@davedavishockey

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@davedavishockey (Kukla's Korner)

Sabres Fans Unfairly Criticized Yet Again

3/27/2017

They've been blamed for the poor atmosphere at KeyBank Center, scorned by fans and even Sabres players for booing, and mocked by many for leaving games early. As if that isn't enough, now many of them are getting unwarranted flak regarding Saturday night's tilt against Toronto. It was a great game in front of a packed house. Nearly half in attendance were Leafs fans. It was Hockey Night in Canada, except that it was in Buffalo. There was plenty of blue and white and not as much blue and gold. The fact that a large number of season ticket holders had the audacity to resell their seats, for enough money in many cases to make a car payment or feed a family of four for a week, did not sit well with the hockey-is-holier-than-thou contingent. There were non-paying Sabres fans spewing venom via twitter from the comfort of their living rooms in front of their televisions. Hard-working fans were being shamed and tagged as money grabbers. It was even suggested that cashing out for this game should be grounds for season ticket account revocation. This whole act is just ridiculous and deplorable. Being trolled by visiting Leafs fans pales in comparison to all of the garbage criticism that loyal Sabres fans who financially and emotionally support this heartbreaking team have had to put up with. Conform. Stand up and cheer despite your team being doubled in shots and looking lost. Even when the players you paid to see are clearly taking the night off, no booing is permitted. Regardless of when you have to get up in the morning, you stay until the final horn. And don't you dare resell your tickets. Enough already.
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@davedavishockey (Kukla's Korner)

Bylsma’s Future In Buffalo Looks Bleak

3/8/2017

In his last 6 starts, Robin Lehner is 1-3-2 with a 3.94 GAA and a save percentage of .874. He's given up at least 5 goals in 3 of those 6 games. Yet at no point has Dan Bylsma dared to test fate by pulling him. Not after falling behind 3-0 almost 2 weeks ago to Colorado in the first period, not last night after the second period when his underperforming goaltender was behind 4-2 in a still-winnable game against the Flyers, and at no point in between. It's not crazy to think the January 17th fiasco in Toronto, when Lehner was posing for selfies by the bench and then staring down his coach after playing horribly and being yanked, is still in his head. Lehner made it very clear after that game that he always wants to keep fighting and not be taken out in those situations, sensible shake-things-up-to-jump-start-your-team strategies be damned.  Meanwhile, the once radical theory that Sabres players are consciously or subconsciously diverting a bit from the coaching staff's game plans -- out of confusion, inability, rebellion or indifference -- is actually starting to gain some legs. There just isn't another reasonable answer available to the question of how so many defensive zone lapses can occur so often in so many games. Last night's parting of the Red Sea for Claude Giroux is Exhibit A. In a nutshell, the inmates are running the asylum. Bylsma seems unable or unwilling to force his imprint on this group. He does not appear to have control of his team. And it doesn't fare well at all for his future in Buffalo.
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@davedavishockey (Kukla's Korner)

Sabres Trade Deadline Day Forecast: Calm

2/23/2017

The NHL trade deadline is six days from today, and there's a strong likelihood it won't be much of a big deal in Buffalo. Hey, you can never totally count out Tim Murray from having something secretive up his sleeve, but the list of prominent Sabres who could be dealt is looking pretty weak right about now.
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@davedavishockey (Kukla's Korner)

The Sabres Appear To Have A Maturity Problem

2/13/2017

You can add Robin Lehner's postgame tirade in the Sabres dressing room last night to the growing list of episodes revealing some issues between the ears with this team. Jack Eichel implicitly calls out fans who were booing during a poor stretch of a recent game against the Sharks which Buffalo eventually came back to win. What we think are big foundation-building wins against good teams are followed by absolute stinkers against the league's lesser lights. The act of successfully completing a line change is often an adventure. But Lehner using the media as his personal soapbox to lay into his teammates, including a veiled reference to two of the most productive in Eichel and Evander Kane, really takes the cake. Playing very well for a couple of weeks has apparently further deteriorated his filter with the press. The passion was great, but the method was terrible. I couldn't possibly dislike what Lehner did any more.
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@davedavishockey (Kukla's Korner)

The Twelve Greatest Sabres of All Time

1/30/2017

What started out as a debate on Phil Housley not being selected as one of the 100 Greatest NHL Players of All Time turned into this piece. I made it clear on hockey twitter that I agreed with Housley not making the list, mentioning that the offensive defenseman isn't even one of the top ten Sabres in history. A number of disgruntled fans, most of whom likely never saw Housley play and based their opinions on stats from a career points leaders list, found fault with this and asked for my All-Time Sabres Top Ten. I accept this challenge head-on, with a caveat that I can only narrow it down to twelve. I can't in good conscience take any more Sabres greats off the list. It's perfect just the way it is. In the spirit of this weekend's format of the NHL Greatest 100, these legends are unranked but sorted by era. This is the #SabresDozen -- the 12 Greatest Buffalo Sabres of All Time:
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@davedavishockey (Kukla's Korner)

Sabres Can’t Luxury Shop Without Clearing Cap Room

6/21/2016

We're looking at a decent crop of free agents and players on the trading block this offseason, and Buffalo is certainly one of those teams looking to be buyers. With the Sabres rumored to be willing to plunk down $12M per season for Steven Stamkos (you can take that one or leave it, but it is from Darren Dreger), and with a glaring need to find a top-end defenseman to pair with Rasmus Ristolainen, this might be a good time to take a hard look at how much available credit is on the card. This is the time of year when many Sabres fans miscalculate what their team is dealing with in regards to the cap. Who can forget those recent past seasons when there was unfounded panic in the streets of Buffalo that the team wouldn't be able to reach the floor? But times have changed and the rebuild is over. And if Buffalo wants to sign a high end guy like Stamkos, it'll take a lot of work clearing out cap room to make it possible.
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@davedavishockey (Kukla's Korner)

Anger Over Eichel Calder Exclusion Is Overkill

4/7/2016

I get that Sabres fans love what they've seen from Jack Eichel this season -- count me in that group -- but some of the reaction over the phenom not getting serious consideration for the Calder Trophy has reached ridiculous levels. It's been pretty clear for most of the season, at least since Connor McDavid's injury, that Artemi Panarin has been the frontrunner for top rookie. Against a tidal wave of scrutiny from a portion of Buffalonian twitter followers, I took the bold step on a few occasions of merely bringing this up. Many writers and broadcasters near the top of the media totem pole have felt the same way. And king of them all Bob McKenzie last night said he surveyed 21 NHL GM's and got 18 votes for Panarin, 2 for McDavid and 1 for Dylan Larkin. Between that nugget and a twitter poll of hockey fans showing Eichel not listed in the top 4, you'd think from the response here that Buffalo is on the short end of the biggest conspiracy since No Goal. Folks, it's OK to love Eichel AND be simultaneously and humbly appreciative that there are some other very, very good candidates out there as well. There's no law against that. And, to be perfectly honest, most of those other rookies are more deserving.
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@davedavishockey (Kukla's Korner)

Is This Sabres Season A Success?

4/4/2016

From Howard Simon of WGR-550, The Sabres are 18-13-7 in the second half of the season.  That's 43 points in 38 games.  If you project that over an 82 game season, it comes out to 92 points which, if you were wondering, would have the Sabres in 3rd place in the Atlantic Division today and in a playoff spot. This doesn't mean General Manager Tim Murray doesn't have work to do.  He still needs to improve the offense by bringing in another scoring winger for one of the top two lines and another top four defenseman would be nice too. more
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@davedavishockey (Kukla's Korner)

Buzzkill In Buffalo Reveals Ongoing Problem

3/2/2016

The two greatest young superstars to come into the league since Crosby and Ovechkin. The opening faceoff. Finally. Despite their politically correct comments earlier in the day that it was about the teams and not the individuals, this moment was supposed to belong to both Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel. But when 97 went out to take the historic draw that would begin a 15-year rivalry with 15, Sabres coach Dan Bylsma chose strategy over good theater and sent out..... Johan Larsson. Coach should've opted for good theater. Just ask the hockey gods, who decided to have a little fun by seeing to it that the number of seconds it took for McDavid to score after that opening draw matched Larsson's uniform number. But, hey, any small trace of fun these days at First Niagara Center is to be treasured. There hasn't really been too much of it for what now seems like an eternity, which is what happens when the star attraction is a losing team playing boring hockey.
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@davedavishockey (Kukla's Korner)

The Key To Russ Brandon’s Success

7/28/2015

Russ Brandon would be more than willing to scream at the top of his lungs from the 38th row in the upper deck at Ralph Wilson Stadium about the pitfalls of maintaining the viability of an NFL franchise in a small market like Buffalo. He's talked about the importance of regionalization as if it were a lifeline. There were times, to be blunt, when he implicitly lamented about the need for patience and more support from Bills fans. But Brandon, who yesterday was named president of the Sabres, is too intelligent of a man not to be well aware of the obvious number one determining factor -- past, present and future -- in his success or failure. Winning. Think about it. After all of the fierce marketing efforts and initiatives that were implemented by Brandon, why did the Bills have fewer season ticket holders seven years after he was hired for his first high-level executive position with the team in 2006? Do you think seven straight losing seasons may have had something to do with it?
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@davedavishockey (Kukla's Korner)

Come September, Give Eichel Some Space

7/11/2015

Sitting a few rows behind the Gold Team bench at last night's scrimmage, I could see Jack Eichel say something to his coaches and teammates as he was huffing and puffing while skating off the ice after another rough shift. He had just lost two puck battles to Jean Dupuy and been knocked to the ice two other times from hard hits, all in a matter of 90 seconds. Without being a master lip reader, the look on Eichel's flushed face and his body language made it apparent he was muttering something along the lines of "I just don't have it tonight". After the media tours, corporate event speeches, filmed fitting sessions at athletic headgear stores, emotional visits with children at Roswell Park, hula-hooping demonstrations at Larkin Square, and all the while still looking like an electric ball of energy at development camp the entire week leading up to this climactic event, it's completely understandable that Eichel hit a wall.
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@davedavishockey (Kukla's Korner)

Sabres 30 Watch - Part 5: Goalies

6/26/2015

I've taken the liberty of reviewing 30 players -- free agents and others possibly available to acquire via trade -- for Sabres fans to watch this offseason. Some of them are on the list because I think they'd be a good fit in Buffalo, and others made it simply due to insider reports and the latest buzz from the hockey world. In Parts 1, 2,3 and 4 we went over defensemen. left-wingers, right-wingers and centers. Today, in our final segment, let's take a look at goalies.
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@davedavishockey (Kukla's Korner)

Sabres 30 Watch - Part 4: Centers

6/24/2015

I've taken the liberty of reviewing 30 players -- free agents and others possibly available to acquire via trade -- for Sabres fans to watch this offseason. Some of them are on the list because I think they'd be a good fit in Buffalo, and others made it simply due to insider reports and the latest buzz from the hockey world. In Parts 1, 2 and 3, we went over defensemen, left-wingers and right-wingers. Today, let's take a look at centers.
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@davedavishockey (Kukla's Korner)

Could the Blackhawks be the biggest team in Chicago?

6/23/2015

The following is a guest post from Betting Sports. It’s been one of the most exciting NHL seasons ever, and now, with the Chicago Blackhawks taking home the Stanley Cup this month, the future could be even better for the northern team.
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@davedavishockey (Kukla's Korner)

Sabres 30 Watch - Part 3: Right-Wingers

6/22/2015

I've taken the liberty of reviewing 30 players -- free agents and others possibly available to acquire via trade -- for Sabres fans to watch this offseason. Some of them are on the list because I think they'd be a good fit in Buffalo, and others made it simply due to insider reports and the latest buzz from the hockey world. In Parts 1 and 2, we went over defensemen and left-wingers. Today, let's take a look at right-wingers.
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@davedavishockey (Kukla's Korner)

Sabres 30 Watch - Part II: Left-Wingers

6/19/2015

I've taken the liberty of reviewing 30 players -- free agents and others possibly available to acquire via trade -- for Sabres fans to watch this offseason. Some of them are on the list because I think they'd be a good fit in Buffalo, and others made it simply due to insider reports and the latest buzz from the hockey world. In Part I, we went over a list of defensemen. Today, let's take a look at left-wingers.
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@davedavishockey (Kukla's Korner)

Sabres 30 Watch - Part 1: Defensemen

6/17/2015

Two years of misery finally in the rearview mirror, and the Sabres roster tear-down is complete. Buffalo has almost $30M in cap space to fill for the first season of the Jack Eichel era, so It's time to have fun and start shopping. I've taken the liberty of reviewing 30 hand-selected players -- free agents and others possibly available to acquire via trade -- for Sabres fans to watch this offseason. Many of them are on the list due to being the big names coming from the latest buzz around the hockey world, and others made it because I think they'd be a good fit in Buffalo. In today's first installment, let's look at defensemen.
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@davedavishockey (Kukla's Korner)

Bylsma Will Hopefully Be New And Improved

5/29/2015

Before reading any further, give an honest answer to this question: Do you want a coach who trusts his best players to use their abilities, think less on the ice and just read and react, or would you prefer a sophisticated system requiring them to process a lot of information on the fly? If you chose the first option, perhaps you can understand my one big concern about Dan Bylsma. When the Sabres announced the hiring of their new head coach yesterday, did they introduce a man with an unchanged mentality from when he lost a frustrated locker room in Pittsburgh, or someone who has progressed with the times and changed for the better? Is Bylsma going to let promising youngsters like Jack Eichel, Rasmus Ristolainen and Zemgus Girgensons use their natural talent to help them find their maximum upside, or will he overthink the game and drag his players into an abyss of analysis paralysis? He's not going to make Eichel play a dump-and-chase game, right?
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@davedavishockey (Kukla's Korner)

Report: Bylsma Deal With Sabres Is “Imminent”

5/28/2015

It's the worst kept secret in Buffalo, but Dan Bylsma is apparently going to be the next head coach of the Sabres.
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@davedavishockey (Kukla's Korner)

Babcock Courtship Was Just Bad Timing

5/21/2015

One of my guilty television addictions is "Shark Tank" ("Dragons' Den" in Canada), a show where successful and insanely wealthy investors hear pitches from ambitious entrepreneurs seeking funding to take their companies to another level. In many cases, the business owners are told they have a bright future ahead but aren't big enough -- not enough sales -- to get an investment just yet. That's metaphorically what happened when Mike Babcock spurned the Sabres yesterday. Many in Buffalo, from fans and media to apparently even some in the Sabres organization, are flabbergasted at The Coveted One choosing a Toronto franchise in turmoil. The methods and negotiating tactics of the former Detroit coach have certainly come under fire as well. Babcock departing the Red Wings has instantly reignited a Sabres - Leafs rivalry that hasn't been the same since the Rob Ray vs. Tie Domi days. Yesterday, fans and writers from both cities were sparring on social media over which team will sooner be a contender. And while this writer predicts Buffalo in a landslide, this is a time for Sabres fans to humbly and patiently accept a sobering reality. Toronto is Toronto, and Buffalo is Buffalo. You know where this is going.
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