Donnerstag, 17. Oktober 2013
Dienstag, 1. Oktober 2013
Sabres Schedule Wallpaper -October 2013-
My monthly Wallpaper if you didnt find it out there yet, have fun with it.
1920 x 1200
1920 x 1080
Freitag, 29. März 2013
Sabres Schedule Wallpaper -April 2013-
Hey Guys and Girls,
here is the new wallpaper for the month of April. Since the chances are pretty good, that this will be the last Sabres Schedule Wallpaper until october, I thought I gotta honour Thomas Vanek for his great season.
Thomas Vanek - Sabres Wallpaper april 2013
1920 x 1200
Thomas Vanek - Sabres Wallpaper april 2013
1920 x 1080
Cellphone Wallpaper
IPhone - Older generation
320 x 480
IPhone - Newer generation
1136 x 640
Google Nexus 4
1280 x 768
Donnerstag, 21. März 2013
Let’s talk about rebuild baby
The
2012/2013 NHL season, which actually is a 2013 NHL season only, has passed mit
midway point and the Sabres aren’t looking like a team that is going to ride a
bus through Buffalo come june in order to present a big trophy. In the past 2
years the Sabres started good, continued terrible and finished strong. This
year it’s not really the case.
I really
thought that I would never say that, but I have reached the “hopefully they
lose every game” point. Not because I hate the team, not because I wanna see
them get crushed out there, no, it’s because I want a high draft pick. In this
years NHL Entry Draft, there are at least 3 players who could have an impact on
an NHL team right away. MacKinnon, Jones and Drouin. I want one of those 3
players in a Sabre sweater next year. And the biggest chance to get one of
these, is finished somewhere in the area of 30th place.
I don’t
wanna say the Sabres need a fresh start, but they have to change many things to
be a contender. They added grit to the team prior to this season, however it didn’t
really pay off. So let’s take a look at the Sabres Roster as of now. I will
focus on the “bigger players.”
Unrestricted Free
Agents
Robyn
Regehr, Jordan Leopold, Adam Pardy, Jochen Hecht, Alexander Sulzer, John
Scott
Here is
what I would do. The Sabres gotta find a way to trade Regehr and Leopold.
Apparently there have been scouts from LA watching a lot sabres games lately
and Regehr seems to be the main target. If you can move Regehr for a pick and
maybe a player that would be a great deal
for Buffalo.
Interesting
side-note. Jordan Nolan is a prospect of the LA Kings. Nolan? Yes it’s the son
of former Sabres Coach Ted Nolan.
Jordan Leopold should be moved as well. Let’s hope for a pick
in return here.
Adam Pardy could be resigned but same goes for Sulzer. Sulzer could be the cheaper
DMen and is very reliable as well.
Jochen Hecht and John
Scott will not wear a Sabres uniform next year. I wish the Sabres would
find a job for Hecht somewhere in the organization. He has been a hated player
this year but people should not forget what he did for this franchise.
Restricted Free
Agents
Cody
Hodgson, Mike Weber, Luke Adam, Brian Flynn, Corey Tropp, Jhonas Enroth
Sabres need
to resign Hodgson, however I hope
the GM is able to hammer down a deal that makes sense for both sides. I am
hoping for a 2 or 3 year deal for Hodgson around 7.5 for 2y or 10.5 for 3y.
Everything above that would be overpayment. Hodgson had a great season so far
but don’t forget by the end of this season he still only has 139 NHL games and
something around 75-80 points.
In January
2009 Jordan Staal signed a contract
with Pittsburgh as his Entry Level Contract
was about to expire. He signed a 4y deal worth 16 million dollar with a cap hit
of 4mio dollar.
At that
point, Staal had 204 games NHL for 91 points.
At that point he was already a very good all-around forward, something you can
not say about Hodgson yet. Staal was even nominated for the Selke Trophy along with Pavel
Datsyuk and Ryan
Kesler, which is awarded
annually to the best defensive forward in the league. So if Staal got 4
million at that point, there is no way they should pay Hodgson much more.
Give Hodgson a 2 or 3 contract and reward him with the big contract
after that.
Mike Weber should be resigned as
well. Currently has a cap hit of 950k. Reasonable for a new contract would be a
cap hit that is somewhere around 1.0 – 1.5 million dollar.
Luke Adam will probably a part the
Sabres would like to throw into a deadline deal. He has no future in Buffalo.
Flynn, Tropp and Enroth should all be resigned as well. Tropp and Enroth could be
both in the same area as Weber.
Free Agency
I have 3
main targets for this years Free Agency.
Ryan Clowe, Rob Scuderi and David Clarkson.
Ryan Clowe
has not scored this year but still is a nasty forward like Steve Ott. He still
has a scoring upside and could be a nice fit in Buffalo.
Rob Scuderi
has won 2 cups with LA and Pittsburgh. This guy could be the veteran the Sabres
need on D if they trade Regehr and Leopold.
David
Clarkson, is a big forward that has improved his offensive skills a lot in the
past. Can you imagine a line of Clowe-Ott-Clarkson in Buffalo. They would be
the fan facourite line from day 1.
Another
player I would trade away is Nathan Gerbe. However his value might not be that
high at the moment so maybe he needs to be waived after this season.
However it is likely that San Jose and th Devils will try to sign their players or trade them. Especially since the Devils don't wanna lose another player for nothing, like Parise last summer.
If that's the case, Sekera could be in the mix as well.
2013 Entry Draft
My Main
Target is Jonathan Drouin. This kid
has put up insane number sin the QMJHL and continued to do so, even when Nathan
MacKinnon was injured. So he isn’t just feeding of him, he creates fantastic
plays himself.
My 2013/2014 Sabres
Team:
LW
|
Vanek, Thomas
|
6.400.000
|
RW
|
Pominville, Jason
|
5.500.000
|
LW/RW
|
Leino, Ville
|
4.000.000
|
C
|
Grigorenko, Mi.
|
925.000
|
LW/C
|
Ott, Steve
|
3.200.000
|
C/LW
|
Ennis, Tyler
|
3.062.000
|
C
|
Hodgson, Cody
|
3.500.000
|
RW
|
Kaleta, Patrick
|
1.250.000
|
LW
|
Foligno, Marcus
|
900.000
|
RW
|
David Clarkson
|
4.000.000
|
LW
|
Clowe, Ryan
|
2.000.000
|
LW
|
Jonathan Drouin
|
925.000
|
C
|
Kevin Porter
|
900.000
|
RW
|
Tropp, Corey
|
1.500.000
|
D
|
Myers, Tyler
|
6.000.000
|
D
|
Ehrhoff, Christian
|
4.000.000
|
D
|
Sekera, Andrej
|
1.750.000
|
D
|
Weber, Mike
|
1.500.000
|
D
|
Pysyk, Mark
|
900000
|
D
|
Scuderi, Rob
|
3.000.000
|
D
|
Sulzer, Alexander
|
725000
|
G
|
Miller, Ryan
|
6.250.000
|
G
|
Enroth, Jhonas
|
1.500.000
|
Salary Cap
|
63.687.000
|
2013/2014
Lineup
Vanek-Hodgson-Pominville
Drouin-Grigorenko-Leino
Clowe-Ott-Clarkson
Foligno-Ennis-Kaleta/Tropp
Myers-Erhoff
Sekera-Weber
Scuderi-Pysyk
McNabb-Sulzer
Miller-Enroth
Dienstag, 26. Februar 2013
Sabres Schedule Wallpaper -March 2013-
Hey Guys and Girls,
I know this season has been terrible so far but I hope you still wanna know when the Sabres play. So here is the new Sabres Schedule Wallpaper for the month of march. If you follow me on twitter, you already knew who the coverboy would be this month. Let's hope he will bring many cups to town ...
Mikhail Grigorenko - Sabres Wallpaper March 2013
1920 x 1200
Mikhail Grigorenko - Sabres Wallpaper March 2013
1920 x 1080
Cellphone Wallpaper
IPhone - Older generation
320 x 480
IPhone - Newer generation
1136 x 640
Google Nexus 4
1280 x 768
Mittwoch, 20. Februar 2013
Lindy Ruff fired
I dunno
what to say, I dunno what to think. The Buffalo Sabres have fired Lindy Ruff.
562-452-84-78. Those numbers will be Lindy Ruff’s final numbers as a coach of
the Buffalo Sabres. You always knew, that one day, he will not be the coach of
the Sabres, but now that the day has come you are still stunned.
I could use
this moment to say that the Sabres have been an up and down team for the past
few years. That they have played terrible this year and that Ruff is the one to
blame for it. I am not going to do that. I wanna use this post to say thanks to Lindy
Ruff.
Many of you
wanted to see him gone as of late and if the step they made today is the right
one, will be shown in the future. However there is 1 thing you can say about
Lindy Ruff. Lindy Ruff is bleeding blue and gold. With every fiber of his body
he is suffering if the team plays bad. He wanted to win the Stanley Cup. Now
you can say that everyone in the NHL wants that, but if you look at Lindy Ruff,
he wanted to win it with Buffalo. You could have told him. Lindy go to
Pittsburgh or Detroit and win a Cup and still he would have said: “I wanna win
it in Buffalo”.
Lindy Ruff
would always defend his team and take the blame first. If one of his players
would go down after a dirty play like Drury back when he got hit Neil, Ruff
wouldn’t just shut up and let the league handle it. When Miller got ran over by
Lucic and Tootoo, Ruff addressed the media and found strong words to address the
situation.
Fans from
other teams would always say Ruff is always whining while we in Buffalo knew,
he is fighting for the team he loves, for the team he wants to be successful
with. This success was not there in the past few years and that lead to the
step the Sabres made today.
Ruff is no
longer the coach, but I will have mixed feelings. It’s said to see him go as I
always thought he loves my team as much as I do, while it’s exciting to look
down the road and what future might have in store for the Sabres.
The Sabres didn’t
only lose a coach today, they lost an icon. Maybe one day Lindy will be back in
the #Sabres family in a different position. I would welcome him with a smile.
Booing is not the answer
Although the Buffalo Sabres improved their play a little over the past 7 days,
they are still losing games and they still making simple mistakes over and over
again. The people at the FNC made their voice heard after the 2nd
period against the Boston Bruins on February 15th. After a terrible period
that saw the Bruins going off leading by 1 goal, the Sabres were booed off the
ice. In the third they came back and won 4:2 against the enemy from Massachusetts.
So now that opens a question. Is booing something fans should do, if they
aren’t happy with the way the team is playing? Steve Ott responded on Twitter.
“I know it's easy to Boo plays from the stands but ill
tell you its really inspiring when the crowd chants "Lets Go Buffalo" #Sabres #7thMan“
Steve Ott
developed into a fan favorite very quickly in Buffalo but some fans did not like
this comment with joy.
Is booing a
thing that forces the team to hit another gear? If you ask me, the answer is
easy. It is “No”. The Sabres beat Boston, but they did not do it because of the
fans booing them off the ice. They did it because they were mad at themselves
and wanted to win this game badly. So as a fan should I keep my mouth shut when
things go down the hill? This answer is easy as well. Once again it is “No”.
However,
and that is the important part, you need to know when to do it and how. The 2nd
period against Boston was really really terrible and at that point it was
understandable. But here is what I didn’t like. When the team came back on the
ice, the FNC was dead silent. And that’s not how it should be. The appropriate
way would have been, Boo them off the ice, but support them starting with the 1st
second of the third period. Don’t give them that stupid “win me back first and
show me that you can play good” attitude. That is something 5y old kids do, but
that’s not something a fan should do. I know the people are mad, because they
payed for the tickets, however you buy the ticket for a hockey game, and when
you do it, you need to be aware that they could win or lose 8:0.
But support
is an overall problem at the FNC this year and has been in the past. The FNC
(former HSBC Arena) has always been one of the opponent friendly arenas,
because there isn’t much noise. The opponent is not scared by any means.
Right now
the Sabres trail Winnipeg at home by a score of 2:1. They have played bad. And many many
boos could be heared. However not once did I hear “Let’s Go Buffalo”. Granted
they play bad and had to take the 0:1 with 60 seconds played, that’s still no reason
to not cheer for your team once. If you think supporting the team is only needed if
they play good, you probably should visit a sports team in the future.
As a fan
you support your team in good times and in bad times. You can be mad, you can
let them know it, but you still support them even if the score is 0:4 as hard
as it is. That’s how it should be. Being a fan isn’t something you sign for
good times only. So I hope that this will change in Buffalo in the future. I am
not saying support them every day every second even if they lose 15 games in a
row. But at least show them that you still believe in them.
It’s often
said “my sports team is like my baby”. So tell me would you stop believing in
your kida if they have a few bad weeks at school? You would be mad, but you help them
get out of it. And you gotta do the same with a sports team, if you consider
yourself a fan.
Mittwoch, 6. Februar 2013
Read my mind - My look at the current Sabres Situation
„You say
you wanna move on and you say I'm falling behind. Can you read my
mind?” Like it’s said in the song by the Killers, you wanna move on, but
it looks as if the Sabres fail to do so. 1-6-1 since starting the season 2-0
and there are not many signs that Buffalo will head in a different direction
soon. They are trying but they are “falling behind”. 14th spot in
the Eastern Conference at the moment is not what the Sabres were hoping for and
definitely not what the fans were hoping for.
No
self-confidence
The biggest
issue right now seems to be the self-confidence. Tyler Myers has had a tough
start again and is nowhere near his Calder-Cup performance from the 09-10 season.
At the moment he isn’t even close to being NHL-ready. This sounds harsh, but 1
goal in 10 games and a -7 record is hard to overlook. Myers is struggling in
every aspect of the game right now. When he tries to play the body, his
opponents quickly skate around him, when he tries to skate with them they go
through him. Opponents pick on Myers right now as they see that he has a tough
time.
So how can
one of the best young defencemen in the league go from “Franchise Guy” to “Should
we trade him”? If you ask me it has a lot to do with self-confidence. Over the
last 10 games he tried to force things but it didn’t work. He tried to keep it
simple but had trouble as well. In the past it was no problem for Myers to
skate out of the own zone with a guy on his back battling him for the puck.
Right now he should just try to keep it simple. Put it up the wall and out of
the zone. Instead Myers and his fellow mates try to be way to fancy in their
own end over and over again. Hodgson lost the puck in the own zone a couple of
times this season when he tried to make a play instead of keeping it simple.
Usually it ends up in a scoring chance for the opponent on which they often
capitalize.
Mental
Coaches
It’s not
only Myers who is struggling. Stafford has not scored this year, Leopold is
having his worst start to a season as a Sabre and almost everyone is guilty of making
easy mistakes. That leads to one question. Is there any chance for the players
to get this confidence issue fixed. Obviously I am not within the Sabres organization
but in Europe it’s standard that teams have mental coaches who they could talk
to. Some interpret that as weakness but the players who talked to those coaches
will tell you 9 out of 10 times that it helped them a lot. Yes you have your
coach and coaching stuff but they will never be able to help you with things
that are going on in your mind. For Myers it is nice to have guys like Teppo Numminen
and James Patrick on the coaching stuff. They have seen it all and had their
bad streaks. They can give you an advice now and then, but very often in the
end the problems run deeper. If a player can’t handle the media or the fans being mad about
his recent play, then it’s good to have one you can talk to beside the coaches.
Again I don’t know if the Sabres have those coaches, but if not it might be
something to think about.
Communication
and Fundamentals?
Another
obvious error in the Sabres game right now is communication. We saw it last
night against the Senators. The puck goes into the left corner of the Sabres
territory. Myers and Pominville are coasting torwards it and both are thinking.
“He is gonna take it.” Regin, who just jumped on the ice for his shift is far
away from the puck but rushes to it. He beats Myers along the wall and sets up
Neil for the 4th Senators goal. Mistakes like that are gonna burn
you in the NHL. And this has not been the first time that we saw this. Over and
over again the players are looking at eachother not knowing who should take the
puck. If you don’t communicate out there, you will have a tough time beating
anyone.
As of now
the Sabres are also lacking fundamentals. They aren’t winning the battles along the boards. Whether it's on defence or
offence, they usually lose the battle. The puck goes in the corner, 2 guys are chasing it, and usually it’s the guy in a
Sabres jersey on the wrong end of the play. This is a big problem for Buffalo
especially after they signed guys in order to add grit. If you add grit you are
aiming more for a dump’n’chase kind of hockey and if you aren’t winning these
battles, it’s not really helping your game.
Faceoffs
killing them
The biggest
topic right now: Faceoffs. Buffalo is dead last in the league with a success
rate of roughly 40% on draws. Now there is one point we always hear when this is
brought up:
“New Jersey
was 29th in the regular season and last in the postseason on
faceoffs, and they still made it to the Stanley Cup Finals.”
While this
is correct, they were at least able to get the stat up to 47%. And the even
bigger point here is., it’s their style of playing the game. They only allowed
26.8 shots per game against last season and that was 2nd best in the
league. New Jersey is playing a defensive style of hockey. Many will say it’s
boring and I agree, but they know what they are doing. They sit back and wait
for the opponent in order to counter-attack them with speed. That’s not what
the Sabres are good at. At least not outside of line 1 with Vanek, Hodgson and
Pominville.
Last season
Buffalo had 2 guys above 50% on faceoffs. Paul Gaustad and Derek Roy. Both are
no longer on the team. Gaustad is winning almost 60% of his draws in Nasville,
while Roy wins 50% for Dallas. And this is where I need to look at the Sabres
front office. It’s something you could have seen coming. If they would have
looked at those numbers, they must have ssen it. There numbers were around
between April and January but still it was not addressed. I don’t know if
Darcy, Lindy and their crews didn’t see it or if they thought that it is not a
big problem. I doubt that they expected Ennis and Hodgson to (suddenly) win a
bunch of faceoffs for them as this is not one of their strengths. Grigorenko
isn’t great on faceoffs either but that’s no surprise as he just made the big
step from the Juniors to the NHL. So the question is. Why was that not addressed
in the off-season. Why did no one see that coming as it was so obvious.
What's ahead?
I don’t
wanna finish my blog-post on such a depressing note. All the things I mentioned
can be fixed. It’s nothing that makes you think that this team needs to trade
18 players to be a better team. It’s something you can work on in practice, it’s
something you can fight for. If the
Sabres can work on that and get it done, playoff hockey is still possible in
the area of Buffalo.
Montag, 28. Januar 2013
Sabres Calendar Wallpaper -February 2013-
They lost 3 in a row but we are still going to watch every game this year right? So here is the wallpaper with the dates. The new Sabres Calendar Wallpaper for the month of february.
Cody Hodgson February 2013 - 1920 x 1200
Cody Hodgson February 2013 - 1920 x 1080
People asked about cellphone Wallpaper so here we go:
IPhone 3GS and cellphone with same resolution:
http://www.pepe-grap...s_feb13ohne.jpg - Background
http://www.pepe-grap...ne3gs_feb13.jpg - Background with calendar
IPhone 5 and cellphone with same resolution
http://www.pepe-grap...5_feb13ohne.jpg - Background
http://www.pepe-grap...hone5_feb13.jpg - Background with calendar
Google Nexus 4 since its my phone
http://www.pepe-grap...s4_feb13_wp.jpg
IPhone 3GS and cellphone with same resolution:
http://www.pepe-grap...s_feb13ohne.jpg - Background
http://www.pepe-grap...ne3gs_feb13.jpg - Background with calendar
IPhone 5 and cellphone with same resolution
http://www.pepe-grap...5_feb13ohne.jpg - Background
http://www.pepe-grap...hone5_feb13.jpg - Background with calendar
Google Nexus 4 since its my phone
http://www.pepe-grap...s4_feb13_wp.jpg
Sonntag, 20. Januar 2013
Game On!
It’s time
for some hockey. Today the Buffalo Sabres will start their quest for the
Stanley Cup in the First Niagara Center against the Philadelphia Flyers.
Buffalo has made some changes in the off-season like sending Derek Roy to
Dallas in exchange for Steve Ott. Adam Pardy came over as well but was waived a
couple of days ago and is now playing in Rochester. Steve Ott however will
start the season with Buffalo and will be a key player for them this year. The
Sabres added grit and strength, something they lacked over the past couple of
years. They signed John Scott, a 6’8” 270lbs monster who can fight anyone in
this league without a problem. The kid that everyone will be watching however
is Mikhail Grigorenko, Buffalo’s first Round Draft choice of the 2012 Draft. No
one knows why this kid, despite being injured last year, dropped to 12th
overall in the draft. The Sabres couldn’t care less and are happy to have him
on the team now. He will debut in the NHL against the Flyers today and for the
first time in years, Buffalo has a rookie forward who has potential to be a
franchise player.
So we have
a short season with only 48 games and every game counts this year. When you
lose 4 or 5 games in a row, you are almost out of the playoff race and the
Sabres would like to avoid that. In back to back season they had to finish
strong in order to make the playoffs. Once they were able to accomplish that
but last year they had to watch the King’s run to the Cup from the living room.
Players to
watch:
Tyler Ennis
and Cody Hodgson will get much more icetime than last year. Cody Hodgson will
play between Vanek and Pominville while Ennis will go to work with Foligno and
Stafford. Especially those 3 had an insane chemistry last year and ripped the
league into pieces. Hopefully they can play strong again even if it’s not a 1 point
per game ratio for each player on this line.
Down the
middle Buffalo is a young team. Hodgson (22), Ennis (23), and Grigorenko (18)
are the center for the first 3 lines. On line 4 we see an old face. Jochen
Hecht signed a new 1y contract and will provide leadership and experience. By
the time Hecht was drafted, Mikhail Grigorenko was 1year old. So talk about
different generations on the team.
On Defence
the Sabres hope that especially Ehrhoff and Myers remain healthy for the season
and hopefully playoffs. On march 15 last season the sabres had an incredible
record. 26-12-2 with Myers and Ehrhoff playing the entire game. 7-17-6 if they
were injured or left during the game. This shows how important both are for the
Sabres.
It was the
Blockbuster-Trade at the Trade-Deadline. Hodgson to Buffalo, Kassian to
Vancouver. Many were wondering, who wins the trade. Two more players were
involved in the trade though. Sulzer went to Buffalo and Gragnani to Vancouver.
However Gragnani only played 14 games for Vancouver and didn’t get a new
contract. He signed with Carolina in the off-season and did not make the team.
He is now playing in the AHL. Sulzer received a new contract by Buffalo after
an impressive effort last year. The 28y old german native had 8 points in 15
games with Buffalo and got his roster spot right now as a Defense partner of
Christian Ehrhoff. So at the moment, Buffalo easily wins the Trade.
In the end
Buffalo has a good chance to make the playoffs and they could battle Boston and
Ottawa for the Division title. Nevertheless exciting weeks ahead for the Sabres
and their fans.
Mittwoch, 16. Januar 2013
Sabres Season about to start
The Sabres season will start on Sunday at home against the Philadelphia Flyers. I will post my Sabres Season Preview on Saturday.
Game on Folks!
Sonntag, 13. Januar 2013
Abonnieren
Posts (Atom)