We went from playoffs, to no playoffs, to no playoffs, to playoffs. We went worse, worse, better.

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

Let me recap for you:

07-08: Fresh start. No Briere or Drury signed to ridiculous contracts. Regier decided to go young. This was the first season our new, young core players had to perform as top line talent; something that takes quite some time to adjust to. He tied up Vanek, and the Sabres missed the playoffs by a mere 2 points.

08-09: Minor tweaks, same core. Vanek had a monster season, Miller, had a slightly off year, Hecht and Tallinder were terrible, and then Van and Mills were injured and the team struggled to stay afloat with Lalime between the pipes. Despite that issue, the team improved, and still only missed the playoffs by two points. Had Miller and Vanek not been injured, we would have landed in the 7th or 8th seed. Trending up.

09-10: Buffalo again makes minor tweaks. They have more young guys inserted into the lineup in Kennedy and Myers. Guys stay relatively healthy. We win our division and make the playoffs for the first time since 06-07.

Still, this is the first playoff appearance for much of our roster, and it's the first time our core players have had to be THE guys in the playoffs. Compared to last season, we're again trending up.

This team is getting better, not worse. And they'll keep getting better.

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Wheelhouse

Back to the Gerbe in for Torres thing...

Why? Was Torres hurt in the last game? I mean, Gerbe doesn't look to be a good option against the Bruin goons otherwise. Perhaps listening to the games on the radio gives you a different "feel" for the game; I was under the impression that Torres has been (at least) okay. He stands up for himself & teammates, right? I fear that little Gerbe is going to get smeared tonight.

So what happened?

I have to disagree.

Career playoff games played entering the 2009-2010 playoffs, Forwards:

Connolly 24
Roy 34
Pom 34
Vanek 26
Mair 29
Goose 25
Torres 26
Ellis 0
Kaleta 0
Grier 88
Stafford 10
McCormick 4


Aside from Ellis/Kaleta/McCormick , EVERY SINGLE FORWARD has double digits in playoff games under their belts. This is not their first rodeo. They're just not stepping up the the challenge in the playoffs.

Wow.

First of all, I will not respond to your insulting tone with an insult, because I am not ALLOWED to do that here, I just have to take it. (and some here complain about double standard officiating!)

Nice.

Secondly, THE POINT IS, this team's core SHOULD NOT BE this teams core....that is if you have any desire for a cup.

OF COURSE you sign your core (!), but THIS CORE isn't good enough. Many recognized that 2 years ago.

I'm not saying this isn't their first ride shot at the playoffs altogether.

But our main problem so far this series has been scoring. Which means we point to the top six.

Stafford, Roy, Connolly, Vanek, Pominville, Hecht.

Two are out injured, one may/may not still be injured, and still has trouble with conditioning because of it, one has struggled this whole season and also just came back from injury, and the other two are left to play top minutes against the top defense.

While Roy, Connolly, Pominville, and Stafford have all played in the playoffs, they haven't played this many minutes, and they haven't played on the top two lines like they are now.

No one just steps into this role and succeeds overnight.

Take a look at Pittsburgh. Crosby didn't do anything during the finals against the Wings because they had their top pairings on him.

Malkin, who got to play against the 2nd line, is the one that did all the scoring.

That's why depth is so important. And when 4/6 of your top players are out of the lineup or injured and not in good shape, you're going to struggle to score goals.

Combine that with the fact that we have a rookie who has played 10 games in the NHL on our top two lines (a very talented one, but still) and what do you think's going to happen?

This isn't the same for them as the 05-06 and 06-07 playoffs, and you heard it from Ruff himself. They've got to be the guys, and it's the first time they've had to be the guys in the playoffs.

We saw first hand how experience in these situations pays dividends in the way Grier is playing, and in the play Recci made on Kennedy for that game winning goal.

Point is, you can't argue against the steady improvement we've seen out of these players over the past 3 seasons, and I have every reason to believe that things will continue to get better for them.

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Wheelhouse

I have no sympathy for Connolly. He hasn't scored a goal in the playoffs since 2006. Conditioning or not, he disappears when the chips are down.

I have no sympathy for Stafford. He's regressed over the last couple of years, and also has done nothing in the playoffs.

My point is that in 05-06 and 06-07, these guys saw what it took to dig deep and earn it in the playoffs. Now that it's their turn, they're not taking the bull by the horns and doing it themselves. They had 36 playoff games in 05/06 and 06/07 where they could just go along for the ride. If they're not stepping up to carry the mail now, they're not going to just figure it out.

... But they are stepping up. The effort has been there. We've only trailed for 20 minutes in this series.

It hasn't been a lack of skating, or an unwillingness to hit and take hits.

More or less, it's about learning which decisions are good and which ones are bad this time of year.

Contrary to popular belief, players do figure things out.

I'm not trying to pick on you specifically Squanto, but I don't understand the logic behind, "If they haven't done this yet, they'll never do it."

That's completely false. Players learn things. They get hungrier. They build desire. We're not talking about one trick ponies or inanimate objects here.

Ryan Miller came into the league and didn't earn Vezina talk until this season.

Sidney Crosby didn't lead the Penguins to the playoffs in his first season.

Ray Bourque didn't win a cup until his final season in the NHL.

The notion that these guys have plateaued is silly. We still have a lot more to get out of them.

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Wheelhouse

I enjoy the debate my man, don't sweat it.

Gerbe goes to skate through Chara's legs, misjudges the low bridge, catches Chara right in the nads, blows up both his testies... and knocks the big goon out of the rest of the series... yep, ill take me some gerbe de-nutting chara, lol

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adam, you are mentioning legendary superstars. this team has none of those.

ive said it once, ill say it again. its not a problem of having roy, or stafford, or pominville. the problem is building around these guys. they are not foundations, but support players.

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And now I think its safe to say the Torres experiment has failed

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just call me Brad

Twitter @BUrbanowicz13

I swear, sabresbillsfan has to be one of the least intelligent people I've ever heard of

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When I was a boy I spoke as a boy, I understood as a boy, and I thought as a boy; when I became a man I took that boy outside and shot him.

Soooo good call by Ruff, right?

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Wheelhouse

Midget brought his game tonight, very impressive

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"Let's just trap Sekera in the caverns underneath HSBC arena." -BlueandYellow

Reporter: "Steve, you guys now lead the league in defensive scoring."
Montador: "It's probably because of how good-looking we are."

Um....

People were clamoring left and right for him to be locked up long term. Someone else can dig up the thread from the WSOD if they want, but I remember pretty decent excitement when he was inked. I could be wrong though.

Certainly 5.5M looks pretty crappy now. I think Him, Tallinder, and Lydman are the worst contracts on the team, even with Tallinder and Lydman playing well this past year.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

I dont object to locking up pominville, but I never once thought he was worth that much money. Maybe half that much. I truly do not understand why he got so much cash.

How about cuz he was PPG at the time, and coming off of two very productive seasons.

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mechaphil