Post-Game Talk (GBU): That sucked

[Havok89]

Hey Botts, hope you watched the middle six float around like a free skate... ****ing do something

The last time Botts did something he destroyed our middle six.

 

[CrazyPsycho]

This makes me sad

 

[OkimLom]

Larsson
Girgensons
Sobotka
Rodrigues
Elie
Thompson
Mittelstadt
Sheary
Okposo
Wilson
Pominville

That’s what’s here outside the top line.

If i told you they have a combined 9 goals this year when not on ice with Eichel...i mean it’s probably wrong but you’d have to think about it.

And no one can get a look from Rochester while we mire in this joke of a middle six disaster? CJ Smith can’t beat out Remi Elie? And Wilson is coming back to make it even worse.

****...Berglund left or it already would be.

9 goals isn’t right.

However, looking at the goals by our bottom 9 players, only 23 have been scored without any of the 1st line forwards in on the goal/credited with an assist. This is only the forwards.

So of the 44 goals the bottom 9 scored, 23 were without the 1st line...

 

[dotcommunism]

I will make one note regarding call-ups for tonight: Ullmark's illness kind of tied their hands. Their only way to open up a roster spot for a recall was to send Pilut down.

 

[deVolt]

G
Scandella(2p) Larsson (G) Sabotka - energetic and drive, 23 - best passer today his line mates had the night off.

Bad
Dahlin Honeymoon is over Dahlin get ur shit together weak and lackadaisical around own goal lately.
Mitts - He is not ready to play that important role he is being miss managed would be top scorer in Roch.
Eichel - had off night not the same drive to goal i guess when you have to carry the team for months it can happen.
KO - I honestly dont know what he is good at
Ellie - Is this guy an extra like the movies

U
Hutton - Have had few stinker lately , today was rebound galore Ullmark should be starter couple of games
Lack of belief - head drops when they scored 2-2 goal and from that moment you knew they would lose the OT.
Player cherished those moment under the streak with more swagger even when the other team come from behind.

 

[Ace]

I can’t believe putting Dahlin with Scandella led to Dahlin getting run over.

Who could have seen that coming?

 

[Ace]

Botterill needs to shake it up. There are several players that don’t deserve to play. But for some reason our idiot coach sits Pilut for one turnover instead.

This isn’t even about salvaging the playoffs.

This is about showing you have a f***ing pulse.

 

[Vito_81]

Botterill needs to shake it up. There are several players that don’t deserve to play. But for some reason our idiot coach sits Pilut for one turnover instead.

This isn’t even about salvaging the playoffs.

This is about showing you have a ****ing pulse.

Exactly

Not making a big move is understandable.

But nothing at all, after watching this team for the past few weeks!?!

Is this guy f***ed?

 

[OkimLom]

Botterill needs to shake it up. There are several players that don’t deserve to play. But for some reason our idiot coach sits Pilut for one turnover instead.

This isn’t even about salvaging the playoffs.

This is about showing you have a ****ing pulse.

Hell, I’ll take Phil shaking something up that isn’t required due to injury.

Also, if you want standards and are serious about teaching, give Dahlin a couple games in the press box. He’s showing signs of making poor choices consistently every game.

 

[Tage2Tuch]

Our power play is horrible, from zone entry to setup... if we could ever even get setup. Anyone know what Assistant coach is in charge of PP? He needs to be termed....

Split up Rienhart and see if he can drive his own line. Time to see he leave Jack's wing and still be successful.

PP is atrocious.


I lose my mind how long it takes bogosian behind the net to break out and how they always do the drop pass to Eichel and dahlin and co will take five extra seconds to do this drop pass which doesent even change much for zone entry.

Once were in something stupid happens too like losing a puck battle, a meaningless shot covered by goalie, player misses net and it’s cleared out we lose momentum and they gain momentum as PP ends.

 

[Ace]

It’s going to take another ten game winning streak for me to forgive Housley for scratching Pilut today.

At any point do either Botterill or Housley do anything to try and get another line going? Reinhart has to play with the only two other good forwards? Just can’t break that up even though they can carry someone else and Reinhart can...I don’t know...help someone else? No? Ok. Elie has to play over a skill call up that Botterill won’t call up? Has to? Even though no one is scoring except the top line? For a month? Has to? Ok.

So I guess I already had the answer to that question.

And I don’t even want to get started on how long the powerplay has been a disaster as I watch us lose one goal games for a month

 

[SackTastic]

Hell, I’ll take Phil shaking something up that isn’t required due to injury.

Also, if you want standards and are serious about teaching, give Dahlin a couple games in the press box. He’s showing signs of making poor choices consistently every game.

He's 18....

The fact that he makes one or two poor choices a game means nothing. Relax.

 

[VaporTrail]

After our top line we probably have the worst 2,3,4 lines in all of hockey....I'm actually happy where we are at right now..I didn't expect us to be this good....Technically we went from worst to first, but unfortuantely we are headed more closer to worst now...

I can't see Botts making any drastic moves...I'd say this team is on course...We have some decent goaltending finally...Jack has upped his game big time since becoming captain...

We won't be going anywhere if we make the playoffs because all another team will have to do is shut down Jack's line....

I think we just need to be patient at least until next year...See what Botts does this draft and in the off season....Maybe he'll make some minor changes at the TDL...

I have confidence in Botts making the right move....Yeah, our other lines are horrendous...Some of those players really shouldn't even be on an NHL roster...We just need to give it time...For now we just have to watch the youngsters develop.

 

[joshjull]

 

[Havok89]

They need to shake it up. Spit up the Skinner - Eichel - Reinhart line and try to get two lines going.

Sheary - Eichel - Pommer / Okposo
Skinner - Mitts - Reinhart

 

[OkimLom]

He's 18....

The fact that he makes one or two poor choices a game means nothing. Relax.

Exactly he’s 18. And he’s making mistakes. What harm is it going to do to give him a break. He should probably sit to watch the game for a couple of games. Or is there a rule where someone who is in their early 20’s (Thompson) can be scratched and sat to watch the game from above, but an 18 year old shouldn’t be sat down to watch from above because he’s a 1st overall pick.

I think some people wouldn’t be able to handle a coach Like Babcock or someone else who would actually make decisions to develop players instead of just letting them play.

 

[davej0122]

PP is atrocious.


I lose my mind how long it takes bogosian behind the net to break out and how they always do the drop pass to Eichel and dahlin and co will take five extra seconds to do this drop pass which doesent even change much for zone entry.

Once were in something stupid happens too like losing a puck battle, a meaningless shot covered by goalie, player misses net and it’s cleared out we lose momentum and they gain momentum as PP ends.

I am with you, our PP is abysmal. Something major needs to change.

 

[ZZamboni]

I am with you, our PP is abysmal. Something major needs to change.

Yea, it’s called move around more. Too much flat footed or slow coasting during the PP. Drives me nuts.

 

[toomuchsauce]

That is literally half the team getting steamrolled. Those are tank-era stats.

 

[Dubi Doo]

U

The relentless negativity on this board.

I'm optimistic about the future, but it seems to me that Botts set this team back with his moves this offseason. How far back? Time will tell. I dont have much faith in the coaching or management of this team. I truly hope I'm proven wrong.

 

[K8fool]

Our power play is horrible, from zone entry to setup... if we could ever even get setup. Anyone know what Assistant coach is in charge of PP? He needs to be termed....

Split up Rienhart and see if he can drive his own line. Time to see he leave Jack's wing and still be successful.

no dicipline, no speed , lazy sloppy entries some players are good enough to overcome.. Erod had better hustle on entries.. too bad he has ahl shot.. great pass ..

 

[Tage2Tuch]

Exactly my point when I say when will Jack have had enough.

Have you seen our record? Have enough? “Do something Botterill” why? We’re not getting slaughtered and we are 4-3-2 in our last 9....we’ve played some good teams and a couple games got away, the character and effort is there most nights you’re overreacting to the max

 

[Tage2Tuch]

G
Scandella
Larry, ERod, some decent shifts from Poms/Tage/Sobotka

B
Casey/KO are useless offensively
Jack looked out of sync

U
OT
Refs
This team is fading fast
Botts will get added to this list if he continues to do nothing to address the lack of secondary scoring

What is with people on here with botts? It’s just after Xmas how many trades are being made?



All of you act like we are the only teams that lacks secondary scoring


-Colorado = one line team struggling worse then us in the last while

-Edmonton no longer in playoff spot lacks secondary scoring and are playing worse
Then us in last bit

-Boston ONE LINE TEAM that lacks secondary scoring, I don’t see moves being made here in a demanding market and were right there with them, probably should of won tonight but we all saw what happened

-Montreal I feel they’ve over achieved they have decent wing depth but don’t have star forwards or centre depth. They have some good d and a goalie and I think are fast and well coached but you can point to them needing something else up front too....put Carolina in this same category and Arizona but they’re all doing worse then ya considerably...except the habs, who are close but as I said should tail off eventually

-Florida is a two line team but have no depth scoring after that and no goaltending or cofnfidence and a losing culture.

-penguins are carried by there top guys but they have a tremendous top half so depth isn’t a huge issue

Don’t make me start on Detroit Ottawa and a host of others in this league too so we’re not the only ones struggling or lacking depth.

Botts made a depth trade with rod and that made everyone complain and even tho ror has kind of cooled down and St. Louis has gone from good to sucking, we still hear about this. I get you can still add depth by by bot trading away good players but then you end up with what, guys like pouliot and the odd good game? We still if St. Louis bottoms out and opts to take the draft pick this year if it’s high, we would get there 2020 pick which isn’t top ten protected (it only is this year should they not keep it) so we may come out of this ror trade decent, especially if Thompson shows life like he did for that couple weeks and rors streak of bad luck continue. There’s nothing in his play to suggest he’s an issue but what’s done behind closed doors always matters and judging by his public comments I can totally picture a toxic attitude in private. Anyway, that’s a whole different topic.;

We have to remember we’re not contenders yet why sacrifice the future to make us go on this big run, we have great prospects coming up and had just gone on the biggest winning streaks in a decade a few weeks ago, I’m sure a smart gm wouldn’t Just to a knee jerk reaction after like I said going 4-3-2 in our last nine, no ones ever happy with management or coaching ever, I mean look At the style of thread this is a good and bad with ugly on top which is two negatives one positive, internet message boards are negative enough. Lol

The way we’re playing overall isn’t bad for the most part,( sure this team needs more but knee jerk reactions shouldn’t be when were not getting blown out each night. And it’s just december...

The way we’re losing is making it seem worse then it is, we’ve had like six or seven of these collapse losses. I think coaching is a big issue, I think the depth could be okay if we played s but different.

 

[Chainshot]

The USA-Sweden game also sucked.

 

[SabresSharks]

Can you tell me exactly what there was to be positive about tonight, other than totally stealing a point we in no way deserved? When you can see a team's problem clear as day, can clearly see what moves need to be made and the GM is pulling a Garth Snow by sitting on his hands and literally doing nothing while everything goes to pieces it's aggervating as all hell.

U

The relentless impatience on this board.

We saw the same thing on that brutal west coast road trip. Everyone was howling for Housley's head, bitching even more than usual about the-trade-that-shall-not-be-named, calling Botts an idiot, criticizing practically every player in the lineup, etc. I participated in some of the griping. Housley changed things up, a lot of which we laughed at at the time, and then, miracle of miracles, things started to click, and the bitching and moaning subsided.

For a while.

You cite Garth Snow. How about another former Islander GM, Mike Milbury? Man, that guy really made moves. Really shitty ones, almost every time. I'll stick with the guy who's not flailing wildly every time the team hits a rough patch.

Do I want changes? Of course. Our middle-6 is brutally bad. Don't you think that's as blatantly obvious to Sabres' management as it is to us?

Keep in mind, Botts has to think of the well-being of this franchise's future, not just what can be achieved this season. We're hardly in win-now mode, yet some want him to act like we are. Who does he bring up, and how does that affect their long-term development, and the same for who gets sent down (likely Mitts and Tage)? Does he burn a 1st for help this year, possibly squandering the pick that would have been more valuable overall in the future?

If we improve by "only" 30 points, and miss the playoffs, I'll still be thrilled with that progress.

Patience, lads, patience.