I Miss Jochen

Before the playoffs started I had a good Jochen Hecht post in mind.  I was going to write about what a really good season he had, how he really answered his critics, and how happy I was for him.  Jochen got freakin' hammered by everyone last season, and while a lot of it was deserved, the extent of the criticism was unfair.  A lot of people went beyond getting on to him for poor play last season and moved into disregarding every season before last.  Was he a disaster last season?  Yes, totally.  Was he always really, really bad at hockey?  Come on, get a clue.  But then Jochen got hurt, and then he was going to be out for weeks, and the timing just didn't really work for the post.

Well, I miss Jochen.  And I think the Sabres miss him too.  Jochen is not the most skilled guy in the world, but thee ae two things you can pretty much always say about him: he plays hard and he plays responsibly.  Those are two things the Sabres - many of them at least - aren't doing right now.  Having one more veteran in the line-up who doesn't clearly panic when in trouble and just reliably does what he's supposed to would be helpful right now.  This series might be more geared for hard-working two-way forwards like him.  If the Sabres lose this series I think you could make an argument that the Sabres miss him almost as much as they miss Thomas Vanek.

I feel pretty badly that as the playoffs have gotten here I've kind of fallen off the face of the earth.  The semester is winding down at ECC and I've had something major to work on or turn in every day for the last few days.  That finally slows down some after the algebra test I hand in today so I'm hoping the Sabres will get it together and keep playing so I can get back in the swing of things here.  I have a weird thing about people calling games that aren't technically must win-games must win-games but tonight is pretty close.  Let's do it.