In 2006, we had the opportunity to tie Carolina 3-3 on the power play late in game 7.

No luck.

In 2007, Ottawa dominated us in special teams, easily bouncing us from the conference finals 4 games to 1.

Now, in 2010, our first trip back to the playoffs since those two season, we were bounced by Boston because of our sudden inability to kill a penalty, and our pathetic excuse for a power play.

Anyone else sick of losing playoff series because of special teams?

Goal totals from this playoff series: Boston 16, Buffalo 15.

Power Play goals: Boston 6, Buffalo 0.

Had those roles been reversed, the totals would read: Boston 10, Buffalo 21.

Which team would have won the series then?

It's about time this organization brings in an assistant coach who can teach this team to play opportunistic, because that's what the playoffs are all about.

Say what you want about how Buffalo played against Boston in this series, but as you can see, if the special teams battle was flip flopped, we'd be talking about Buffalo and Montreal playing each other in round two.

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Wheelhouse

buffalo could have won that series in 5. seriously, buffalo was the better team in alot of areas. in others, not so much. i dont think the sabres lost the series as much as boston simply won. buffalo played hard, and well. it just didnt happen. its not like they were a no-show.

keep your heads up, a few tweaks, and some aging from the youngsters, the sabres are a team to be reckon with next season.

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I disagree. I think the Caps were the best team for sure this season, and look what happened to them. The refs disallowed a tieing goal in game 7, sounds all too familiar.

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The Bruins were a sickening 30% on the PP. Even if we held them to 15 or 20%, without any PP goals of our own, it's a whole different series. Lack of PK was most disappointing to me because that was our strength all year. We all knew the PP sucked and wasn't going to produce.

You're correct, but my point is, both areas need to be addressed; especially the power play.

If you give up a goal, you have to be able to respond when your chance comes, or you'll lose, just as we have in all three of these playoff series mentioned above.

If management had the stones to dump McCutcheon and bring in someone who can work the power play, that could potentially be our most important offseason acquisition.

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Wheelhouse

Lets face it this year the sabres penalty killing which was one of the best in the league ended up surrendering 5 or 6 goals and with Hecht out because he's usually on the penalty kill if that had something to do with that. Plus the sabres powerplay was pathetic not one goal. In a close series like that you have to take advantage of the powerplay like Boston did and that's why they advanced.

That's a bit of an oversimplification, wouldn't you say?

We can look at every series and reverse special teams scoring and change many outcomes.

It's kind of a given.

Keep all of Boston's PP goals, and just use our average for the year of 18% or whatever it was. That gives up at least 4 goals on the PP.

It wasn't our PK sucked, we only played 6 games, it was our PP couldn't get the job done. We score a few on the PP and we win the series, but that now gives Regeir and Ruff a chance to look at that part of the team and see if it was coaching or just the players, or was it a mix of both?

Washington was the number one team in the league on the PP, they scored one PP goal in their 7 game series, in around 30 or more chances. They were the same way, had they scored a few PP goals, we'd see them over Washington.

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Now you KNOW it doesn't necessarily work out that way, right?

It's sports, and the human psyche always plays a part: If Buffalo HAD scored some PP goals, don't you think Boston would have pushed even harder? Same reason why there's usually so much more effort and energy in the last 2 minutes of a close game. Same reason why a team that has gone 2 periods without scoring, somehow manages to get a goal in the last 30 seconds.

It's not as simple as flipping or reversing stats.

I don't think our PP woes are due to ineffective Assistant Coaching...I would say it has more to do with not having the right personnel on the ice to get the job done. We're missing a great playmaker like Briere (Connolly shows flashes of this, but nothing consistent). And we're also missing a legitimate PP QB to work the blueline...we've been missing that for a LOOONNGGG time. I mean, you know there's a problem when one of our PP units has Rivet and Lydman on the point.

I would say Spacek was the closest thing we had to a QB back there, but he was getting over his prime when he left us.

Myers could turn into the guy we're looking for, but it won't be for another 2-3 years down the line.

It's time for some people to lose their jobs.

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"Counting all the assholes in the room, I'm definitely not alone!" ~ Michael Poulsen, Volbeat, Still Standing.

I'm not flipping or reversing stats. I'm saying had our PP actually scored a few goals it could have been different, would it, who knows because we didn't score on the PP, but given confidence in the PP it would have helped. Even if our PK remained the same but we would have scored at least 5 or 6 PP goals also, we wouldn't be sitting here twiddling our thumbs trying to figure what we could do for next season, we would most likely be in the playoffs still.

You also forgot the rest of my post, Washington scored 1 PP goal in their 7 games, do you think had they scored the same amount of PP goals Montreal scored they would be sitting outside playing golf now? They had 30 chances and went with only one. They played in 5 or 6 one goal games, had their PP scored in those they lost, it would have changed the outcome also.

You always try to turn everything everyone says into what you are trying to say and you are just a true pessimist who can't ever look into the good of anything at all. You're too focused on one point only, like the whole Savard coming back and forgetting Vanek was out and Hecht was also and how that could have changed our team for the better, you focus on one point and whenever someone brings up the others, you don't respond back.

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You think I'm a pessimist? Well I think you and some others are blind, rose-colored-glasses wearing, double-standard-applying optimists. No matter what the sitaution, you try and downplay another teams strengths and/or disclaim their burdens, while overstating your favorite teams abilities.

This goes on in politics all the time, so it doesn't surprise me that it goes on in sports. But if you're going to call me out when I'm just trying to be reasonable, then I'll call you out when you're clearly being a homer.

in all fairness, both sides have a point.

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Powerplayer, I do wear glasses so that doesn't matter.

It's sports, what else are you suppose to do, if you always say your teams suck why even watch it in the first place or be a fan?

We want to improve our team, but the only way we can talk about a failure is to try and bring it up and say if it happened we'd be better, because we would be, which you also don't see. We scored 15 5-on-5 goals, and four games ended with a one goal differential, excluding the empty net goal in game two. We score 5 PP goals, we could easily go on to tie any one of those games or win them. But we didn't so we lost do to an ineffective powerplay, it wasn't our PK, more so the PP not connecting on their opportunities.

Everyone should be an optimist in sports, why not? Being a realist is simply saying you are a pessimist who can't ever see the possible good in such a thing. I'm realistic about this team, do you think I thought they would win the cup? No, but you have to hope they do because hoping for a first round loss or expecting it is worse then hoping they win the cup.

Everyone should want their team to win the cup before the season and even when they enter the playoffs, because anything can happen, you can have hot goalie shut down the number one offense, or you can have the worst rank offense beat a very good team and have a ridiculous PP rate against the number 2 PK in the league.

It's the playoffs, anything can happen in a 7 game series, and not always does the better team actually win, it's the team that's gets it together the quickest or gets hot at the right time.

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Someone's on their period.

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"Counting all the assholes in the room, I'm definitely not alone!" ~ Michael Poulsen, Volbeat, Still Standing.

Someone with a more optimistic opinion of something doesn't make them a homer. If you're going to complain about people being too optimistic, then people have every right to complain about you being too negative.

As terrible, horrible, pathetic, whatever you want to say the Sabres played in this series, it still took Boston 6 games to close it out, and 5 of those games were 1 goal games that could have gone either way. Boston was not as good as many are making them out to be, and the Sabres were not as bad either. It's a completely reasonable opinion that a PP goal here or there might have had a significant difference on the outcome.

The most common statement used by someone who takes a generally negative position is 'Hey, I'm just being realistic'. It's a pretty weak argument to take. A negative opinion is no more realistic than a positive one.

They're all just opinions.

Squanto, I was addressing the facts of the subject at hand and ONLY until someone decided to attack me persoanlly for my opinion did I respond to defend myself. I am not a doormat. I defy anyone to point out where I was accusing anybody of being anything until then.

That's the M.O. around here: I give an opinion, some don't like it and start attacking me personally, I defend myself, then am accused of creating the problem. Amazing.

Dude your title is "brawler."

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Wheelhouse

For fuck's sake, get over yourself man. People disagreed with you. You were not personally attacked. The WORST thing said to you was Skyline said you were a pessimist. You responded by calling him a many adjectived optimist.

You have a hard time separating personal attacks from simple disagreement.