Tage Thompson and Rasmus Dahlin getting scorched for performance in Philadelphia

Tage Thompson and Rasmus Dahlin getting scorched for performance in Philadelphia

Sabres lose a dumb game. I’m going to try to express why I don’t think we should be in panic mode about it. That’s when we come back here on the Locked On Sabres podcast. [Music] Your Locked On Sabers, 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. You can find us wherever you get your podcast. You can watch the show on YouTube. You also can be a part of our Lockdowns text club to express your frustration, your anger, your comments and questions all at joinsubtex.com/lockdownsabers. At least that’s where you sign up for it and then you can uh be a part of the text club from there. Sneaky Jody Biosi following a Sabres loss to the Philadelphia Flyers here on the Lockdown Sabres podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Lot to get to on today’s show. I might have a mood that surprises you about this game because I think everybody wants to go right in on everything is terrible. They’re going to miss the playoffs. Fire Kevin Adams. What the hell happened to Tage Thompson? Why is my captain getting ejected from this game? Why is Lindy Roth making stupid challenges? Like, you really could go after a lot of different things from this game. And I’m definitely one to do that in most instances. Maybe this will surprise you. I don’t want to panic after yesterday’s game. I I know how that sounds already before I even get into it. The Sabres by the time maybe even by the time you’re listening to this are either in last place in the Eastern Conference or are in second to last place in the Eastern Conference. So, I get it. It’s might be, you know, all futile and they’re going to end up finishing at the bottom no matter what. But, we’ll go through the game and it’s really I guess the the overall synopsis for me is I think this was a dumb game. a dumb dumb game that I don’t think is very indicative of what they are when healthy, which I still think we’re trying to figure out with Norris in the lineup and a lot of the pieces that they had been missing. Of course, Zucker for a while and Dene for a while, like others that had been in and out of the lineup. Goalender also is a reason for this and I got a thought on Coltton Ellis coming up a little bit later on. So, that’s all on the way here on today’s episode of the show. We’ll start right out of the bat before we even get into the goals or the challenge that Lindy Ruff made the early game sequence. I think I want to start with what the biggest story out of this game was cuz I think the place that most fans are attacking after this 5-2 loss in Philadelphia, by the way, the road record on the season, yikes, 27-2 on the season following this loss to the Flyers. the results continue to not come in. But the place that people are attacking are the Sabres best players and that is I mean Owen Parker had a great rant on WGR this morning. If you missed that, go check it out. He was after Ta Thompson and the effort that he gave on that third Philadelphia goal, which I got a thought on in a moment here. Um, a lot of people are after him. Lindy Ruff even made comments about the Sabres best players not holding up. Um when he was asked about that last night in the postgame, his quote was Lindy Ruff’s quote, “The top guys failed the tests.” That’s what Lindy had to say. And I try very hard not to fall into the trap of when the top guys have been here for a long time and the results aren’t coming to go immediately and blame them. Did Rasmus Dalene or Tage Thompson have their best game last night? Absolutely not. Have they had their best seasons? I would say no to that as well. But I’m often going to point to the talent level before I get to effort or before I get to well this is Tage’s fault that the game happened this way. When listen like part of that for me like when Tage gets blamed in a single game and that’s not this doesn’t happen all the time. I don’t think it actually does happen to Thompson all that often. Um, and I don’t think it happens to Dene much either, but it’s happened a couple times this year. When I hear, “Oh, your top guys weren’t good enough to be your top guys tonight.” That’s what that what the problem was. I tend to think, “Yeah, well, is Tae Thompson the top guy on most teams in the NHL?” He’s a great player. He’s an absolutely great player. He is an all-star level player. He is, I think, deserving of being an Olympian. But there’s a reason he’s not a gimme on Team USA that he’s even by what I would build by Team USA. Probably a bottom six guy on that team. There’s a reason he’s not looked at in the way that Jack Hughes even is looked at. I don’t even need to go to Conor McDavid and Nathan McKinnon and Sydney Crosby and Jack Eel even now. And again, guys like Jack Hughes and others, it’s he’s a great player, but is he the second best player on good great hockey teams in the NHL? Because the answer to that question in almost every single situation is going to be no. No, he’s probably probably should be third, fourth, or fifth on a great team. So when I see, you know, oh, he didn’t hold up his end of the bargain today to be your best player. Well, you know, he doesn’t have a lot of help when it comes to the elite talent up top. So, all that to the side. That’s kind of what I usually think about star players in a single game. The third goal by Philly was, I think, one of the weakest moments by Tage this whole year. And he did own up to it in post game. like he said, “Man, I I can’t do that. I got to be better in that play. I stopped skating.” Like he definitely owned up to it. So, taking accountability, you know, that’s one thing that people like to see. He did do that after the fact, but clearly the moment itself was brutal. And if you didn’t see the play or have only watched it the one time live or even one time on a highlight, Zack Benson, who I believe is trying, I don’t think he’s trying to pass the puck to Tage Thompson. They’re trying to break out a threeon two rush. Bo Byum is joining the play on the right wall and Benson is making the right decision. He is trying to saucer this pass all the way across the ice to get it to Byum because Byum’s got the most speed. So, he’s the right player to pick out there and Tage doesn’t vacate the passing lane by either slowing down out of it or speeding up ahead of it. Instead, he kind of stays there and blocks the pass by accident with his backside. And now you’re in a bad situation because you have turned up ice. Benson’s heading up uphill. Tage was heading uphill. And Byum, who has got the most speed, he’s in the weakest position. Not only because he’s the defenseman. So, it’s more on him. It’s his responsibility to get back into the play because he’s vacated his own position, but also he’s got the most speed. So, it’s going to be toughest for him to slam on the brakes and then fly back to cover up. So, because he’s in the middle of the ice, the real responsibility to get back and save this play that is very quickly deteriorating from a Sabres defensive standpoint, it falls on Tage. You are playing in the middle of the ice at the moment of this shift. You’re basically the centerman. Norris is coming up for Byum. He’s basically the defenseman and as the centerman in this sequence, you have to get back and you have to cover the third man. That’s your job and you got to fight to get back into the play. You’re in a bad position. So, you really got to get on your you got to get on your horse and get back there. You might have to fight through contact. Like, it’s going to be a tough play, but you’ve got to fight your way back into this play. And Tage Thompson instead, it looked like his controller died. He didn’t really move his feet at all. There was no effort to get back into the play. And that to me was his worst moment of the season because especially that point in the game, you have just given up two straight power play goals. The second on the Lindy Ruff challenge, two goals in basically a minute. The Flyers crowd is going nuts. They are into it and it is energy and momentum all in their direction. and a third goal that quickly, it’ll feel like the sky is falling and the game is getting away from you. You cannot let a play like that happen and go in the back of your net. And Thompson did not react at all like he knew the urgency of the moment in that game that this game will get away from you if you let one more in a third goal within two minutes. He didn’t act at all like he knew what the score was, like he knew what the sequence was, like he knew what the season was, the state of the franchise, anything at all. So, you want to blame him this morning and into the weekend until they play Winnipeg. Um, I think he probably deserves it for that one singular play. But as I would said on the outset, I I do think that if it’s going to become a trend or a theme that Thompson starts getting blamed for not being better than he is, then my answer is often going to be. Uh he shouldn’t be your second best player on a great hockey team. But I don’t think we’re fighting that fight this morning. So we’ll see if we get there. the other player that you might say let them down yesterday. It’s kind of the flip end. Taage gets frustrated. He actually did say that like part of the reason he thinks his feet stopped is he he was getting he was overly frustrated about the game and it all but you had two different reactions to frustration. Cage by basically shutting down on a play and then Dalene who we know about Dalene and his career. he can be a hotthead and took his frustration out on Trevor Zegris. A cross check from behind into the boards. It was a dirty play. I think it was a dirty play. Now, it’s a tough one because he’s not that far from the boards. So, he wasn’t a vulnerable position. It would have been more vulnerable had he been another three, four feet from the boards because then that could have been really scary. So luckily it wasn’t. Zegris doesn’t get injured. And in the NHL today, maybe it shouldn’t be. I don’t think it should be, but injury status of the guy you hit is folded into what the guy gets as a penalty or as a suspension. So I was a little surprised when Zegris was fine that Dene got the fiveminute penalty and the game misconduct. Um, that being said, I think there’s a chance he does get suspended. And if I were making the decision, this would be my NHL. I would suspend him, but I would be I would be tough on hits like that because I think they’re dangerous and they need to get eradicated from the sport. Um, and I wouldn’t care about whether the guy’s injured or not because it’s more about the act to me. And there’s 82 games, so how big a penalty is taking a guy out for a game or two anyway? Like I would suspend Diene if I were in charge, but the way the NHL deals with these hits and usually what their bar is, my guess is we will not see Diene get suspended. Um, which is huge because the Sabres cannot afford to lose him for a game or two. I think they desperately will need him as this road trip continues. They cannot let a losing streak uh continue. So, uh, looks like he is going to avoid a suspension. Um, I guess we’ll see if that ends up changing, but the report I saw earlier in the days that he probably won’t get suspended. So, you know, how mad should you also be at him for getting tossed at that point in the game? I mean, you could be, right? Like, there’s a period plus 3 minutes left to play. The score at that point in the game is 5 to2. Like, I guess if you believe the Sabres could fight their way back into it, then you could be mad. Um, some fans might even feel great that he did that. like, “Yeah, someone show me you’re angry.” And I think I’m a little bit more on that end. I would prefer when games are over like that. I feel better. None of it’s really valuable. I feel better when the player shows they’re as angry as I am. I think the flip end of a guy not trying when he’s frustrated is much, much worse. So, you’re not going to hear me crush uh today, but if I were in charge, I would suspend him for probably a game or two. All right. when we come back, the challenge that Lindy Ruff made in the first period, how bad was it? And I’ll tell you why. There’s a somewhat weak but uh reasonable defense for why Lindy did challenge it and should have challenged it. That when we return here on Lockdown Sabres. Today’s episode of the Locked On Sabers podcast is presented by FanDuel Sportsbook. Listen, having a little something on the action can make games more exciting. Last night was the perfect example of that. The game is over. Buffalo’s going to lose. We’re in the third period. And the guy that I gave you as the bet of the night, Benson to record a point, scores a goal in the third period. You might have still been plugged in. You might have still had something to cheer about. 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So, if you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit fanuel.com. Place your NFL live bets all season long. FanDuel, the game moves fast and so can you. Sneaky Jody Bassi back here on the Locked On Sabres podcast. The Sabres are still four points out of a playoff spot. I know. I know. Four points out of a playoff spot. Um, the reason I’m not going full panic mode is I don’t think the division is good. It’s going to take a lot for me to get to panic mode because I think the bars are extremely low this year. And I’m not going to tell you the Sabres are a bad hockey team when healthy from last night’s game. It’s a dumb game. Lot of penalties called, the challenge, the your best player gets tossed in the second period, the crazy momentum shift of course that happened because of three goals in a row. I mean, you had 11 power play opportunities between the two teams. That’s not normal. That’s not normal. And those are tough games to judge. what you are as a team. Those are stupid games where it just comes down to special teams. And listen, the Sabres lose this game in part not just because they, you know, took penalties, but because their pop their penalty kill gave up two goals. First time all year the Sabres have given up two goals on the penalty kill and they happened within a minute of each other. Um, and I do think, by the way, that is one of the reasons that Lindy Ruff decided to challenge the Flyers first goal of the game, the Travis Kknney goal at the 826 mark of the first period on the power play. I think that’s one of the reasons is Lindy is confident in his penalty kill, which for much of this season has ranked number one in the NHL. So, that’s one reason I think that he felt I’ll take the risk here of maybe not winning it because I trust my PK. Didn’t end up working out, but that’s part of the reasoning. The other part of the reasoning, and this is where I think I thought it wasn’t a great challenge. I wouldn’t have challenged it. I think people calling it the worst challenge ever are going too far with it. It wasn’t much. No doubt it was not much. The stick gets in the way a little bit of Colton Ellis and his blocker, which is by the way where Kknney’s shot is headed. If Ellis is going to make this save, if he were to have made it, he would have made it with his blocker and his blocker was inhibited by slight but still stick contact. That’s why I thought it was goalender interference. And I’m not going to lie, I did think it was going to get overturned. Not the first time I saw it, not even really the second time I saw it. Maybe I convinced myself that it was going to happen. But the third, fourth, fifth time I saw it, I thought, you know, his stick, it really is like the part about the contact being with the thing he’s going to use to make the save. I thought that would be the thing that would get it overturned even though it was so subtle the contact. He he kind He might have stopped Ellis from getting the blocker where he needed it to. Um and the bigger but the real reason Lindy does it is you had two challenges in the Sabres home stand in the last couple of weeks. There was a a goal that Zack Benson made the slightest bit of contact with the goalie. Maybe even didn’t at all. And there was another goal the Sabres scored by Tage Thompson brushed by a goalie and again might not have even really contacted him. And both of those plays went against the Buffalo Sabres and they had goals taken off the board. One criticism you could have of Lindy is you can’t trust referees and the NHL to be consistent on goalie interference. They have been horrendous at staying consistent on those calls over the years. You could say that and I think that is a valid criticism. I think the reason Lindy did it and the strongest defense of why he should have challenged it is that play last night on the connect goal is as much goalender interference as those two goals that got overturned on the Sabres home stand. Tell me I’m wrong. I think it was the same or even maybe stronger goalie interference on that play that Kenkne scores on. So that’s the defense. It’s you’ve had a coach that just watched two goals, important goals during a home stand get overturned and he thought, “Well, I’ve seen worse than that. I’m going to challenge.” And then the challenge doesn’t happen. So what will he do next time? I don’t know. Maybe he’ll be skittish to challenge something now because he just saw an entire game basically get blown up because it happened. I I by the way wouldn’t say that. I I know he just did, but it was still only two to one. Like this where the Tage lack of effort really frustrates me and kills me. It’s because the game is not over. The Flyers are into it. They’ve got the momentum. They’re going crazy, but it’s 2 to one 10 minutes into the first period. You’ve got 50 minutes to push back and get back to a tie game and respond. And the game was not over after that that challenge. So, if you think the challenge cost them the game, uh I think you’re going a little bit too far. It was a bad it was it was not the best challenge, but I think it was defendable and I don’t think it cost them the hockey game. When we come back, last thing to get to on last night, Colton Ellis and whether that’s the final straw, a fivegoal game against when we return here on Lockdown Sabres. Today’s episode of Locked On Sabers is presented by Drip Drop. When you’re hydrated, everything just works better. Your focus, your energy, your mood, even your skin. That’s why you got to use Drip Drop. It’s doctor developed hydration that’ll keep you running at full power no matter what your day looks like. Drip Drop isn’t your average sports drink. It will deliver three times the electrolytes and half the sugar of leading brands using a sciencebacked formula trusted by medical professionals, firefighters, and over 90% of top college and pro teams. Use it as part of your daily routine. Drip drop. You mix a packet in the morning for the gym or maybe during a midday slump. Hydration becomes non-negotiable. Drip Drop will help you feel sharper, calmer, and honestly just better overall. Right now, DripDrop’s offering locked on Sabers listeners 20% off your first order. Just go to dripdrop.com. Use promo code locked on NHL. That’s dripdrop.com. Promo code locked on NHL for 20% off. Stock up now. Keep your body and mind performing at their best with Drip Drop. Sabres and Jets next. Sabres in Winnipeg as they head out west. Fivegame road trip coming up. Mentioned this on yesterday’s show. The good news, the bad news, the Sabres can’t win on the road. 27-2. The good news is in these next five road games out west they’ll play Seattle, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Vancouver, Calgary. None of those teams are in playoff positions. Not one of them. Calgary’s in dead last. Vancouver’s in third last. Edmonton fifth last. Winnipeg sixth last. And then Seattle’s the first team currently out of a playoff spot. Not a single playoff team that they will play coming up. That’s the good news. The bad news is I don’t know who’s going to play goalie and I don’t know who’s going to get saves for them. My Colton Ellis optimism, which I had a lot of at the beginning of the year. I liked him as an idea a lot. Good prospect, third round pick, the right development track in St. Louis. Sabres claim him. They seem to like him. I thought he had every reason I didn’t have every reason to believe that he was going to be better than Ukapeka Lucinan was going to be. But sometimes you got to admit when you’re wrong. And I think we are about at that point with Colton Ellis. I actually think I have to say that we should be at that point with Colton Ellis. Seven games. Is seven games enough to evaluate what a goal he’s going to be in the NHL? No. We don’t know right now sitting here today if Coltton Ellis in four years is going to be playing in the National Hockey League. He could be. He could be or he could never stick in the NHL. We’ll see. I think though the Sabres because of the having them having the three goalie system have a had a limited opportunity to find out. You won’t find out from seven games, but there’s only so many you can go through here to try to figure out what a guy is when you’re trying to end a playoff drought and make the playoffs and you have two guys that you had planned on going into the season with. Both of which have had decent stretches. Lion had a decent start at the beginning of the year and Lucin’s played a little bit better as of late. Whereas Ellis, who I thought had two or three good games in the middle there, it just hasn’t really happened stringing games together. And I think seven is enough of a look to decide what you want to do for this season. So, how much longer do you really want to take it? He’s allowing five goals, four or five goals every other game he plays. Um, so far on the year in seven starts, he’s allowed 24 goals. I mean, you got a fivegoal game against Philly, you got a sixgoal game against Calgary, uh, you got a fourgoal game against Detroit, five against Utah. Like, at some point, you got to call it if it’s not going to get any better. And I do think he’s got I like personally believe he’ll be in the NHL. Like, I like the development track and I think somebody will give him a more natural look. I think it also doesn’t help anybody that he’s in for a game, he’s not playing for a week, he’s getting half the reps in practice because they’re splitting it amongst three goalenders. Like, it’s just not a natural situation to get a guy to grow into a role here. So, I think it’s about time. I think it’s time to wave him and let St. Louis have him back. And I don’t know that anybody else would claim him right now. Um, I don’t think he did enough at the NHL level this year for that to happen. I would at this point probably wave him uh and just get to two goalies, get them in a rhythm, get them in a more natural fit. They get all the practice reps. They’re they’re both dressing every night. You know, one night the guys in the press box, the next night he’s backing up, the next night he’s starting. Get to a place of normaly with the goalie position. Get Lion and Lukan in there. At the moment, Lucan is playing better. Let him get the majority of the starts. Nick mix lion in. You got a backtoback coming up. Get to a place of normaly. And to get there, you got to cut one of these guys. And I think I think Ellis maybe has to be the name that they they turn to. And I actually do believe that that could happen. I don’t know. They’ll do it while they’re out west cuz I don’t know. Maybe they would. I mean, they’re going to St. Louis. Winnipeg actually might be closer to St. Louis. Is it? Maybe it’s not. Winnipeg’s pretty far from everywhere. But whatever. you’re going out west. If he’s going to go back to St. Louis or if somebody else claims him, maybe you don’t care about it. Um, we’ll see what they do. My guess is that the three goalie problem is coming to an end and that Ellis is going to get cut and I think there’s a very strong chance he’s played his final game for the Buffalo Sabres. We’ll see tomorrow against Winnipeg. Lucinan, I’m sure I would be stunned if it’s not UK Lucanin against Winnipeg. And then Monday, Tuesday, Calgary and Edmonton. I think you’ll probably see one of those games to Lucin and one of those games to Lion. That would be my guess for the next three games. All right, that’ll do it for us today here on the Locked On Sabres podcast. So, tomorrow we’ll look ahead to the Winnipeg Jets who we just saw. Sabres beat him at home. Some optimism there. And tomorrow we’ll do more of a deep dive on the rest of the division. We’ve been talking around it. We talked about the standings for it. But I really want to get into what’s happening with these teams and why not just the fact that they’re losing, but why what’s happening with them that makes me think that they’re not really coming back um and going to be taking big strides. That’ll be tomorrow. You’re on the Lockdown Sabres podcast. Check out Lockdown NHL game night. You want all the rest of the league talk around the NHL. Find that available wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube. Talk to you tomorrow here on the Lockdown Sabres podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, now the number one sports podcast network.

The Buffalo Sabres had an incredibly frustrating night against the Philadelphia Flyers that featured it’s best two players both dropping the ball. Tage Thompson had maybe the worst effort play of his entire career, while Rasmus Dahlin was ejected for a dirty hit from behind on Trevor Zegras.

How much criticism do the Sabres’ best two players deserve, not just for this game, but for the entire season? Will Dahlin get suspended for his hit on Zegras? And we may have reached the end of the Colten Ellis experiment after allowing five more goals in a loss.

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