- 1 day ago
Jeremy White and Joe DiBiase get things rolling on Wednesday morning by discussing the Sabres 4-3 shootout loss to the Montreal Canadiens on the road. They explain why stealing a point without Dahlin, on the road, on the second game of a back-to-back is a solid effort. They discuss some of the bright spots in the game, highlighting Olen Zellweger’s best game as a Sabre, UPL’s performance, and more!
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00:00And programming, tomorrow you're not in because you're doing the afternoon show
00:03because the afternoon guys are also going to Vegas?
00:05Correct.
00:06All right.
00:06Correct.
00:07Me and Nate will be on tomorrow night.
00:09Gotcha.
00:09And then going right to our watch party at 1812 Tavern in Hamburg.
00:13That's right.
00:14The Sabres and Leafs.
00:14That's right.
00:14We've got that tomorrow night.
00:16We'll watch the Sabres and the Leafs, which will feel maybe like a big game.
00:19They played Montreal last night, and reviews are what?
00:23Lukanen was great.
00:25With the first.
00:27Great for 65 minutes.
00:28Yeah.
00:29He was great.
00:31Shootouts.
00:32He, in one night, he stole them a point and then also blew a point.
00:39If both of those things can be true.
00:41He stole a point and then he blew a point.
00:44Because he didn't make a single save in the shootout.
00:46No, and they all did the same thing.
00:48Well, kind of.
00:48The third guy looked like he was going to do the same thing.
00:52Rob had mentioned on the broadcast, and I think we know this anyway,
00:55that players have shootout tape on goalies, and they both went blocker,
01:02and then I'm sure Lukanen thought the third guy was going to go blocker too,
01:06and he went five hole.
01:07But he was great before that.
01:09Right?
01:09Like, they really had not a lot of business being in that game in the first place.
01:14Which, you know, they kind of were.
01:16They were down two in the third.
01:17I mean, they looked like a team that had played the day before.
01:20Yeah.
01:21And they didn't have their best player.
01:22And you're going from home to road.
01:24So, like, really, when you look back at it, it was a pretty tough situation
01:28for them to be in.
01:30And down two to get a point out of that.
01:33Like, I'm not feeling that down about yesterday.
01:36They did not play well, though.
01:37No, and any game without Darlene, I'm not sitting here saying if Darlene
01:42were to be off the team, they would go 0-84.
01:46But without Darlene, they would not be a playoff team.
01:49Right?
01:50That's a significant loss, we think.
01:53Correct.
01:53You know, there are not that many guys on the team where if just that guy
01:56got hurt and missed time, you would not expect them to make the playoffs.
02:00There might be, is it three?
02:03Would you go with three?
02:04Darlene, Power.
02:06Tage.
02:08I mean, you asked the other day, who do you count on to score?
02:11If I take the 40-goal scorer off the team, that gets a little dicey.
02:14And Power, I think, has reached that level.
02:17I mean, Power was great last night, I thought.
02:19Yeah.
02:19And we had, you know, conversations about that in our group chat.
02:22So, great there.
02:24Zellweger, I thought, was great last night.
02:25A pair of goals.
02:26Even the goals might have been the least impressive thing he did yesterday.
02:30Because those were just, well, we're shots from the point that you got a little lucky
02:34on.
02:35They go off a guy and they're in.
02:37Like, fine.
02:37Good play.
02:37Get it to the net.
02:38But, he moves so effortlessly.
02:43Like, he's such a good skater.
02:46And he was really good, I thought, last night at getting pucks out of his own end.
02:50He played.
02:50Lindy treated him like Byram last night.
02:53Right?
02:53Like, Darlene's not in.
02:54And you're going to play big minutes to three guys and everybody else is going to be rotational.
03:01And it was Zellweger.
03:02Like, 26 minutes last night.
03:05And I thought played really well almost every shift he played.
03:08So, I was really impressed by him.
03:10Like, if he gives you that every night, he's Byram.
03:13Or maybe even better than that.
03:14But, like, that's at least replacing Byram if he gives you what he did yesterday.
03:17And maybe there's some silver lining that he'll get more time to kind of get acclimated
03:22with everybody on the team if Darlene.
03:24I don't want to miss any more games.
03:25But there's one right there where, you know, you're getting used to new teammates and whatever
03:30might be different about the Sabres.
03:32Activations and yada, yada, yada.
03:33So, good to see him get in there.
03:36Lukanen makes a strong case for himself.
03:38It was a game that the Sabres didn't have a lot of shots.
03:41No.
03:42But the fancy stats were not that one-sided.
03:45It was not like it was some horrific, you know, domination.
03:48Yep.
03:49They did not play well.
03:50But it's an example of maybe what Lindy was complaining about earlier in the week where
03:54they're just not shooting the puck.
03:56They need to shoot first mentality.
03:58So, yeah, not too many shots.
04:01Lindy joins us at 8 o'clock this morning.
04:02We'll talk with Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff as they continue their divisional road trip
04:07here with Toronto up next.
04:08Yeah, expected goals were 1.8 to 1.3 at 5-on-5.
04:11Not that bad.
04:12Like, it wasn't really...
04:13It wasn't a blowout in that department.
04:15But, yeah, shots were 38-17 off the top of my head.
04:19That's a bad look, right?
04:21That's tough.
04:23Also, on the game last night, Josh Norris scored.
04:26I had asked yesterday, will he ever score again?
04:29And the answer, yes.
04:30Josh Norris scored.
04:32How about it?
04:33Did anybody think he looked good, though, around the goal?
04:36Play the lottery.
04:37The goal was good.
04:38The goal, fine, good.
04:39That was actually like Zellweger, right?
04:41Like, just shot it from the point.
04:43It found its way through.
04:45He looks totally like he's fighting it, though, every night still.
04:49Like, last night, even though he scored, like, it's the same thing.
04:51And he's on line four, so could make things a little bit more difficult on him.
04:57But I just feel like he's making wrong decisions on every shift right now.
05:04Like, that is not going well overall.
05:07So, good that he scored, though.
05:08But I'm not that impressed so far by him.
05:12Like, he very much deserves to be on line four at the moment.
05:16You know, one thing about the Sabres, I was thinking about this last night and how, you
05:21know, every year when your team is good and falls short and you're ready for round two,
05:27round three, the Bills are on, like, round eight, right?
05:29There's always, all right, what's the thing we're going to get excited about this year
05:32on why it will be different?
05:34And for the Bills, of course, that's DJ Moore.
05:37And for coming into the season, it was the new defense.
05:40So, we had things to kind of focus on, and even right now, you can focus on both those
05:44things as, if you get frustrated with the defense, you're like, well, all right, it's
05:48a new look defense.
05:49There's going to be things that are different.
05:50And if they struggle offensively, I've got, not quite built-in excuses, but a feeling of
05:56something being new.
05:57And that might be, for me, what is at the heart of my Sabres panic of last week and any
06:03sort of frustration is they are, at best, we would think, like the same team coming
06:10back?
06:10Like, what's the thing to get excited about?
06:12It's the guy, whoever it is, it's a guy that was on the team outside of Zellweger, really.
06:16Right.
06:16And, you know, a night like last night, it's a long season.
06:20You're just kind of, it's kind of a long waiting game.
06:22And, you know, maybe I was addicted to playoff drama and playoff efforts after not having
06:27seen it in a decade and a half.
06:29And now you get back to October hockey, and I'm looking for the shiny new toy, whether that's
06:34Hellebuck, who, of course, it never became, or if they could have traded for whoever,
06:38Dylan Larkin, or Robert Thomas.
06:41Like, there's so many exciting ideas.
06:43And right now, my most exciting idea is waiting on Helenius continuing to watch Ostland, Kulik.
06:52It's guys that were already here kind of trying to fulfill this idea that they're going to
06:57be good to great.
06:58And that definitely could still happen, and maybe is happening.
07:02It's just, it's less jarringly different.
07:05And sometimes I think, you know, when it doesn't look good, I'm going to want something that
07:09looks a lot different.
07:10Is it fair to say it's not really happening yet?
07:13I wouldn't.
07:13It's kind of happening.
07:15It's happening for Helenius.
07:17Sorry.
07:17It's happening for Ostland.
07:18It's happening for Ostland.
07:19Second most minutes for forwards.
07:20Ostland's got a good game right now.
07:22And when I was giving a 1-2-3, these are the guys that are going to be different, and
07:28only
07:29one of them really looks that so far, you know, like I said, I'm not here to say nothing's
07:35happening.
07:35It's just, you have to look harder to, I guess I have to look harder to convince myself that
07:42this season will be any bit different to the positive of last season.
07:47But what those guys really represented was they are Tuck replacements, right?
07:52The three of them together are going to be why I'm not going to miss Tuck as much, who's
07:57a 30-goal scorer multiple times for this team.
07:59And how's that part going so far?
08:01Because Ostland's playing, I think, great shift to shift.
08:04But between the three of them, they have four goals in seven games.
08:08That's not great.
08:09No.
08:10It's one for Kulik, one for Helenius, and then the two for Ostland.
08:14For between the three of them in seven games, that is going to have to go up if you're going
08:19to get what you want out of them.
08:20Like, if that plan of, oh, how are we going to be as good as last year?
08:24Well, they're going to do it.
08:26They're going to be the reason why.
08:27It has to look better than that.
08:29It has to be producing more than that.
08:31I feel like they've been pretty good.
08:34They've not been terrible.
08:35I mean, there were the talk of Helenius and Kulik and battling, and that's why they found
08:40themselves in the press box.
08:42Like, didn't love that.
08:44But these guys are on the team right now to produce offense for them.
08:48Right.
08:48And I might even want to throw Quinn into that bucket, too.
08:51Quinn and internal growth and him stepping up as a 30-goal guy.
08:55He looked so good in the first two games.
08:57I thought he might have been their worst forward on the ice last night.
09:00Every time he had the puck, like, he was either losing it or he was falling.
09:04Over time, that happened, too.
09:06Like, he, I would want to throw in with those three kids.
09:09It's like, you are the four, maybe more than anybody else, that are supposed to replace
09:14those goals.
09:15And I got Quinn doing it for two games, and the rest of it has just kind of been meh.
09:19Well, to risk of doing straight math on the show, the previous career high for Kulik in
09:25the season is 20.
09:26Okay?
09:26So, 20.
09:27Plus, Ostland's career high was 11 last year in 60 games.
09:32What was Kulik's high in goals?
09:34Yeah.
09:3415.
09:3515.
09:35Sorry.
09:3515.
09:36Where am I looking at 20?
09:37I'm looking at Quinn.
09:38Quinn had 20.
09:39Quinn, 20.
09:40Kulik, 15.
09:40Ostland, 11.
09:41And Hellenius hasn't played really yet.
09:43Right.
09:43So, the number there, the three of them, their career highs, that's basically replacing Tuck.
09:50With three guys, though.
09:51Right, right.
09:52So, what I have to not only do, if they're the ones replacing Tuck, I've got to get them
09:55to where they're supposed to be, and then add 30.
09:59Because it's not just, oh, this guy, if Quinn were to get 30, that replaces 10 of what Tuck
10:06did.
10:07Well, it's really like Quinn replaces Tuck's, and now I need somebody else to replace Quinn's
10:1120.
10:11Right.
10:11Right.
10:12So, maybe, whatever, you're all shuffling deck chairs here.
10:14And at the moment, like, nobody, maybe Ostland gets 20, but is that enough?
10:20Don't I need more than that?
10:22Yeah.
10:23I think I feel like I want more than one of the three young guys to be this.
10:28Like, it's got, it feels like it's got to be at least two of them, I think.
10:33And three would be excellent.
10:34But one is, I don't know, can I, one feels like now I'm getting to the point where Hellenius
10:41is going to Rochester?
10:42Because can I afford two inconsistent young players in the lineup night to night when,
10:47like, Zucker's on his way back?
10:50That gets to that point of the season, which I would not like them to be at.
10:55I would not like them to get to a place where, yeah, Hellenius has to go to Rochester because
10:59they just can't afford to have two young guys that are inconsistent.
11:02Yeah.
11:02I fully expect Hellenius to be in Rochester when Zucker comes back.
11:05Like, it's, who else would it be?
11:09They could wave one of the fourth line guys, like Kozak, but.
11:13I guess they could.
11:14It would be, it would be easier for them to just put Hellenius down in Rochester.
11:17And say it's a numbers game, which is something the Sabres have done a lot over the years.
11:20Right.
11:21Anyway, we'll see.
11:21They got a point.
11:22And a point is nice.
11:23You know, you lose, you get a point.
11:25It's the kind of thing where, how many games played now?
11:29We're at seven games played.
11:31Seven games played.
11:32Two regulation wins in seven games.
11:34So, you know, I still think that's not great.
11:37I know that, has the expected goals number come back to earth to be kind of normalized?
11:42Or are we still, like, flying that flag?
11:44Not that I disrespect it.
11:46Anyway.
11:47They were top ten before the Florida game.
11:49They had one good one, one bad one.
11:51So, I would imagine they're still around there.
11:53Yeah, they are, here you go, through seven games, expected goals at five on five.
11:58They're the sixth best team in the league.
12:00All right.
12:00Utah, New Jersey, Carolina, Tampa, Vegas.
12:03Those are the only teams better.
12:04That's good.
12:05Sure.
12:06They just got to finish.
12:07Will it stay at sixth?
12:10I'd bet no.
12:11Will they finish the season in the top ten?
12:17Most likely, I'd guess they're, like, just outside.
12:19Okay.
12:20But they're above average, at least.
12:228-0-3-0-5-50.
12:24Sabres last night, in a shootout, they lose to Montreal.
12:27You want to talk some bills with us?
12:28We've got lots to get to today.