Buffalo Sabres play the type of game vs Calgary that should get someone fired

Buffalo Sabres play the type of game vs Calgary that should get someone fired

Sabres lost a game that was a must-win. What should the consequences be? Coming up here on the Lockdown Sabres podcast. You’re Locked on Sabres, your daily podcast on the Buffalo Sabres, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. What is up everybody? Welcome in to this Thursday edition of the Locked On Sabers podcast. Thanks for making us your first listen every day. We are part of the Locked On podcast network, now the number one sports podcast network. You can listen to us wherever you get your podcast. You can watch the show on YouTube. Be sure to like and subscribe us there. And if you want to become a part of our locked on sabers text club, you could do that by heading over to joinsubtex.com/lockedon sabers. Sneaky Jody biosi following sabers flames 6-2 the final in favor of Calgary. We’ll get to all that happened in the game. What should come of this game, what we heard in the locker room after this game. And I do want to spend a minute on the goalies a little bit later because that’s a very interesting topic day by day, I think. And Coltton Ellis didn’t do himself any favors last night against the Flames. So, all that coming up here on today’s episode of the Locked On Sabres podcast. And I uh sad to say I do not believe this is going to be the year that we are doing this show and we get to preview playoff games, talk about playoff games, playoff serieses. We have not done that yet as a show. We’ve been doing it since 2019 and it’s not over. They are four points out of a playoff spot. That’s one way of looking at it. But they are dead last by themselves in the Eastern Conference. They are nine goals worse than any other team in the Eastern Conference in terms of goal differential on the season. and they found a way to lose to the worst team in the NHL after they had played the night before with their backup goalender in the game. A guy that the Sabres traded away by the way for a seventh round pick prospect who is light years from the NHL. Uh that’s just the insult to injury I guess in this one. Insult to the f injury to the fans really who had to suffer through that game. A 6-2 final is a unmitigated disaster by this team. You cannot be a serious hockey team and lose that hockey game. It was a joke from really beginning to end. The Sabres got outplayed. They got run out in the first period. Calgary was the better team. They shot out to that two to nothing lead and the Sabres got outworked early on. Calgary looked like they wanted it more. They amazingly had more energy. And sometimes you do see that from a team that does play the night before, which is, hey, we a team could approach it as we played the night before. We’re not going to have energy for this entire game. So, let’s come out fast. Let’s hit them hard. Let’s build a lead. And then we’ll sit on that lead. We’ll play defense. We’ll block shots. We’ll conserve our energy. and we’ll hold on to win a game that we build a lead early on. That’s what I was thinking when Calgary took a two to nothing lead. And then second period, Sabres started to fight back a little bit. Second period was very even when you look at all the numbers, but Sabre scored twice. They scored twice and they got back to tie the game until we arrived at the end of the second period and Calgary takes the lead again. So now I’m thinking, all right, third period is when it’ll re but sorry, the Flames didn’t score at the end of the third at the second. It was the beginning of the third. So you’re going into the third period and I’m thinking this is where they run out of gas. Calgary, they run out of gas because they’ve played five periods in 24 hours. By the way, they didn’t get to Buffalo until 2:30 in the morning. So it’s not just they played the night before. They were coming from Chicago. They got in late. How much do they sleep? whatever. You know, that’s how it’s the NHL, right? That’s how it goes. And but sometimes you do have to bake those things in and think about what’s the team’s energy level going to be because of their their travel or what they, you know, their schedule and what all that looks like. Everything made sense to think Sabres are going to get out and they’re going to come back and win this game here in the third period. And then Calgary just steamrolled them. The Sabres looked embarrassing in the third period, I thought, for the caliber of opponent that they were playing and all of those circumstances and context that goes in with what the Flames were dealing with going into that game. Four goals in the third period by Calgary. How can you possibly let that happen? And some of these were just dumb effort goals where Dian’s trying to get a puck out and they’re not able to do it and Calgary comes in and they keep the play alive. They fight. It’s not, you know, the Sabres have the puck the whole time and counterattack is what do them in does them in. If that had been the case then, you know, I wouldn’t really blame the effort. It would just be circumstances and that’s kind of how it went. But this third period, I thought Calgary had the better of the possession, the better of the chances. Um, they had the Sabres running around a lot in their own end. They were winning battles in front of Colton Ellis. That was how the Morgan Frost goal um or was that the second that was the second goal of the third period actually. The Michael Bland goal was one where they’re just out fighting the Sabres in front of the net. And that is just what this team, this was really what this team has showed you they’re capable of all along. It’s why I was confident they would win last night. But by no means was it a guarantee cuz this is a lot of Sabre fans made the joke going into yesterday. This is the type of game they lose. The game that they’re supposed to win, this is the game they lose. And man, did they six-2 was the final. Um, your only positive moments I guess were the couple of goals in the second period. Matias Samuelson continues to score goals and that’s really weird and amazing. Four on the year. He’s already matched his careerhigh for a season and that was just a nice he he walked in from picked up a turnover from the boards. He took a little bit of space and then he just wired it past um past Devin Kulie. So it was a nice goal by Samuelson and well earned there. The Thompson goal ends up kind of being a knuckle puck shot. He rips a slap shot one-time from the point. And if you watch, the Sabres actually tweeted out a angle of Thompson goal from behind. And the puck would have been a little bit on edge when he hit it because you see the puck moving up to down like a almost like a curveball um as it falls through the air. And it wasn’t just spinning, it was like rolling basically. So weird puck. Weird movement, but Thompson got a hold of it. Lot of steam on that. By the way, night, another point from Samuelson in that one. And again, man, you’re tied 2-2. They played the night before. Like, I was really liking their chances going into the third period. And to allow that first goal two minutes in by Morgan Frost. Um, it’s a threeon two coming down and you’re in pretty decent position. Mloud actually came back to contest Jonathan Hubedo and then just a coverage breakdown between Owen Power and Isac Rosanne where Power and Roseanne take the same guy and by the time Roseanne recognizes that he’s on the wrong person. He can’t make up for it. He was supposed to be covering Frost there. And listen, that’s what you get with a young player, I guess, sometimes. Um, right. I guess that’s all there needs to be said about it, right? like that’s just what you get sometimes. Uh the backlin goal in the third period again that’s just Bum and Timonss are out there and nobody’s watching the puck or nobody’s watching their men. They’re both staring at the puck and it hits Byum and sure enough when it falls to the ground you got two flames that are you’re standing there but they’re not marked. You’re not tying them up. They’ve got free rain to whack at the puck wherever it falls. and it fell to one of them and Backland was able to put it home. So then you’re down two and then you’re halfway through. They had started to manage a couple of chances um and they just weren’t able to to to close on it. So it’s like all right, the game’s not officially over, but it is a dire situation. You’re down two and you’re going into it. So okay, let’s see. Let’s see if you’re able to score here. Um, and then you have the turnover by uh, I want to make sure I get it right here. It was the turn. It was by Tage. Taage loses a battle to Nasam Cadri and Rasmus Anderson in the offensive zone. And then it’s just a lob pass Hail Mary and at the scene of the crime again, there’s Byum and Tim Timmons. They’re not far enough back. They don’t see the play. They’re kind of caught staring. uh Byron mostly Timmons was coming from a little bit further away and then Colton Ellis gets beat um on the blocker side and it’s game over basically at that point. You get an empty netter after that and the Flames are able to win it. Three well excuse me the last one was not an empty net. It was just a just a late goal uh by Matt Cornado but the game is over at that point. What a joke. What a flatout joke that they lost that game to Calgary 79 and four. And listen, if this was a real NHL team, and I know I say that a lot that like this is not a real NHL team. It’s days like today as to why I say that when you get embarrassed like that when you lose to that team in that situation and you are already in last place in the Eastern Conference and you are already on a 14-year playoff. Don’t sorry, excuse me. Don’t even think of the drought. You already have gone six years with this general manager with this regime and you don’t act. You consistently you continue to not act and the same guy continues to run the show day in and day out, game in and game out like that. That’s why they get treated as not a real team because almost every other team in the league, I want to say pretty much every other one in those circumstances would fire a guy. They would make significant, they’d be ready. They would be finger on the button going into this year knowing where you are, knowing that this is year six of a plan with a general manager and that you have not had the success and that you’re are you’re going backwards. It’s not like you’re progressing towards making the playoffs. You are close and every day, every month, every week, the passes, it feels like you’re getting further and further away. When you are in that spot, your finger should always be on the button, ready to make the big change to try to get the team back in the right direction because you care about it. If you care about the team that much, that is something that you’d be ready to do. But it’s tough for me to believe that Terry Pagula’s finger is on the button, ready to hit it, ready to get Kevin Adams out of there. I guess I’ll believe it when I see it. Today would have been a day. Maybe they’re waiting for after the Bills game. I don’t know. Today would have been a good day to do it. And there have been a lot of good days to do it, but this is one of them. This is absolutely one of them. And it is 4:00 on Thursday at this point while I’m recording. And to this minute, uh, nothing has happened. and we’ll continue to watch as they probably don’t do anything and they probably continue to play these games and we’ll hear them talk about after how they got to be better and how you know they didn’t want it as much as the other team and listen the players I want to talk a little bit about leadership coming back something that Matias Samuelson said yesterday play holding players accountable um I want to throw out there and get in front of it that I believe in hockey And trust me, well practiced at this. I’ve been watching a lot of Saber press conferences over the years in in the playoff drought. When you’re playing 82 games a year and you lose 50 of them, 45 to 50 of them year in and year out and you continue to be at the bottom of the standings, there are only so many things players can say. They and they’re not. Also, one of the things they’re not going to say is we’re not talented enough. That’s never going to be the answer. Every team, every player is always going to believe or at least they’re always going to say we’re talented enough. We just didn’t want it enough. There’s only so many things they can use as an excuse. So, when we talk about things that were said in the locker room, I think they’re just trying to make stuff up on the fly a lot of times because again, it’s only so much. When we come back though, the thing that Samuelson said yesterday and where this team is at in terms of leadership and accountability and all of it coming up here on the Lockdown Sabres podcast. Today’s episode of Lockdown Sabers is presented by Rugette. Rugiet, let’s be real. Making excuses does not solve anything. We’ve heard them before. It’s just stress and tired or it happens to everybody sometimes, but when it comes to performance, sometimes your body just needs a little bit of extra support. That’s where Rugiiet comes in. 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Um, there’s only so much energy you can give on this team like that, right? Like you don’t want to be mad every day. It’s why a lot of fans check out on this team, right? Like my brother is one of these guys. He’s a huge sports fan, huge football fan. He does lock on Eagles podcast and you know, he was a Saber fan growing up and he got really into them when they were good. And even the season with Granado where they missed by one point, he got back in like checked back in like, “All right, I’ve just been wanting to feel something good.” and then he hung around for a little bit with them and then quickly realized like, oh, this is going to be like it’s been for the last 10 years. So, yeah, I’m going to go over here and you call me when they’re good again. That’s a lot of fans. I appreciate all our listeners and all of our uh Saber fans here that watch the show too that are not that way that are dieh hard allin the time because it is it’s hard it’s hard to be a fan of this team. It is. It’s constant stress and negativity and being mad and you know it. Listen, if there’s one thing I know from the Bills and making it through that playoff drought, it if when you get to the other side, it is like a badge of honor. It is I made it through that and I stuck with it the whole time. And we’re going to need a big badge for this team when they finally make it. Whether it’s next year, whether it’s amazingly this year, or whether it’s in seven years, I don’t know. Uh whenever that happens, we need a big badge for everybody. Uh I made it through the drought. Maybe we’ll make them. We’ll make some I made it through the drought badges at some point. Last place, 18 points. Uh and four four points out of a playoff spot is the one part of looking at the standing. It’s like that’s actually not that bad, but it’s just everybody you got to climb over everybody. So, four points, you know, suddenly looks a lot of a taller task when there’s seven teams in front of you uh between you and the playoffs. So, by the way, before we get to the the locker room stuff and the leadership stuff that I wanted to get to, a couple of roster things, Mason Gearson was waved by the Sabres. Long time coming. It’s amazing to me he was on the team in the first place, but he hadn’t played recently. I think he was more on the roster for the veteran leadership stuff, energy, you know, coaching staff seemed to like him. Um but his days of helping this team, well really they were never going to get started, but they’re they were well over like he wasn’t a part of the rotation at all uh in recent days and weeks. So he goes on to Rochester and assuming he doesn’t get claimed. So I’d be stunned if he did. So that experiment is over with uh Mason Gearson, which means Jason Zucker, by the way, is probably coming back for tomorrow night’s game as was uh kind of hinted at. So last night, Matias Samuelson made a a bit of a jarring comment. He has been wearing a letter for years now. Samuelson has and that’s been mocked and I’ve been one to do that because this was kind of the deal when Josh Georgees was on the team and he wore an A. It’s how can you really be a leader when you’re never pulling your own weight? How much does OPO this was the case as well? How strong can your message be if you’re not one of the team’s top players? And for many years I thought that about Samson. This year though when he makes a comment and I see him wearing a letter I think you know he actually is one of their leaders right now. He’s he’s carrying his own weight. He is scoring goals. He which is amazing. He’s putting up points. He is scoring in overtime. He’s playing very well defensively. He’s staying healthy. Like I could not have imagined it’d be going better for Matias Samuelson right now. Another reason why it’s incredible that they’ve been so bad because if I told you before the season, hey, Samuelson’s going to be like one of the best defensive defenseman in the sport through a month of the season, which I don’t think is overstating it. I think he has been that. If I told you that, you’d be like, “That team’s in first place.” No, they’re in last place. He said last night, “Maybe we have we maybe too many guys are passengers.” Maybe too many guys are passengers is what Samuelson said about the team and heard some similar comments from Thompson Dalene. They’ve been fiery. If that though is their leadership group right now and there are I I wonder who they’re talking about. I thought about maybe it’s Power because Power is often a very casual player that is not very aggressive and I wonder if his teammates sometimes get frustrated as much as fans get frustrated by that because they know he’s such a good player and how impactful he is. But there’s just there’s a little bit of fire that’s missing and I wonder if players get frustrated by that. Like just if you had a little more fire then you’d be one of the most dominant players maybe in the league. Um and maybe he gets that at some point. I don’t know. But when Samuelson says too many passengers, um, I wonder what that locker room is really like because are guys holding each other accountable. The one thing this team has not had that I said before the year that I really think would be good for them, the perfect type of player, because I’m not I’m not saying Dene’s a bad captain or that Dene Dene tries tries to be the guy to be the leader, but can he be a a you know what hole? the the type of leader that Draymond Green is for the Golden State Warriors, the type of leader that uh Stfan Diggs was for the Bills for a time, the type of leader that Jimmy Butler is in the NBA, like the psycho angry, I’m going to, you know, cuss you out in the locker room and it’s going to be embarrassing for you when I call you out, but I am a leader. I’m a good player and I have the right because I’m holding us to the standard. Nathan McKinnon is maybe a good example of this. Nathan McKinnon could be a jerk. Sounds like he could be a jerk, but it’s good for that team. It’s good for that locker room to have a guy, especially your best player, be that way because it it it takes everybody with him. And again, I’m not saying that Dene’s a bad leader. I just don’t get the feeling that he’s quite like that. Chris Drury is always the name that comes to mind for me. They need a Chris Drury. Drury was that guy when he showed up and he demanded that everybody work as hard as he did, would be as professional as he was, and take it as seriously as he did. And that guy has not. They’ve tried to manufacture it on this team with third and fourth liners and bottom pair defenseman, guys way past the hill, over their, you know, past their primes. The Drury type, that move is hard to make. very rarely is made, but I don’t feel like they have it. And when I hear the leaders try to get that message across, I just don’t really know if if it’s falling on deaf ears or what. Lindy, by the way,’s role in this, I, you know, Lindy can only do so much. But when Kevin Adams went to the podium a couple years ago after firing Don Granado, he said, “I know what this team needs.” He said, I mean, he made it clear, they need a veteran coach. They need a guy that’ll hold the players feet to the fire, hold everybody accountable, be hard on them. And they got Lindy. They maybe tried to get Craig Baru, couldn’t get him. They got Lindy. I think Lindy has tried to do it and he has to some degree, but the results of are not really coming. And then maybe you go to, well, maybe it’s a group problem. I’m not saying a leader problem. I’m not saying it’s a Dene problem or it’s even a Tage problem. like I think you you give those guys the right type of teammate, right type of leader around them and I think you’re good. Um it’s not their fault, but just doesn’t feel like it’s working right now. And uh I am questioning who is the person that demands the best out of everybody in that locker room cuz they might need a guy like that. But they need a guy like that that’s good. I don’t want to do it for a 36-year-old player who’s going to play 12 minutes a night. He’s got to be a great player. And again, that’s really tough to get. All right, when we come back, quick word on where we’re at now after Coltton Ellis had a really bad start. That coming up here on the Locked on Sabres podcast. Sneaky Jody Biosi. Here we are presented by FanDuel Sportsbook. Didn’t get the win last night. Um, yeah, was the other part of it. Got left down there. But we’ll have uh some more betting previews for you coming up soon. And uh it’s not just the NHL. It’s back in Buffalo. It’s the NBA and it is football, college football. There’s no better place to get on the action than FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Even if you miss the start of the game or you want to ride the hot hand, FanDuel has live bets on everything from who’s going to score next to fourth quarter comebacks. Plus, you can even combine your live bets into a same game parlay for a shot at a bigger payout. It keeps every game more exciting, especially when your team is making that late push. Right now, FanDuel’s giving new customers $300 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. So, head to fanduel.com, sign up, play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. All right, final segment, last call here on the Locked On Sabres podcast. Uh, the Sabres are next in action tomorrow night. They will be hosting Chicago and then they will be playing Carolina on Sunday. So, no backtobacks on the way. They don’t play again till Wednesday, by the way, after Sunday. So, Friday, Sunday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday. So, next weekend, you get to your next backtoback. Ellis played three starts in a row and four of the last five. It had gone fairly well in the first three. Last night, he allows six. And that was um 3.24 two, four goals above expectation. I don’t think every goal was his fault. I don’t even think any goal was directly on him, but he was definitely in some spots where I would have liked some saves. So, does Lindy Ruff agree with that? He might. I think it’s time to get another guy in. The question is who? Lindy implied that it’ll be Alex Lion tomorrow. So, Lion, who is not um I mean, he’s not really played a lot as of late. Uh he played a ton at the beginning of the season. He has not played a lot as of late. Lion’s going to get in next. And I think you probably keep doing the this is a thing that I said weeks ago that they should do and they’ve kind of done it which is you put a guy in, you play him till he has a bad start and then you switch. You play that guy till he’s a bad start, then you switch. They kind of did that with Ellis. He had a bad start. So now you switch. Lion goes in. I think you play Lion every game that looks good. And eventually Lucin gets back in. There is a story on Lucinin. Elliot Freriedman had this in his 32 thoughts this morning that Lucinin might be upset right now because not only is he not starting for this team like he wants to and like he’s paid to do, um Lucinin apparently is upset that he’s not getting enough starts because he thinks it’s costing him a spot on the Finnish uh Olympic team. And when I saw that, just want to say this. I I think I like kind of understand it and at the same time it’s dude the understanding of it is he was injured at the beginning of the year. They added a third goalie. They tried to add Georgie. I remember even before that they added a third goalie and now he’s stuck in this triple threat rotation and he’s not getting enough games. And Finland I don’t think the starting job is available. It’ll probably be Jussi Soros but job on the team. Kevin Lankin is a guy you’d be competing with. Like he’s definitely got that in the window. Um, and maybe if he had an amazing run, he could take the starting job, but I think that’s probably unlikely. At the same time, the eye roll that I want to have is Lucin, if you wanted to be on the finish team, you wanted to be getting enough starts for it, you would have played better in the first four games. It you could you had control over that. He has played four games so far this year. or he started only three and like hey if you don’t cost the team a point against Toronto you probably get another start pretty quickly after that if you don’t allow you know uh the 875 save percentage he had against the Blues where they lost three to nothing if you had stopped one more in that game maybe would have got another opportunity and you would have kept playing like I think a lot of it is under his own control and the Toronto game is definitely number one for this but injuries too like he’s He’s done this to himself in a way and I don’t think he’s owed anything. They paid him and it’s a kind of incredible that he’s even been given as many opportunities as he has to this point. So, I don’t feel bad for him at all. Starting 106 games in the last two years was to totally unjustified given his track record in the AHL and the beginnings in the NHL, but he got it. So, way ahead. I think he didn’t get all that by merit. He might have worked hard but he didn’t perform. So I don’t feel bad. I don’t lose sleep at all thinking about what he is going to miss out on because he’s not getting starts now. You know, like this has been a long time coming. I think that they started treating him like a guy that shouldn’t be their number one goalender. All right, tomorrow against Chicago. Maybe we’ll get better things against the Blackhawks. That tomorrow. Uh, if you want more hockey talk, non-saber related, I’m sure, you can head over to NHL Lockdown, NHL game night, that’s available wherever you listen to your podcast. We will talk to you tomorrow on a game day. Enjoy the Bills tonight and we’ll talk to them here on the Lockdown Sabres podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.

The Buffalo Sabres found a way, not just to lose, but to be blown out by the worst team in the NHL, the Calgary Flames, who had played the night before. In the most embarrassing effort of the season, Sneaky Joe says this is a day to fire GM Kevyn Adams, even though we don’t expect it to happen.

Plus, what Mattias Samuelsson had to say calling out some teammates for being passengers. Samuelsson had another two-point night, and is finding himself in a leadership role. Also, did Colten Ellis blow his opportunity to be the team’s starting goalie?

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