BillsFan4

I was just about to post that. I forgot all about him, but that very well could be it.

Wonder if this means Nelson is ready to come back? Or that they are calling someone up from Rochester?

I totally agree that this free agent QB class is nothing special and there’s no one I’d want to build a franchise around by any means. I was only talking in the context of what the Bills have trotted out as a QB depth chart some years and/or what was available in free agency when they were in the market for a starter (which has been way too often...lol).

Botterill was on WGR550 before the game last night, for those who didn’t hear the interview here’s the link - https://wgr550.radio.com/articles/botterill-we-understand-how-important-being-playoff-hunt Gives me a little hope that we may at least see a smaller trade before the deadline, to potentially give the team a boost. Not holding my breath, but at least Botterill doesn’t sound totally opposed to it. The trade deadline falls on my birthday this year, so maybe I’ll get a nice present! lol

I am very glad we are not in the market for a free agent QB. But I have to say, I feel like this year’s free agent QB class is quite a bit better than some of the years Buffalo has to go free agent QB shopping in the past. I would have have gladly taken Flacco, Foles, Bridgewater over some of the garbage the Bills have signed over the years... lol.

I am undecided on Housley overall. I am more/less still in wait and see mode, but I will tell you what I see that I like (you may not agree with it all, it I’ll tell you anyway... lol) I see a legitimate step forward in the rebuild for the first time since it started. You can point to win percentage or whatever but I see a change for the better in the way the whole team plays hockey. Much better than when buffalo made that jump in 2015. They look like a legit NHL team for the first time in years. Their breakout has improved. Their transition through the neutral zone and entry into the offensive zone have both improved. They are creating more scoring chances and generally playing a much more exciting brand of hockey. And They have pretty much been in most games this year. The culture and buy in have both definitely changed for the better too, and I give housley a lot of credit for that. He went out of his way to meet with Sabres players over the summer and also got them to meet with each other and have some tough conversations. For the first time since the rebuild started players are all on the same page. Guys have accepted their roles on the team and are all pulling in the same direction. They are all actually playing the same system instead of just doing whatever they want. I have also seen forward progress from some of our younger guys (not all). The buy in and change from Eichel has been very noticeable. He is not floating around out there like in previous seasons. He’s (usually) backchecking hard and trying to play a 200ft game. Reinhart looks to have taken a step forward in his development and is playing more consistent. Thompson really seems to be starting to come into his own a bit (with a long way to go still, obviously). Dahlin seems to be developing nicely. Rodriguez is coming into his own. McCabe took a step forward his year. And I like the teams no quit attitude on most nights. I don’t see them hanging their heads every time they get down by a goal like in previous seasons. I generally like the style/system housley wants to play, too. It can be fun to watch when it’s working right. It was tons of fun to watch in Nashville (and their defense hasn’t been as exciting to watch since housley left). When we still had Bylsma, I remember soooo many Sabres fans saying “just let these kids play. Stop playing so risk averse and making players so scared to make any mistakes. Let them be creative, we will live with the mistakes if it opens up the game and makes the Sabres fun to watch” and that is kind of what we are getting on many nights IMO. And I really like that the guys who cover Sabres practices (like John Vogl and Paul Hamilton) say that Housley is a great teacher in practice. I know people like to lose their minds over some of his lineup/roster decisions (especially Pilut). But it’s not something I get too worked up over. I look at it like this - 1) he already has more young players in prominent roles than many/most NHL coaches do. He is giving a lot of young guys tons of opportunity. And 2) lineup decisions, line combinations and “veteran playing over (fill in the blank) young player” are complaints with every single coach around the NHL. It is by far the most common complaint among fans. I don’t know if there’s a single fan base who is legitimately happy with their coaches lineup decisions. Even the very best coaches. Ask Detroit fans about Babcock, or Chicago fans about Quenneville, or tamp fans about Cooper. It’s been a complaint about every Sabres coach for as long as I can remember. With Housley, it’s “he sticks with line combinations too long”. With Bylsma it was “he doesn’t stick with line combinations long enough”. Lindy used to drive people nuts with his scratches, line combinations and the guys put in his dog house. Remember Brayden McNabb? He’d come up, play well and promptly be sent down. Lindy was never willing to giv dhim a legit chance. Or Vanek? I remember he was benched for an entire playoff series once (in 2006 iirc, and he was buffalo’s 2nd leading scorer that season!) You also have to remember, we don’t see what goes on behind the scenes. We don’t see practices or meetings or the locker room. We don’t know if a guy may be struggling in practices, or to grasp concepts in meetings. We don’t know what their attitudes are like. We don’t even know what the coaches are coaching them to do. They could have been drilling something into a guy’s head all week and he goes out and does the opposite. We assume so many things are coaching errors when we don’t truly know. There is so much information that we are missing as fans. I think probably the biggest problem is that Sabres fans have just totally run out of patience. They want a good team now and they are not willing to wait any longer. They see Toronto doing so well and it pisses them off. But Toronto is a different situation. They looked like they were going to go full rebuild and then they only traded a couple core guys and retooled. They have players on that team from ‘08 and ‘09. They’ve been rebuilding much longer than buffalo. I don’t think people realize just how rare what Buffalo did was. There aren’t many teams that go full scorched earth to the length buffalo took it in such a short period of time, and the teams that did took many years to pull out of it again. I dont know if patience with housley will pay will pay off or not, but I doo see some good things. There are obviously plenty of things that need to improve, too. But it when I look at this team, I’m not sure how much more any other coach could get out of them. I see a team lacking in a lot of areas. We have a top line and a bottom line. We have a below average defense and somewhere between average to below average goaltending of any given night (and when we had better goaltending, we were winning more games). I don’t think the Sabres are just a coach away from being a good team. Everyone wants Quenneville, but even he struggled in Chicago when he lost a good amount of his talent, or guys started to fall off (like Keith and Seabrook). I’m not opposed to Quenneville, don’t get me wrong. I’d be happy if we hired him (though I guarantee people would B word about his scratches and player usage too, and especially some veteran players he would decide to rely on) I am not someone who usually goes around calling for people to be fired though. I just go with the flow. All of these decisions are out of my hands, so I usually try to look for reasons to support my team/coach/GM as opposed to looking for reasons to fire them. I look for the positives. I am a happier person when I do that... lol. Sorry about the wall of text. I give you credit if you actually read the whole thing! lol

I have boxes full too and my plan is to just hold onto them and see what happens. Its not like I don’t have the room to store a few boxes away in my attic. I don’t see the point in just throwing them out. So I’ll let them sit and collect dust a while longer.

Tonight was a bad night for the Sabres playoff hopes. The Sabres don’t hold any games in hand on the teams in front of them currently and of the 3 games in hand they had on Montreal, they only made up 2 pts. Buffalo also got pushed down a spot in the standings tonight. Carolina won and they are now tied with buffalo at 54pts, but sit ahead of us in the standings. So now buffalo has to leapfrog 2 teams to get the last wildcard spot instead of one. https://www.nhl.com/standings/2018/wildcard Unless they go on another miraculous win streak, I think their playoff chances are probably shot for this season. On a positive note, a quote from Jim Rutherford (penguins GM) in an interview he gave to the athletic (on the Brassard trade) today (sub required) - https://theathletic.com/796329/2019/02/01/jim-rutherford-gives-details-explanation-of-blockbuster-deal-with-panthers/ Sounds like he really likes this year’s draft. I’ve heard/read that from a couple other GMs/scouts too, and Cory Pronman thinks the top 20 of this draft has a lot of high potential players. Looks like it may end up (hopefully) being a good year to have multiple 1sts. I doubt it will make up for that insanely deep 2015 draft, but hopefully it’ll go a long way towards doing so at least.

Yikes. I thought they may actually pull off the comeback for a minute there when it got within a goal, and then things just fell apart after Chicago scored #5.

It’s a game again! Housley with some nice adjustments that seem to have sparked the team. Credit where credit is due.

Mistakes are just killing this team. That seems to be the story almost every game. Risto just let Keith skate right by him and bury a prime rebound, and earlier Dahlin and Bogo left a man free right in front of the net that directly resulted in another goal against.

Pretty good start by Buffalo (8mins in) And boy... I forgot how little defense Chicago is playing these days.

I read/heard it so long ago that I honestly can’t remember where exactly I saw it. I know they mentioned it one time on the John Murphy show on WGR. But I also remember reading it somewhere. Ill try to hunt around for it when I get a chance later today/tomorrow.

I disagree completely with Schopp. 1) neither of Rex’s teams were better than last year’s Bills IMO. His best year was 8-8. Last year the Bills went 9-7 and made the playoffs for the first time in almost 2 decades, and they had a lot less raw talent than either of Rex’s teams did. 2) his offense was, for the most part, better than his defense during his time in Buffalo. The 2015 offense was #7 in scoring, and iirc I believe the 2016 offense was also top 10. How many times did we fans say “if only we had our 2014 defense with this 2015/16 offense...” ? If anything, I feel his defense held him back in his time here. 3) discipline definitely held the Bills back. They were one of the most penalized teams in the NFL (if not the most penalized). Penalties cost them wins in some games. I feel that The lack of discipline trickled throughout the entire team and showed in numerous forms. To name a few - effort level on the field, execution of play calls, a general level of confusion among the players, lack of preparation, and the list goes on... I believe that a lack of discipline showed up on game days and hurt the Bills.

https://www.nhl.com/news/fantasy-reaction-from-2019-nhl-all-stars/c-304213724?tid=277729150 I wonder if they’ll wait until after the trade deadline to finalize a deal with Skinner or if they’ll try to get it done before then just to be safe (though I can’t see him getting traded unless the contract gap is huge). Skinner can’t sign for 8 years until after the deadline. Max before the deadline is 7 years.

Rex ran a country club and put in minimal effort. He thought he could just give the players some inspiring speech on Sunday and they would go out and win. He was the last one in the building every day and the first to leave. He delegated much of his responsibility as a head coach. He was a disaster in NY, too. They’re still trying to recover.

Agreed. That goal should have counted if you go by the rule book. The red took all of 2 seconds to review it, too. There were only 2 damn games in the whole NHL tonight. Why couldn’t it have been reviewed in Toronto? Seems like a better idea than letting the red who made the call review it... Goaltender interference is like the catch rule in the NFL. Nobody seems to know what the hell it is and everyone calls/reviews it differently.

These refs are absolutely brutal tonight. Sooo many calls that should have gene made against Dallas. This was one of the worst - And I counted at least 3 blatant slashes that went uncalled. 2 of them even interfered with a shot/scoring chance. If you Shawn a guy in the hands when he is trying to take a shot in net, it is called for a penalty 10 times out of 10.

Getting hit pretty hard where I’m at. My snowblower died, too (figures, right?). The damn starter gear is stripped of something. Ive shoveled about 5 times in the last 2 days. I’m running out of places to pile it up. lol

My guess would be that He’s a proven veteran who is well respected in the room and by the coaching staff, and is one of the only players on this team with significant playoff experience (he probably has the most playoff experience out of any Sabres player). He’s also relied on to play on the penalty kill (that is ranked #9 in the NHL). He’s #2 among defenseman in average minutes per game on the penalty kill. Plus, it’s a lot easier to scratch a young, unproven player like Pilut vs a well respected veteran. Scandella has earned his stripes in the NHL. He’s proven to be a top 4/6 defenseman over the past 8 years of his NHL career. Younger players tend to get scratched more often than older, proven veterans. The vets are usually given more leeway in their mistakes and time when they are struggling. It is not a unique situation to Buffalo. We may not like it as fans, but it happens all over the NHL almost every night. Unless the young player is a top draft pick, they are usuallly required to “earn their stripes”. And Every single fan base around the NHL has at least 1 player that they don’t understand why their coach keeps playing. Every fan base has their whipping boy(s). Even the very best coaches around the NHL have players that they rely on that make their fan bases bang their heads against a wall. There are well documented complaints of this against Babcock, Quenneville, Trotz, Cooper, Boudreau, etc etc. It was a common complaint about Lindy Ruff for years, too.

There’s actually quite a few intriguing names out there right now. Very interested to see what direction the Bills go.

lol. ‘Corsi For’ percentage (basically measures puck possession and/or offensive zone possession. It’s the share of all shots for and against while Dahlin is on the ice) and ‘Scoring Chances For’ percentage. I’m not the most knowledgeable person when it comes to these advanced stats but both numbers/percentages are considered pretty exceptional. Anthing over 50% is considered a solid Corsi number, and an elite corsi for % is usually considered to be anything over 55%. I didn’t mean to imply that Eichel didn’t have a good game. I just meant that we won, and scored 5 goals, on a night where Eichel only had a single assist. It wasn’t just him carrying the team out there last night.