2023020027
BUF loses, 2 – 3 .
[NHL.com Boxscore](https://www.nhl.com/gamecenter/2023020027)
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40 Comments
Closer to something but man that one was painful. Can blame the refs all we want but too many guys are sleeping, the top line hasn’t clicked, and we have won a total of 7 face offs all year. At least Greenway is a dawg
Insanely frustrating but not embarrassing, so at least we got that going for us
I am once again asking for faceoffs to be addressed. 38% just wont cut it in the long run
Better game. Starting to get their groove.
Two games against playoff teams last year, two regulation losses. Demoralizing start to the season. Not much else to say.
I know people don’t want to hear this but our 3rd (1st) line doing this well is so good for the rest of our season. Our top guys won’t be in a funk forever.
Get Olofsson off this team. Dude is fucking useless. Rather Jost be up.
Our third line looks better than our first and second combined
They create chances they just don’t know how to finish consistently enough. So frustrating
Nothing like missing the playoffs by 1 point then losing your first 2 games in regulation
Well we looked much better than last game. Top line needs to start connecting or I can see Benson getting swapped with Tuch, or even Mittlestaedt with Tage. Oh well.
Lost to a no goal. Clearly a high stick.
Defense gotta start limiting shots and offense gotta finish. Better than game 1 though and Levi did more than his share to keep us in it today.
Thompson is going to take another 5 games before he starts burying goals :/
Death taxes and the nhl allowing illegal gwg’s for the islanders vs the Sabres
This was a better game but I can’t help but feel frustrated at the fact that there wasn’t a penalty called against the islanders until near the end of the third period and we got that completely weak penalty that wasn’t even tripping
Don’t take this comment extremely seriously but Granato really needs to step up here. Team defense still looks extremely poor, his utilization of his players doesn’t make sense a lot of the time, you can’t put Olofsson out on a D Zone start 1 minute after scoring a goal, I dont think he’s ever won a coaches challenge, and he never seems to know when it’s appropriate to pull the goalie. Its just little things (except team defense), that keep drowning the Sabres.
Our division is too competitive to be losing 2 straight away
less than 50 seconds of powerplay time against a team that essentially clutch and grabs the whole game? give me a break. this league has a lot of issues with consistency. almost unwatchable at times.
God I fucking hate the Islanders.
Cozens has been absolute ass.
We played pretty well overall I think though. These two games are just setups playing agains too 5 goalies and 1-3-1 systems. I think things should open up now.
Greenway is playing out of his mind right now. That whole 3rd line is buzzing. Our best line at the moment by far. Bensons let’s 2 assists and there’s no shot he goes back to juniors. Levi played well enough for us to win tonight easily. Made a lot of key stops.
Overall liked this game better than NYR. Olofsson still shown to be invisible. Joker was fine tonight.
We ride again.
Didn’t even play that bad but YOU HAVE TO STOP GIVING UP 3+ GOALS
Our “momentum killed by refs” per 60 is fucking absurd
I’m not gonna stress this too much, early szn hockey is a weird thing, Boone Jenner got a Hatty. Last szn the flyers started off scorching hot then cratered, the devils lost their first two games 5-2, fans chanted fire lindy and then ripped off 16 of 17. We will be fine, they looked much better than what we saw against the rags, greenway benson mitts line has that dawg in them
Thompson and Cozens – what the fuck
A lot more encouraging of a game from the Sabres. Officials are in midseason form and Levi looks great. Not a good start but the season will always have ebbs and flows, i think they’ll rebound against whoever Tampa has in net Tuesday.
Our 2nd line has been awful. I have no idea why they keep trying to make Olofsson work. Also they need to be ready to play. They have given up terrible goals in the first period of these two games.
There’s 79 games left I think we need to relax a bit
Granato is a great coach for player development but my concern about him being unable to match up tactically with the big boys in the NHL is growing with every game.
And his line-up decisions are often puzzling at times. If Olofsson is in for Jost next game I’m officially gonna panic.
Tage, Dahlin and Skinner are dressing up for Halloween too soon 👻
Seriously, These guys need to wake up or it’s going to get ugly.
I miss jack quinn.
Clifton with a minus 3 tonight pretty brutal game for him
Well, it was better. Benson-Mitts-Greenway line looked legit.
Sucks to lose that one, but you could see the fight in them that grinding out some close games last year.
Mittelstadt is really making his mark. That third line is easily their second line at this point.
Benson is an absolute animal. I don’t think he has Quinn’s upside, but he’s going to be an awesome and underrated player his entire career.
Power was the best blue liner on the team tonight, again. I made the hot take that he’d be the top gun by mid-season, but I might have been wrong.
Levi is an absolute stud. I know I wanted him in Rochester to start, but if tonight is any indication, he’s going to carry the team to wins they don’t deserve.
Krebs is a guy. He’s 100% being crushed by Okposo.
Speaking of (and onto the negatives)
Okposo is garbage. He’s slow and constantly a step behind.
Olofsson is potentially worse.
Clifton+Johnson<Bryson+Boosh
Cozens and his line should have been buried on the bench for the third.
Granato made some huge mistakes. Challenging that goal with all the time his team had to look at it was absolutely brutal. Waiting as long as he did to pull Levi, not good. Continuing to run Cozens and company out there, including putting Cozens on for the final 30 seconds, was just bad.
Not saying it’s a bad thing, but it looks a lot like last year: in a tight game where they claw back into it, they ultimately drop it late. It makes sense considering they decided to largely run it back, both on and behind the bench. Long season, onto Tampa.
Hello? Cozens? You still at the strip club?
Team played noticeably better tonight. Greenway is good. Benson is gonna stay for the whole season. Oloffson should never have been on this final roster. Levi looked better, first goal he should have stopped despite the unlucky bounce that caused the odd man rush, can’t fault him for the other two though. Clifton is not as good as I was expecting him to be, hopefully he’ll get better as we go. It’d be so sick if our actually good center depth could win any faceoffs at all.
Yeah, if we could stop spotting the other teams a couple goals that’d be great.
The downside to testing out so many young pups in the preseason is that everyone else is still rusty. I’m glad we discovered Benson was worthy a shot but wish we’d gotten the rest of the team shaken loose.
Yeah this season is done. The top two lines have no points in two games. The supposed super star D-men that just got huge contracts have only one point each over the same span. They look completely listless. They’ve been outscored 8-3 in the first two games. It’s not Levi’s fault but he’s supposed to be the kind of goalie that can steal games for you, and tonight should easily have been one of those kinds of games. The Isles don’t have much firepower, but because the Sabre D is so bad they still managed 3 goals tonight. The worst of it is that Don Granato’s coaching method is sitting on his hands and hoping the guys figure it out themselves. No leadership, no direction, no identity. This is what I get for getting my hopes up, I suppose.