Tag / Sabres

by Greg

Last Night in Pittsburgh…

Sidney Crosby (Canada) scores the winning goal vs Ryan Miller (USA)Last night the Buffalo Sabres were the visiting opponent of the Pittsburgh Penguins in Pittsburgh, PA … USA. (The country is important here.)

Prior to the game, the hosting team apparently showed a video replay of the overtime goal scored by—Pittsburgh Penguin superstar, Sidney Crosby—and, though I’m certain they anticipated a loud cheer for the hometown hero, instead the crowd booed! Ha! They BOOED!

Meanwhile, they also introduced the MVP of the Olympic tournament—Buffalo Sabres superstar goalie, Ryan Miller, who was not playing that night—to a standing ovation! What??! How great is that! The visiting goalie got a standing ovation, while the hometown superstar—arguably the most recognizable NHL player in the world?—was booed in his own building???

That is flat-out awesome.

Four more years, and the gold medal could very likely go to the United States.

Now if the Sabres could somehow manage to make a run at the Cup…

by Greg

Nemesis

Ryan Miller

It’s really unbelievable when in the world of professional sports, one team can totally dominate another, game after game, season after season.

Unless you are a fan of a Buffalo pro sports team.

No, I am not speaking of the incredible streak that the New England Patriots are still enjoying against our Buffalo Bills… though that is a pretty frustrating one for we Buffalo fans. Tonight I’m befuddled by the way the blue and gold managed to post another ‘L’ in the standings after sixty minutes versus their current (and long-time) nemesis: the Ottawa Senators.

The Sens have won 8 straight against the Sabres, and their dominance has extended to the post season in recent years, with their last meeting being a win in only five games against the President Trophy winning Sabres of 2006-2007. (I believe that was the highest point total in Sabres’ history that year.)

From what we’ve heard, it was a hard-fought game. They got the first two goals, then the Sabres scored two goals in 27 seconds to tie it up … then the Sens scored in the last minute of the game to get the win, 4-2. (Empty netter added at the end.)

Oh, I forgot to mention… all four goals were scored by Daniel Alfredsson and Jason Spezza, each with two. (All that was missing was two more from Dany Heatley, who now plays for San Jose.) Those two continued their strange dominance of the Sabres.

The Sabres are really having a very good season. They have a great goalie, who is having a good year. They have just enough scoring from the right players (but could certainly use more…) And for a while they had quite a lead in their division.

They just better hope that they don’t face the Senators in round one of the playoffs.

by Greg

NHL Hockey is Back… with a QUADRUPLE-Header!

The 2009-2010 NHL season begins this Thursday, October 1st! We are looking forward to that here in the Campbell home. Our team (the Sabres) does not start until Saturday, but there will be plenty of hockey to watch before that!

I went to versus.com yesterday to see if they were carrying any opening night games, and was excited to see a double-header scheduled for Thursday night. Imagine my excitement when I kept reading!

Thursday
6:30 Capitals at Bruins
10:00 Sharks at Avalanche

Friday!
Noon Red Wings vs Blues (Helsinki, FIN)
3:00 Panthers vs Blackhawks (Stockholm, SWE)

Yes, folks, that’s right! A quadruple-header!! Awesome. Can’t wait.

Versus carries two or three NHL games per week during the season, but not usually four within 24 hours!

Enjoy!

by Greg

The End

Well, it was a great, great season, and a great run through the NCAA tournament for my Spartans, but last night, it came to a screeching halt. Not only did they lose the game, and not only did they lose it by 17 points, they were simply a shell of who they had been all season, and through the previous 5 games in the tournament. They had more than 20 turnovers, they were dominated on the boards (they led the entire nation in rebounding margin in the 2008-2009 season) and their shooting percentage was just horrible.

Still, they kept getting to within about 15 points for the last 10 minutes of the game or so. They were playing some pretty good defense, and started to catch up in the rebound column… but it was too late, and, well… you have to hit some shots! Sheesh! 🙂

It was a great season, though. Definitely fun to see my team get so far, do so well.

The Sabres on the other hand…

They played last night, too. Actually, they played Saturday night as well. Lost both times. Pretty badly. On Saturday, to their credit, they made a valiant attempt at redeeming an awful game. They got the score to 3-2 after being down 3-0 to start the third period. Dominated the third, but lost. And it was a key loss. Had they won it, they would have tied the team directly above them, and been very much “in the hunt” for the last playoff spot.

But they did not.

So, last night, they needed to win, well, pretty much the remaining four games in the season. Tough task against one of the best teams from the Western Conference, Detroit, but it’s what they had to do. It was 0-0 through half of the game, until they allowed a power play goal… then it just crashed and burned. They ended up losing 4-1.

They still have a slight chance at making the playoffs. They would need the three teams ahead of them to lose most or all of their games, while they win all three of theirs… right. Not going to happen.

The difference between the two endings is, even though MSU was not “on their game” they still kept their heads in the game, and were sticking around to the end. The Sabres… I guess you could say they are trying, and they are “sticking around” to the end, but it also seems pretty obvious that they don’t belong. I’d look for major player turnover in the offseason for the Sabres, while the Spartans will return largely the same team of guys… meaning it should be a good season next year, too!

So, my teams are done… time to start getting ready for Buffalo Bills football!!! 🙂

by Greg

It Comes Down To This

Two Big Games

The Sabres are basically already eliminated from the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs. They have only 9 games left, and they are a full 8 points out of the top eight spots – the playoff teams. They fell to the 10th spot and have been hovering there for quite a while, thanks largely to long absences by their top two stars, Ryan Miller and Thomas Vanek.

But perhaps, really, it’s just because they’re not that good.

Still, after watching them fight back two days ago – impressively, I might add – from a 3-1 deficit against the team directly above them in the standings… there’s still a very small glimmer of hope.

In fact, it’s really only as big as the next two games.

Toronto has had a rough season. The Sabres should beat them. It’s a home game, and they should win. (After their most recent slump, though, the Leafs are only 3 points behind the Sabres in the conference standings!)

The big game is tomorrow night, in Montreal. Hockey Night in Canada. Montreal is currently holding the 8th playoff spot. The Sabres will effectively be eliminated if they give that team two points. If they win both the next two, they will climb to within 4 points though, with seven games remaining. That’s still doable.

So, it should be interesting… looking forward to watching the next two games to see if this team has any fight left in them. They get their star goalie back tonight… perhaps that (plus the big come-from-behind win on Wednesday) will be just the boost they need.

by Greg

Sabres Lose Top Stars, Clinging to Playoff Hopes

Ryan Miller is OutThe Sabres seem to have plenty of bad luck in the injury department. Not just this season, but nearly every season. A few years ago, they made it to game seven of the conference finals, but most likely lost because they had one starting defenseman who was healthy! Many of the defensemen have missed time this season also. 2009 has been pretty much the same story, including the most recent injury to all-star goalie, Ryan Miller.

In Saturday’s victory over the Rangers, the Sabres lost Miller to a high ankle sprain. Those are bad. They usually place football players on the season-ending IR. They involve at least weeks of recovery, sometimes months. That’s bad. Miller is arguably the Sabres’ best player. And if some might give that title to Thomas Vanek, well, he’s gone too.

The Sabres’ best news this season has been the huge contribution from Tim Connolly, who it seems has been injured for more than two thirds of every season he’s been in the league! (Including this one.) He has become the star the Sabres hoped he would be since returning from his injuries this season.

Sabres.com posted an article about the injured Sabres, including an encouraging update: Thomas Vanek is skating again in practice. He was not expected back this early. Max Afinogenov and Andrew Peters are also currently recovering from injuries.

It’s definitely not good when you are clinging to eighth place in the conference – the final playoff spot – and you lose your top two players. The Sabres are likely thinking about making some trades before the trade deadline on March 4th. Maybe a veteran goalie, maybe another forward… who knows. While Connolly, Derek Roy, Jason Pominville, Drew Stafford, and a few others have had pretty good seasons, it’s hard to recover from losing your best two players. Perhaps a trade or two can give the Sabres what they need to make the playoffs, get their stars back, and make a run of it. Perhaps.

The playoffs are always more fun when your team is in it. We’ll see if the 2009 playoffs will be “fun”.

by Greg

The Sabres are Double Awesome

I just posted a more detailed article on our Buffalo Bills site, but thought I’d share the condensed version here for those who might not care about the game’s details…

Last night the Sabres played a pretty tough team on the road. Minnesota was 4-0-0, and they are a great defensive team. Buffalo is good at scoring, but it was going to be difficult to win no matter how well they played, so I said to the rest of the family before the game started, “If we win tonight, we are awesome!”

Well, it started well. We got the first goal, and finished the first period up 1-0! I was getting excited! Maybe we were awesome! BUT… it went downhill in the second period. (For you non-hockey folk… there are three 20-minute periods in a hockey game.) The Sabres were down 2-1 after the second, and after our goalie basically put the puck in OUR net in the third period, we were trailing 3-1 to a team who doesn’t lose when they are ahead in the final period.

So, I changed my declaration. I said, “If we win now, we are DOUBLE awesome!” I really didn’t think they’d win… I just hoped we’d at least get one more goal to make it respectable.

Well… we did. And we got another. And in overtime… we WON!

And so…

The Sabres…

ARE DOUBLE AWESOME!!!! Whoohoo!! 🙂

by Greg

Hockey Is Back!

With football season in full swing, and alllll the other stuff going on around here in Campbell-land, it’s pretty hard to fit anything else in, but we were offered the good six-month promo price on digital cable so we decided to do it for the bulk of the hockey season. So far we have been rewarded.

I followed the Sabres’ offseason moves and was optimistic that we’d see a return to something more like the President’s Trophy season of two years ago. If you can extrapolate anything from only two games… we just may be!

The Sabres have won their first two games, one against the Eastern Conference champs from last season (with some great saves by our supposedly superstar goalie, as well as TWO goals in the shoot out – both of which didn’t happen much last year!) and the other in a blowout on the road – 7-1 over the NY Islanders today. If Miller plays as well as he did in the first game (and as well as he did in the previous few years other than last season) then we certainly can score goals…

Could be a fun year!

Could we have two championship teams in Buffalo this year??! (How crazy would that be??!)

So, busy here, but having fun.
Go Buffalo!

by Greg

Two Cuts, And A Pig-Man

Buffalo Sabres Old-SchoolAs I was putting Julia, our two-year-old, to bed last night, she was looking at my awesome, old-school Sabres shirt, with the vintage logo pasted on the front of it. She was touching it, exploring it, and without looking up she said to me, “Dad, you have two cuts.”

“Cuts? What do you mean?” I asked, looking down to see what she could mean.

“Like we have downstairs. Those are round. You have two cuts, right here.”

She continued.

“And you have a pig… man. Two cuts, and a pig man.”

Older sister Kirstie chimed in, “That’s a Buffalo. Right?”

No. I do believe that is two cuts and a pig-man. 🙂

by Greg

Just Sayin’…

Sabres HockeyI did a little figurin’ tonight, and even if – best case scenario – the Sabres were to win all three of their remaining games, finishing with 92 points on 40 wins… we still probably won’t make the playoffs!

Best I can figure, from who’s playin’ who from here on out… Sabres will end up tied with Washington with 92 points (that’s IF they can win the rest of their games!) and if Boston loses the rest of theirs, then we’d finish ahead of them.

We need:

  1. To win the last three games, getting 6 points
  2. AND… Boston to lose all three games, getting AT MOST one more point
  3. OR, Philly could lose all three of their games, and we could sneak past them…
  4. AND… Washington to only get 3 more points. Max.
  5. OR, Carolina to lose the rest of their games. (Washington wins that division, we beat Carolina for last spot. I think.)
  6. LOTS and LOTS of luck!

🙂