We're Now Entering a Sabres-Free Zone

The semester is over and I have my life back!  Wooooooooo!

Before the playoffs started I just wanted one thing: the Sabres to win the Stanley Cup.  Once the Sabres were eliminated I only wanted one thing: a Stanley Cup Finals that consisted of two teams that weren't the Red Wings or the Penguins.  No matter what happens from here, that's going to happen and I'm pretty happy about it.  As long as it's not the Flyers.  I'm pulling for San Jose first, Montreal second, Chicago third, and Philly never.  Now that there's a little space from the Sabres' elimination and now that we're left with teams that I mostly don't hate, I'm looking forward to the rest of the playoffs.

But here's the deal: I don't really want to think about the Sabres too hard during the playoffs.  One of the things I do hate about sports is everyone's desire to look at everything that's happening now through a Sabres prism or tie everything that happens in the league to the Sabres.  A certain columnist wrote a column about the Bruins and the Sharks and while I disagreed with the fundament idea of the column anyway (The Bruins in no way won that trade.  The trade made them bad enough to get a lottery pick and enough time has passed that they've recovered.  That's totally different.) I also thought it was a stretch to connect the situations those two teams were in to the Sabres.  They were different for a number of reasons.  Some things don't correlate especially now before anything's really been decided.  There are still four teams left.

Don't get me wrong, I totally get the inclination to look at the winning team and see how what they did or have compares to the Sabres.  I understand that local media guys are doing that as part of their job function, and I'd be lying if I said I'm never going to do that myself.  I'm sure when all is said and done, I will at least to some extent.  But I also feel like that path leads to madness and I'm not ready for madness yet.  Right now I just want to enjoy some hockey.  No angst, no strife, no if onlys or what ifs.  If the Sabres do something personnel-wise (yay for re-signing Mike Grier!), I'll probably talk about it (and if that something involves re-signing Henrik Tallinder, I'll bring confetti), but other than that, I'm going to attempt to be Sabres-free for the next few weeks. 

After someone's hoisted the Stanley Cup, all bets are off.