way it is gong to be the young stud that took a bad penalty, and was team worst in shot differential. Or the face of the franchise that was a team worst -6 in C+/- 5v5. It will be the guy that made a couple visible mistakes early, is not as fast as his linemates, and did not make enough flashy good plays to make up for it (despite the G and A).

Huh? The first two periods, the entire team was bad, but Tanguay was on another level of awfulness, and Roy even recognized it, taking him off the top line for some shifts. He had several turnovers at the defensive blueline and was making lazy plays all over the ice. I'm glad he, like most of the team, turned it around in the third, but it was really ugly for him most of the night.

 

[jsalz16]

I watched it. And to be honest, Tanguay was invisible for much of it. To the point that I thought he was hurt. But once I saw him again, I did not see this plethora of horribad plays that he apparently made.

Lets look at the categories Tangs led the team in for this game:
War On Ice BUF@COL 01202016

5v5: G, A1, P, iHSC, iSC, C+/-, F+/-, G+/-, CF, FF.

So he led in Goals, assists, individual scoring chances, individual high danger scoring chances, on-ice shots attempted (blocked or no) count AND differential, plus most of the same categories for all situations, but Duchene passes him in some, thanks in part to almost double the PP time.

And his goal was not gifted to him by Soderberg. That pass was deflected about 45º...it did not go where Soda intended. Tangs had to see it, get to it, and lift it backhand right away, with enough pace to beat the goalie. All skills an NHL player should have, yes. But the consensus around here seems to be that Tangs is not an NHL player anymore. And if it was that easy to score in that kind of situation, why didn't Duchene, MacK, Barrie, etc. score when given like 20 seconds of goal mouth scramble? Do they suck even worse than Tangs?

But wait, are we going back to "stats don't matter, wins matter"... cause we won the game, thanks to Tanguay. I will be the first to say that stats are not the whole story. And I will admit I might be giving him more leeway than maybe he deserves at this point. But it is plainly obvious to me that many folks are seeing what they want to see from the old man. Or for some, maybe it is because he is a shell of his former self, back when he played here as a kid, so he sucks in comparison to what they expect and are used to.

As for fans at the rink saying he sucked....is that the same rink I heard people shouting "Yzerman sucks, he's a worthless piece of..." back in the day? General fans are not the most reliable judges of skill. Here is generally better....but one problem here is the attitude that youth>>>>>>all. Tanguay is getting older. He may not have many (or any) years left after this one. But his play tonight was NOT that bad. Yes, he had some mistakes. Yes, he is going to look slow next to MacK or Duchene. But he is still easily the best hands on the team. Would I like him on the 3/4 line with Iggy...yes, I want Rants or Grigs to get the chance on the top line, and Tanguay's chemistry with Iggy will help that line produce, especially if you put a speedy center between them to chase everything down.

But I am done arguing about it. People want to bash the guy that won the game for us, fine. Gotta have something to ***** about, and no way it is gong to be the young stud that took a bad penalty, and was team worst in shot differential. Or the face of the franchise that was a team worst -6 in C+/- 5v5. It will be the guy that made a couple visible mistakes early, is not as fast as his linemates, and did not make enough flashy good plays to make up for it (despite the G and A).

Kudos for a well thought out post. I agree with parts of it.
One thing to keep in mind though is that this was Buffalo, a bottom 5 NHL team despite their bright future. Tanguay has been pretty much a non factor in games again't quality teams all season. Still love the guy but he's really not adding anything to this team IMO.

 

[Tweaky]

Kudos for a well thought out post. I agree with parts of it.
One thing to keep in mind though is that this was Buffalo, a bottom 5 NHL team despite their bright future. Tanguay has been pretty much a non factor in games again't quality teams all season. Still love the guy but he's really not adding anything to this team IMO.

That is a very good point. He needs to step it up against the better teams as well.

For the record...I am not a fan of signing him for next year. If we are able to trade him off, I would only be upset for the "retire as an Av" aspect, not his on ice play. Nor do I expect many to come calling abotu a trade for him, either.

 

[henchman21]

Tangs was bad last night, but ultimately was a big part of the reason we won... Most nights he is just bad. I really don't see another good option available until Rantanen is healthy. Grigo is going to have to play center under Roy, and he is going to have to scrape and claw his way up (not a bad thing IMO). Iggy is done, Marty sucks, as does McLeod, Skille isn't a top 6 sort of player, etc.

I think we see Rantanen once he gets a couple games under his belt in SA.

 

[RoyIsALegend]

Glad we got the win, but we have a very disappointing trend against the bottom feeders. We play down to their level and not the up-tempo style we need to play. 7 goals against the terribad Leafs, losing a close one late to the BJs, almost threw this one away if we hadn't played 15 good minutes of hockey. We can't be giving up relatively 'easy' points like that.

Side note, but Evander Kane is such a dumb hockey player. Little to zero hockey intelligence. He regularly makes the wrong choice, misses assignments all over the place, and just could not possibly care any less than he does about defensive hockey. He skates right by dudes always cheating for the quick breakout. Wonderful natural combination of size and speed, but not much between the ears.

I thought O'Reilly and Risto were their best players by some margin. Expected more out of Eichel, really seems like he's hit a rut and needs to adapt a bit more. Nobody is giving him the space and time to generate speed anymore, he has to find ways to produce.

Redmond was all kinds of bad. Hoping the decision is quite clear to Patrick and his staff. Bigras may be green, but he's still a far more intelligent defender than Redmond. I think Bigras still needs a guy to defer to us on his pairing, and that's why slowly bringing EJ back in would be best. Pair them up, give them 3rd pairing minutes, and use EJ-Beauch in key situations, giving Zads and Bigras some rest and time to analyze/assess the game.

Zadorov-Beauchemin
Holden-Barrie
Bigras-Johnson

Then Beauchemin-Johnson when we need to stack it up and shut it down.

Edit: Oh, almost forgot... McLeod was a monster. Two or three awesome plays on the PK, relentless forechecking and played smart. Love watching that version of The Highlander.

 

[SoundwaveIsCharisma]

Redmond's thought process for the game seems to be "Hmmm, that guys not covered, pass there is too easy...Ooooh! that guy has 4 people right next to him, I'ma chip pass it there cause it'll look super sweet!"

 

[Ivan13]

Redmond is Orr'Brien re-incarnated, dumb beyond belief.

 

[The Mars Volchenkov]

Glad we got the win, but we have a very disappointing trend against the bottom feeders. We play down to their level and not the up-tempo style we need to play. 7 goals against the terribad Leafs, losing a close one late to the BJs, almost threw this one away if we hadn't played 15 good minutes of hockey. We can't be giving up relatively 'easy' points like that.

Side note, but Evander Kane is such a dumb hockey player. Little to zero hockey intelligence. He regularly makes the wrong choice, misses assignments all over the place, and just could not possibly care any less than he does about defensive hockey. He skates right by dudes always cheating for the quick breakout. Wonderful natural combination of size and speed, but not much between the ears.

I thought O'Reilly and Risto were their best players by some margin. Expected more out of Eichel, really seems like he's hit a rut and needs to adapt a bit more. Nobody is giving him the space and time to generate speed anymore, he has to find ways to produce.

Redmond was all kinds of bad. Hoping the decision is quite clear to Patrick and his staff. Bigras may be green, but he's still a far more intelligent defender than Redmond. I think Bigras still needs a guy to defer to us on his pairing, and that's why slowly bringing EJ back in would be best. Pair them up, give them 3rd pairing minutes, and use EJ-Beauch in key situations, giving Zads and Bigras some rest and time to analyze/assess the game.

Zadorov-Beauchemin
Holden-Barrie
Bigras-Johnson

Then Beauchemin-Johnson when we need to stack it up and shut it down.

Edit: Oh, almost forgot... McLeod was a monster. Two or three awesome plays on the PK, relentless forechecking and played smart. Love watching that version of The Highlander.

I was thinking the same thing all night with Kane. He's a possession god, but that's because his first thought is to always toss it towards the net, even if no one is around or if it's just a weak shot.

Redmond has never seen a stretch pass he didn't love. That's all he tries. He doesn't recognize that short passes can break the puck out too.

I sat behind the Sabres bench last night, mostly around Sabres fans, and I will say that most of them were really nice people. The sign that my friend had that I posted a few pages back, they were all loving it and taking pictures of it. It was a nice change from the Blackhawks games.

 

[SoundwaveIsCharisma]

Glad we got the win, but we have a very disappointing trend against the bottom feeders. We play down to their level and not the up-tempo style we need to play. 7 goals against the terribad Leafs, losing a close one late to the BJs, almost threw this one away if we hadn't played 15 good minutes of hockey. We can't be giving up relatively 'easy' points like that.

Side note, but Evander Kane is such a dumb hockey player. Little to zero hockey intelligence. He regularly makes the wrong choice, misses assignments all over the place, and just could not possibly care any less than he does about defensive hockey. He skates right by dudes always cheating for the quick breakout. Wonderful natural combination of size and speed, but not much between the ears.

I thought O'Reilly and Risto were their best players by some margin. Expected more out of Eichel, really seems like he's hit a rut and needs to adapt a bit more. Nobody is giving him the space and time to generate speed anymore, he has to find ways to produce.

Redmond was all kinds of bad. Hoping the decision is quite clear to Patrick and his staff. Bigras may be green, but he's still a far more intelligent defender than Redmond. I think Bigras still needs a guy to defer to us on his pairing, and that's why slowly bringing EJ back in would be best. Pair them up, give them 3rd pairing minutes, and use EJ-Beauch in key situations, giving Zads and Bigras some rest and time to analyze/assess the game.

Zadorov-Beauchemin
Holden-Barrie
Bigras-Johnson

Then Beauchemin-Johnson when we need to stack it up and shut it down.

Edit: Oh, almost forgot... McLeod was a monster. Two or three awesome plays on the PK, relentless forechecking and played smart. Love watching that version of The Highlander.

McLeod has been really good, I love him on a line with Skille. I really think a McLeod-Wagner-Skille fourth line, especially given some time to build chemistry, would be absolutely fantastic for this team. All three guys are relentless, and have enough possession and puck skill to be effective offensively on occasion.

 

[jsalz16]

Side note, but Evander Kane is such a dumb hockey player. Little to zero hockey intelligence. He regularly makes the wrong choice, misses assignments all over the place, and just could not possibly care any less than he does about defensive hockey. He skates right by dudes always cheating for the quick breakout. Wonderful natural combination of size and speed, but not much between the ears.

I thought O'Reilly and Risto were their best players by some margin. Expected more out of Eichel, really seems like he's hit a rut and needs to adapt a bit more. Nobody is giving him the space and time to generate speed anymore, he has to find ways to produce.

Yeah, tbh I've heard enough about how great the sabres will be in a few years. So much has to go right with a young team especially in cap era. If all their young guns pan out, you have to find a way to keep them. Look how different the Avs lineup was 2 yrs ago.
On O'Reilly, as much as I like his play and would have loved to keep him, he's getting a lot of minutes to produce on a bad team so of course his numbers will go up. 1st pp, 1C etc. etc. Again, love the player but I don't think he's a 1C on a contender. It's like Komarov in Toronto. He's producing because he's playing 1st line mins and pp time on a **** team. He'd never get a sniff of those mins on a good team. Of course RoR is much better than Leo but you get my point.

 

[StayAtHomeAv]

I think Redmond is the most frustrating piece of **** I have watched in a long time. At least with Guenin we knew he sucked, and sucked bad. But Redmond actually has legitimate NHL skills with his skating and passing ability but he's just so brain dead and stupid that he looks just as bad as Nate Guenin, and that's hard to do.

I swear to god if Roy doesn't realize what's best for this team in keeping Bigras in the lineup and scratching Redmond he's fooling only himself. Small sample size but since Bigras has been called up there's no way Roy can justify keeping Redmond in. He's been god awful. Someone pointed out the fact that he wants to make the play because he doesn't want to be sent down. I think it's exactly that. He doesn't ever want to use Bigras, and he wants to do things himself to impress Roy. It's backfiring in a major way.

I thought Mitchell played like crap. It's been a few games now, too. Was disappointed that Grigorenko only played 6:46, especially considering he generated 3 shots on goal during that time, the same amount as MacKinnon did during his nearly 22 minutes. I thought MacKinnon played like garbage. One thing that I think is always going to infuriate me about MacKinnon is his incessant and un-needed stick handling. He's stick handling so much in open space at a stand-still position in the defensive or neutral zone and it drives me crazy because all it leads to is poor passes and bobbled pucks. Someone has to teach him how to calm the hell down with the puck.

Dumb hockey player who doesn't play up to their talent level = piece of ****?

My god

 

[RoyIsALegend]

I thought Mitchell played like crap. It's been a few games now, too.

Just a note here, since I saw this:

John and Mia lost their dog of 14 years to cancer 11 days ago. John had that dog before he was in the NHL and before he met Mia. Meant a lot to him. He's struggling with it right now and should be in a better frame of mind in a few games. I know these guys are professionals, but they're humans too and grieve like any of us.

 

[JWK]

Just a note here, since I saw this:

John and Mia lost their dog of 14 years to cancer 11 days ago. John had that dog before he was in the NHL and before he met Mia. Meant a lot to him. He's struggling with it right now and should be in a better frame of mind in a few games. I know these guys are professionals, but they're humans too and grieve like any of us.

Ugh, that's terrible

Also, close to 1K posts from a Wednesday night game? Man, we really do love McGinn

 

[tigervixxxen]

I was thinking the same thing all night with Kane. He's a possession god, but that's because his first thought is to always toss it towards the net, even if no one is around or if it's just a weak shot.

Redmond has never seen a stretch pass he didn't love. That's all he tries. He doesn't recognize that short passes can break the puck out too.

I sat behind the Sabres bench last night, mostly around Sabres fans, and I will say that most of them were really nice people. The sign that my friend had that I posted a few pages back, they were all loving it and taking pictures of it. It was a nice change from the Blackhawks games.

The jerks were on my side then. They did end up piping down after the first period at least.

That's too bad about Malkin. The break will come at a good time for a lot of these guys. I sense them getting a bit mentally worn down.

 

[StayAtHomeAv]

Just a note here, since I saw this:

John and Mia lost their dog of 14 years to cancer 11 days ago. John had that dog before he was in the NHL and before he met Mia. Meant a lot to him. He's struggling with it right now and should be in a better frame of mind in a few games. I know these guys are professionals, but they're humans too and grieve like any of us.

Man that sucks. I had to put my 11 year old dog down earlier this year. I couldn't even get out of bed for a few days. I know a lot of people won't understand, thinking "it's just a dog". But it's like losing a family member for some pet owners. I hope Mitchell is taking it well.

 

[AvalancheFan19]

Man that sucks. I had to put my 11 year old dog down earlier this year. I couldn't even get out of bed for a few days. I know a lot of people won't understand, thinking "it's just a dog". But it's like losing a family member for some pet owners. I hope Mitchell is taking it well.

Never would have understood it four years ago. But my pooch just turned four and we love her dearly. Couldn't imagine losing her. Hope he and you are doing okay.

 

[Ivan13]

Sorry to hear that about Johnny, 10 years ago I lost three dogs due to poachers, the oldest one was 9 and we had her for 7 years. The other two were her pups which were 2 years old, we didn't know what happened to them for months until a neighbor found them shot in a forest about 5 miles away from our house. Still hurts just thinking about it.

 

[flyfysher]

Just a note here, since I saw this:

John and Mia lost their dog of 14 years to cancer 11 days ago. John had that dog before he was in the NHL and before he met Mia. Meant a lot to him. He's struggling with it right now and should be in a better frame of mind in a few games. I know these guys are professionals, but they're humans too and grieve like any of us.

Thanks for the reminder.

 

[Former Ladder]

Don't know what happened to this but it won't show up anymore, reposting in case anyone didn't see it but thought it was worth sharing!

"Duchene and ROR viciously elbow each other at center ice."

 

[RockyMtnRedhawk]

Duchene: "I read this week that we're supposed to hate each other."



That was one of the worst games the Avs have played all year. I have no idea how we outshot the Sabres because it definitely didn't feel that way. Thank goodness Varly showed up and we were able to get the 2 points.

Redmond was awful, but everyone has already pointed that out. Landy was pretty bad too last night. Something has to be wrong with him; he just seems slow, can't handle a pass, and avoids contact most of the time. That would be a good question for Roy on next week's radio show. It's pretty amazing what Soderberg has been able to do recently with Comeau slumping and Landy presumably injured.

Also, since the call ups: 3-1 record, 1.00 GAA, Bigras has been on the ice for 0 GA (including special teams).

 

[flyfysher]

Duchene: "I read this week that we're supposed to hate each other."



That was one of the worst games the Avs have played all year. I have no idea how we outshot the Sabres because it definitely didn't feel that way. Thank goodness Varly showed up and we were able to get the 2 points.

Redmond was awful, but everyone has already pointed that out. Landy was pretty bad too last night. Something has to be wrong with him; he just seems slow, can't handle a pass, and avoids contact most of the time. That would be a good question for Roy on next week's radio show. It's pretty amazing what Soderberg has been able to do recently with Comeau slumping and Landy presumably injured.

Also, since the call ups: 3-1 record, 1.00 GAA, Bigras has been on the ice for 0 GA (including special teams).

Avs were being outshot by quite a bit into the mid-second period and then they almost equaled the Sabres shot total by the end of that period. They pulled ahead in the 3rd period. Would've liked to have seen the Avs be ready at the start of the game but the point was to finish strong.

Ugh, they should've gotten at least one goal on the 4 min. PP.

And yes, Varly was awesome.

 

[Freudian]

The most impressive thing about McLeod is that he at 29 or whatever realized he wasn't the type of player that would stay in the league unless he adjusted and he has turned into a grinder (a disciplined hitter this year as well) and has asked for and pulled off being a penalty killer.

Most of the McLeod type players have not been able to evolve their game to stay in the NHL, so credit where credit is due.