OFFICIAL Buffalo Sabres Thread

aight… on the board now. lets keep it goin

looks like it worked holy good goal by danny

hahahah so maybe putting my maxim jersey on was a good thing…

good pressure… way to stay with it

SWEEEEEEET, Brierre for the hat trick? i called it.

no distinct kicking motion. goal.

shit, at least the empty netter didn’t go in.

if only they didnt get that stupid lame first goal that bounced off the boards weird :bloated:

well it was one hell of an attempt

Vanek played like shit tonight, they missed alot of opportunities cause he coulden’t seem to control the puck at all. It was his shoot out bs from last night all game.

Yeah vanek has been playing like absoloute shit lately he may have gotten a shitty deflection in here and there but he missed the biggest changes to make a game like 6- nothing easy , hes just not quick enough and cant handle that good under pressure like briere max, or drury.

Tied for the team lead in goals, averaging a point per game for the season, and he’s +24 (best on the team, 2nd in the NHL). I’m not about to jump on him for having an off night here or there. And he actually played a pretty good game yesterday, outside of the shootout.

I hate to say it, but I’m beginning to see similarities between Vanek and Jagr. Not that Vanek is even close to Jagr in skill level, just that both seem to take nights off, but when they do come to play, they are forces. Vanek has always seemed to be a lazy player to me, and while he is having the best year of his career this year, imagine how many points he would have if he put forth a more consistent effort. Just imagine if you combined Vanek’s ability with Drury’s determination and never say die relentless play??!?

Exactly. if he was a little quicker in front of the net or handled a little better sometimes ,and was more awake out there and put a little more effort in, he would have like 30 goals

Dude, really? He’s gonna make a run at both 50 goals and 100 points.

Not to mention, lazy players don’t tend to top the +/- chart. You’re way overreacting to one off night.

He missed no less than 4 passes yesterday, every one of them was a normal pass, not jumping or anything. This is not his first bad night. The guy is still awesome but he does have off nights. If he was more consistant he would be twice as good.

:word: Exactly
i havent missed one game this whole season and i notcied his game has just slowly started to drop. I mean hes an awesome player and has the potential to be one of the best in the league its just dissapointing to see him screw up a perfect shot on an open net because he couldnt tap it in quick enough or he loses an easy pass for a break away shot sevral times almost every game lately.

Nor have I. He isn’t the only guy who has hot and cold streaks. No one is on every night.

But missing very easy passes a hand full of times in a single game is not good. It was a fairly important game since it was a division game and it is good to enter the break on a win. This game could have also been game 7 of the first round, its much less excuseable then but he also had “cold streaks” there last year.

You guys need to consider that Vanek hasn’t been playing on his normal line due to Hecht and Novo being hurt. If Vanek is still playing poorly when those players come back and he is back on his normal line, then you can be worried about his play.

I’m too lazy to do the search. Are the people against Vanek the same ones who were ready to bail on Lydman last year? I still laugh about that because Lydman is our second best defenseman, behind Tallinder. That’s your top D line and when Ruff tries to match lines they play the other teams best.

All players have off games. And most players look worse when you force them to play with different linemates because of shifting lines around.

You can’t expect these guys to come out and give 100% for 82 games. If they did they’d make the playoffs and get eliminated because they’d be beat up and injured.

I just want to see them do “ok”, then get a decent hot streak at the end of the regular season to sure top spot in the East going into the playoffs.

as i hockey player, i can tell u first hand that its frustrating for a player to get swapped in and out of lines.

chemistry is not just about if one person’s head is in it. A lot of times you see some seriously nice passes going on and it appears that the players dont even look when they pass. Well thats because they play with the same players over and over. They know where the guy is going to be and they know their assignments. Some lines have better chemistry then others. If you cant be sure that you can connect on a risky pass, and you end up holding the puck for too long and taking a hit, you turn over the puck. In the beginning of the season the sabres were playing very explosive hockey. They made split second passes that always went on the stick. You dont see that kinda stuff happening as much anymore and its causing a lot of turnovers and dead breakouts.