The cold hard truth is that they were not built for a long grueling playoff run. The Sabres were a great regular season team, lots of speed. But in the playoffs you have to be big and strong to survive, few teams if any have ever won a Stanley Cup playing nothing but pond hockey. It was not for a lack of effort, they played hard but you can only throw yourself into a wall so many times before you get tired of picking yourself back up again.

There's a TON of positive things surrounding this team, and in this cap era weaknesses can be corrected quickly. You don't need the 84' Oilers to win a Cup, but the solution starts at the top. Pressure from ownership to seriously win It. Wise management, and on down the line. I haven't payed a great deal of attention to how the Sabres run their shop up until now, but I watched a great GM by the name of Craig Patrick build a mini-dynasty in Pittsburgh (and maintain it). So I think I know what it takes. Ray Shero is a good young GM, I don't agree with everything he does but he's good. He hasn't undone any of the rebuilding, but I think any GM could win with what the Pens acquired over the lean years.

What I would do, find a way to trade for Malkin!

Vanek+Stafford+1st round draft pick for Malkin,

Then you got your triple M core of Malkin, Miller, and Myers. Build around that.

dont tell this to Darcy. otherwise the line-up is going to be the exact same next year...

Malkin, Miller, Ennis, Myers, Gerbe, Kaleta, Kennedy, Kassian, Weber, plus others... Sounds pretty nice.

People love their stats but we all watched the games. Except for game 5, this team was dominated and kept in it by Miller. So yes Boston scored but one more goal but it could have been and should have been a 4-1 series win with Boston crushing the Sabres in all games but 5. If anyone thinks that Rask outplayed Miller in this series they are wrong. The Sabres shots primarily from the outside with no traffic and no pursuit of rebounds. Bruins shots were either in close or good shots from the point with traffic.

This TEAM needs to improve. We have a great goaltender and a really bad team. But how do you trade bad players and get anything? I'm afraid it is going to have to come from within the organization or make trades just to free up cap space and sign outsiders (not Darcy's strength).

No need for violence, just tell her she's got a game misconduct and show her the door.

As I said in the GDT, the call on Rivet was horseshit. The Bruins player was holding onto Rivet's stick like it was the last fucking raft on the Titanic.

No this team did not play even with Boston. It simply did not. Again, the score was close and the shots were close but in all but Game 5, the Sabres were being pressed the entire game and were bailed out in Game 1 by Miller.

And the power play is part of the game and perhaps the most important part of the game so I don't know how we can say things were even when the Sabres were smoked on special teams. That's like saying the Bills would have won a Super Bowl if they'd had good special teams (kicker). They didn't and that is something that needs to be improved.

The great news is the Sabres have the hardest piece of the puzzle to get (a reliable goaltender). They also have a future great defenseman and some decent talent. However, they have got some parts that need to go as they bring down the intensity of the entire team (Connolly, Stafford) Didn't anyone else enjoy watching this team a lot more at the end of the regular season when those guys were out?