Panic!

So when I discovered that Chris Butler was going to start and Henrik Tallinder was a healthy scratch, I was sure Hank was going to be traded before morning. One of my best blogging buddies, Patty (in Dallas) of Penalty Killing, watched her favorite player, Philippe Boucher, get traded after being a healthy scratch and with that fresh in my mind, I went into a bit of a panic.

Putting on my GM hat, I could make perfect sense of dealing Hank. Chris Butler clearly has to play somewhere and the Sabres don't seem to want to send him back to Portland. That means we have too many d-men. Someone has to go somewhere, right? Even though people in Buffalo feel like Hank has never quite turned into what we thought he was going to be, listening to other team's broadcasts or national broadcasts makes it clear that he's still well thought of around the league. He's a good defenseman. He's also an appealing trade because he's signed through the end of next season and to a very reasonable contract by the standards of today's market. Out of our defensive corp, he'd probably get one of the better returns.

But emotionally I'm not prepared for this scenario at all. Who's my next favorite player? Whose jersey will I wear? For crying out loud, who will go in the banner of this here freakin' blog?! Weird thing about favorite players... Logic goes out the window. Elma left a comment a couple of weeks ago suggesting that I was cranky out of disappointment with Hank and that's just not the case. I'm disappointed, yes. I really thought he and Toni Lydman were on the cusp of being a really great shut-down pairing and they've never really made that leap. But somehow that doesn't make me like him (or Toni, for the record) any less because... I love him. I just do. I can't explain it. There's something about him that strikes me in a way that no one else on the team quite does and that's just the way it is. When he leaves Buffalo, whether it's now or later, I'll be really, really sad in a way that I haven't been since Andy Van Slyke left the Pirates in 1994.

Besides, if we're sitting people on merit shouldn't it be Teppo Numminen in the press box? I love Teppo and can't wait to see him wandering around behind the bench in a suit next season. I'm certainly not going to backtrack and say he never should've been re-signed because I loved the deal when it happened. I totally get why Sabres management decided to give the old guy one more season. I really think it made sense on both sides. But it hasn't worked out. Teppo has definitely lost a step this season and it's probably time for him to hang 'em up at the end of the year. But he's playing while Hank, who's been better since the last scratching, I thought, is watching. But maybe I'm biased.

So I don't know... What do you guys think? Is Hank getting traded? (There's only one answer to that question, btw.) What needs to be done on defense? Who plays and who sits? I'm going to go to work and wait for a phone call telling me my favorite player is on his way to Phoenix a.ka. Off the Edge of the World.

(As for the games this weekend, nice to see Ryan Miller steal - or attempt to steal - a couple. Can't believe the team wasted his effort against Detroit although I suppose that's what happens when you let them have 48 shots especially when you're going to take about half that many shots yourself. Hey, maybe Lindy should reconsider which d-man he sat...)

AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!

I promise I would've said this regardless of the outcome but Ryan Miller dumping the puck into his own net? Easily one of the best things I've ever seen. I've seen some goalie brain farts but that is definitely way up there on the list. Even when I was sure it was the death knell I was rolling on the couch laughing.

I don't know where the heck that win came from but I can tell you this: Henrik Tallinder had the primary assist - a really nice one too - on the game-winning goal and Lindy Ruff said afterwards that he did a great job on that shift. I can sleep a contented and peaceful sleep, resting easy in the knowledge that tonight is not the night Hank will be traded while I dream. Hey, sometimes it's the little things.

More in-depth thoughts tomorrow evening when I don't feel like I'm about to pass out on my keyboard.

The Season To Come, Part One

Hockey - real live, counts in the standings, totally valid to freak out about hockey - is finally, FINALLY just around the corner. I don't know about the rest of you but I really felt like this off-season was never going to end. Ever. But in 72 hours or so the Sabres will have claimed their first victim of the season - and I mean the Canadiens not me, fellas - so it seems like it's time to lay out a couple of thoughts and predictions about the upcoming season. If I were a real journalist I would sit here until my thoughts were all nicely organized and worked but I'm not. I'm a lowly blogger who's not making any money doing this. Some totally random, unorganized thoughts:

TIMMY, MAX AND AL

Tim Connolly, Maxim Afinogenov and Ales Kotalik are all in contract years and their futures with the Sabres are cloudy at best. I think only one of them - if any - will be in Buffalo next season and they all definitely come with their pros and cons.

We all know how talented Timmy is. He's amazingly gifted and he's shown flashes of really pulling it together especially on the playmaking end. There have been times in the past when he's pulled moves that have left me staring at the TV. I had a game on our Tivo for almost an entire calendar year because of the last goal in this highlight package. I just now watched it three times. The Sabres have taken some crap for making a commitment to a guy who was out with concussion problems at the time but I think that's a blatant use of hindsight. It was a risk but a risk worth taking considering how dominant he'd just been in the postseason.

It's no newsflash that Tim's trouble is injuries. The concussion troubles are bad enough but there always seems to be something else going on too. I will admit that I did actually say to Mark a couple of weeks ago, "I have a good feeling about Timmy this season. I think he's going to play 70 games." I have no idea what I was thinking. A couple of days later he was nursing a sore back already and the preseason had barely started. Granted, he is coming off a surgery but we keep hearing that he worked out really hard the rest of the off-season and he was in great shape and I don't know, while I obviously have no idea what kind of pain he's feeling in that fragile little body of his, I've reached the point where I have to really wonder if he has the toughness and the desire to have the career that he could have if things worked on talent alone. I'm sure Tim understands how much he needs to have a great season - at 27 this could be his last, best chance at a big money contract - and I'm sure he'll have his usual near point a game numbers in the parts of the season he does play... I just don't see him making it through a whole season.

Regardless, I don't think he'll be back next season for one reason: Lindy Ruff sounds more and more frustrated every time he talks about him. I think he's clearly had his fill of "What's going on with Tim?" questions and we all know Lindy has a lot of say in personnel decisions. The Sabres made their commitment, it didn't work out, I really don't see them trying it again especially with so many talented forwards already on the roster and coming up through Portland. It really is too bad.

I said my piece about Max not that long ago. He was terrible last season but while I do find him pretty frustrating I really do think a lot of that can be chalked up to his injury - groin pulls do have to be pretty tough for a guy whose entire game is based on speed and quick cuts - and being played on some very ill-fitting lines once he was back from injury. I'm sure Max will pass the puck to a myriad of opponents and pull Derek Roy offside a million times but I also won't be the least bit surprised if he scores 25-30 goals and has fans reconsidering whether we should get rid of him or not.

But like Timmy, I think Lindy has reached the end of his patience with Max which means he will also be gone, possibly before the end of the season. And like I said before, I think he'll catch on with another team, enjoy the freedom of a new coach and new system and do really well for himself. And all of Buffalo will complain incessantly about letting him go for years to come.

Finally that brings us to Al. Oh, Al. If you made me rank all the Sabres players from favorite to least favorite, Al would be pretty darn close to the bottom. Some nights he would be the bottom, yes, ranked below even Andrew Peters. I find him completely infuriating because people say all the time, "He can be physical, he can shoot the puck, he can can can" but he usually doesn't do those things. Max is annoying and set in his ways but if nothing else, he tries hard. He actually probably tries too hard to do too much. Al completely disappears for 20 game stretches - he doesn't score, he doesn't hit, he makes absolutely no impression at all unless he's taking a really stupid penalty - and that drives me crazy. I would gladly cast Al into a hockeyless pit of despair.

That said, if any one of these guys will be back, it's him. Let's face it, not everyone on your roster can be a highly skilled, highly paid star. Every team needs shorter, cheaper contracts to move around their core and Al is exactly that kind of player. He's not a total disaster on the ice and despite my complaints he has averaged just under 20 goals per season (19.75) for the last four seasons. As long as he's agreeable to a shorter contract for a reasonable amount of money (always the tricky part) I could see him sticking around.

The offense was pretty good last season overall but it would definitely help if the above guys all had good contract years especially Timmy who still seems to be the only player we have who can run a power play.

RYAN MILLER

Ryan was really bad last year. There are lots of valid reasons - the death of his cousin Matt right at the beginning of the season and the number of games he started being the two biggies - but the bottom line is, he played some very, very bad hockey. And good lord, what the heck happened with the shootout? He had ice water in his veins the previous two seasons and suddenly looked jittery the second a guy started moving in on a breakaway. As off as some of the other components of the team were last season, they missed the playoffs by four points. Better goaltending would have made up that ground easily. The team probably wouldn't have done much damage in the playoffs once they got there the way they were playing but they would've made it.

The good news is Ryan looks and sounds great right now as opposed to looking and sounded like he needed a very long nap at the end of April. It would appear that he built his frame up a little in the off-season which has to make a difference over the long grind of a hockey season. It sounds like he's also found a little better balance between playing goalie and trying to lead the team. Last year I think he tried to take on too much of the leadership mantle that was suddenly left vacant and his game suffered for it. There's an interview with him up on Sabres TV right now where he talks about how hard it is for a goalie to handle the responsibility of his game while also worrying about addressing questions and concerns about the rest of the team so it sounds like he's thought a lot about how to handle that coming into this season.

And let us all say a prayer to the mighty hockey gods that Patrick Lalime shows himself capable of playing 20 or so games in a somewhat adequate fashion. He played all of the preseason game I attended and he looked pretty good so fingers crossed.

JASON POMINVILLE AND JOCHEN HECHT

God bless Jochen and Pommers.

Looking at last season, Pommers is the one youngster on the team whom I have absolutely no complaint about. Even when he wasn't scoring he was finding some way to contribute night in and night out because he never, ever quit working hard. I think he got stronger on the defensive side of the puck, he's much more responsible with the puck than some of his buddies and he showed so much maturity off the ice. Everyone else seemed to have stretches where they were clearly panicking and flailing, pressing way too hard. If Pommers ever felt that way he sure did a good job of hiding it. I don't want to turn every post into "Lindy, for the love of god just name a captain please!" but even if you want to argue that he has some growing to do yet, I have no doubt he'll grow right into any letter you put on his chest.

Most of the above applies to Jochen too. Every team needs a Jochen - quiet, responsible and dependable. A lot of people may have been willing to part with him but I think he's exactly the kind of player you miss when he's not there. I'm still grouchy about a chart the Buffalo News ran last season after the trade deadline, suggesting that Brian Campbell's absence was responsible for the current skid because it completely ignore that Jochen was also out for that stretch and his absence always makes a difference.

(An aside since we're talking about Brian Campbell: In the ESPN preseason picks, Scott Burnside picked Campbell for the Norris. Someone please explain to Burnside that the Norris is for outstanding defensemen. There's obviously some confusion here.)

It's 1:18 in the morning so a couple quick predictions before I post this:

Leading goal scorer: Thomas Vanek
Leading assister: Derek Roy
Leading in total points: Derek Roy
Derek Roy's final tally: 36 goals, 65 assists, 101 points

Why I Have Hope: Ryan Miller

Let's start with an easy point: At the very least, Ryan Miller can't be worse than he was last year. (Note to Hockey Gods: That's hyperbole. It's not a challenge.) At the end of the season, he was clearly gassed but even before that he wasn't very good. He looked off, he seemed to get rattled a little more easily, he was jumpy on breakaways, and just plain awful in the shootout.

Ladies and gentlemen, our franchise goalie!

No, I kid, I kid. I like Ryan Miller. I think he's a good goalie for the Sabres as they're currently built. He's shown that he's capable of handling odd-man rushes and breakaways and he's shown the ability to be patient in the net and let the shooter make the first move. Considering our team defense is an interesting experience even on the best nights - though some of them are getting better - that's important. He's shown a desire to be good which should be a given for a professional athlete but unfortunately isn't. He's also shown a desire to be better than what he is right now. He was clearly disappointed in how last season went for both him and the team. He didn't hide it and he didn't try to make the final result prettier than it was. They underachieved, he underachieved and he copped to both.

I have hope that Ryan is still getting better. When news of his re-signing first broke I was surprised at how many people at Sabres Edge criticized him based on his age. Yeah, at 28 he's a few years older than a lot of the young guys on the team but I think he has a number of years to improve yet. I scoured the internet last night for some info on when goalies hit their prime and came up empty-handed, but I don't think goalies develop at the same rate as skaters, especially forwards. So much of the position is mental and a lot of that is going to come more with experience. Even though he's 28, Ryan's only been the starting goalie for three years. Three years is not a lot of time over the course of a career, and I don't see why anyone as smart and driven as Ryan can't continue to improve especially since he's still kind of figuring out what works for his unique body and frame. And hello, in three years he's had one bad season and two Eastern Conference Finals appearances. In the first one he and the team were this close before being struck down by some hateful power and the Sabres were only in the second one because he dragged their sorry butts that far.

And come on, who embodies hope right now more than Ryan Miller? Did you see his press conference? It was practically a love fest. Even the media seemed happy. (I know!) Ryan loves Buffalo, loves management, loves the coaching staff, loves his teammates and loves us. He believes in what the team is doing and he believes in the guys in the room and instead of just paying lip service to that, he put his money where his mouth was and made a long-term commitment to the organization. That's awesome. I liked the team before this contract, but after a year of other people telling us that no one wants to play here and management has a horrible reputation among players and Ryan Miller was never going to choose to stay with a bunch of cheap-ass losers, it's pretty darn nice to find out those big talkers don't know everything.

One of my favorite pictures ever. (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

Bucky Gleason Has Been Abducted By Aliens

(This is my second post in the last 12 or so hours so make sure you read both of them. Please?)

Ummm, Bucky? Is that you? That's your name above the column and that's your deceivingly cheery head shot next to the opening paragraph, but this column sounds... happy? Dare I say, optimistic? Do we need to locate Mulder and Scully?

I do have a few tiny nitpicks to get out of the way. Come on, this is Bucky and me. This is what we do. (Mark, this morning, The Dark Knight still on his mind: "Bucky's your Joker and you're his Batman. You complete each other.")

1. I still think it's a mistake to lump Chris Drury, Daniel Briere, and Brian Campbell into one pile. The Sabres totally screwed up the Drury negotiations, but they made a decision to let Briere walk and they never agreed with Campbell and his agent on what Campbell's worth was. Every single one of the above situations is different.

2. "Jason Pominville is more likely to remain on board rather than join the others who were forced to jump ship." Forced to jump ship? Really, Bucky? Maybe you could make that argument for Briere who definitely got a "Thanks for your time here" offer, but the Sabres wanted to match every offer Drury got including the one he signed with the Rangers and the team negotiated with Campbell all season. FREE agents are FREE to go wherever they want. That's why they're called FREE agents. No one put a gun to anyone's head and forced them to sign elsewhere. Was Drury turned off by the negotiations? I don't know, maybe. That's not the same thing as being chased out of town with torches and pitchforks.

3. "Pommer the Bomber" has to stop. Has there ever been a worse nickname thrown around than that one? It doesn't even make sense for the kind of player Pominville is. Seeing that in print drives me bonkers.

4. The things that Bucky is suddenly excited about - New AHL affiliation! Young core of talent! Long-term contracts! Really good drafting and promising prospects! - are all things that existed a month ago. This is pretty close to the same team we had at the end of the season. A few columns ago the whole organization was happy with mediocrity and now they've suddenly figured out the best way to build a team?

But, even with the above complaints, I do get it. I get that Ryan Miller has become the face of the franchise and is therefore considered a little more important. I get that it was important to get a guy who's come up through the system and gone out of his way to ingrain himself in the community into the fold for a long while. I get that people think the Sabres were forced into signing Thomas Vanek long-term and that Jochen Hecht, as much as I love him, is a (great) complementary piece. I get that it was important for the Sabres to sit down with a player that the national media and national fan base see as a star player and come away with a long-term contract. I get that as important as Vanek and Derek Roy are to the future of the team, it's Ryan Miller's signing who really finally puts some distance between this team and the Drury/Briere team. I get people feeling like Ryan Miller is the big piece in the middle that connects all the preexisting pieces to each other. I really do.

For months, people have been complaining on Sabres Edge that Ryan Miller didn't want to be here and saying they'd believe management was serious about winning when they convinced him to stay. I couldn't believe it when I wandered over there yesterday and found people complaining: it's too many years, it's too much money, he had a terrible season, he never steals games, he's not as good as Lundqvist, he's too old to get better. I should no longer be surprised at people's capacity to move immediately from one complaint to another, but come on. How hard is it to be happy about the one thing you've been demanding for months now even for a few moments? I just don't understand fans who never seem to find any joy in the teams they watch. I usually enjoy a good debate over there - I know, I'm demented - but I had to walk away. I just wanted to be happy.

So I do give Bucky huge props for saying, "This is what will make me happy," and then actually being happy when it happened. If it took signing Ryan Miller to clear the clouds blocking Bucky from seeing all that other good stuff he talked about, hey, whatever. I wasn't sure the ol' Buckster had it in him.

See how easy it can work, Bucky?

Bucky and Heather B. in a moment of uneasy agreement.

More Ryan Miller/The Dark Knight

Well, now that I'm home and really have time to gather my thoughts about Ryan Miller, most of my thoughts have already been written by someone else. dave in Rocha pretty well covers how I feel about the hockey side of things (teams have to make choices and and the Sabres let Briere and Campbell walk in anticipation of this day) and Kate totally nails the emotional side (as dumb as it might seem, it's really sweet when an athlete says he loves the same place you love and makes a commitment to stick around for a while).

It's weird because while I like Ryan Miller and am pretty comfortable with him being the starter for the next handful of years, I don't feel that emotional connection to him that you feel to your favorite players. I love Henrik Tallinder. I love Jochen Hecht. I might even love Derek Roy. I like Ryan Miller. I was totally caught off-guard by how genuinely excited I was when I first heard he had officially re-signed. I think it was partly the emotional component. After constantly being told no one wants to play in Buffalo it's nice to see that someone does like us. I think it was partly the "I told you so" element. He's going to Detroit when? I think it was partly just knowing that it was important for the team - on the ice and off - to get this contract done. I don't know. Whatever the reason, I'm really, really happy.

I think the terms are pretty good too. I'm not sure what will happen if Jhonas Enroth turns out to be as good as he's supposed to be, but that's certainly a question for another day and let's face it, "We have two good goalies!" is not a bad problem to have. It's a lot of money, but it's a fair price based on the market. Honestly, I was expecting the cap hit to be closer to $7 million than $6 million. So yeah. I'll take it.

Since Ryan Miller has been pretty much covered, let's move on to the next important thing. The Dark Knight. I'm not really going to go into any plot spoilers, but I am assuming basic comic book knowledge. If you don't know what happens to Harvey Dent eventually, you might want to skip out and just trust me, the movie is awesome and worth your money.

Let me preface this little review with a brief note of explanation. We're comic book geeks at my house with Batman being a personal favorite. Batman is the reason Mark and I met in the first place. Our Batman is not the Batman of the 60's TV show, all shiny and happy. Our Batman is dark and brooding, carefully straddling the line of good and evil, right and wrong. The Dark Knight? Pretty much the perfect Batman movie for us.

Mark and I had a long discussion about some of the comparisons we'd read of this movie to others and we decided that Empire Strikes Back really works for a couple of reasons. One, it tops the movie that preceded it which was already pretty darn good. Two, it's much darker and well, quite frankly pretty unhappy. Batman Begins, like A New Hope ends on a fairly optimistic note. Things aren't perfect, but they just might be okay in the future. In Empire Strikes Back and The Dark Knight, everything goes to hell. Relationships are tested, things done with the best of intentions go wrong, terrible things happen and no one really gets a happy ending.

Harvey Dent/Two-Face is my very favorite villain in all of comicdom. The only show/movie to ever get him right however is Batman: The Animated Series. (And that's not meant as an insult. B:TAS kicks ass.) I was pretty irate over the Two-Face that appeared in Batman Forever because there's no backstory. Two-Face just shows up as this stupid, comical character who flips a coin. It's terrible. (Like most comic geeks, I feel very strongly that Joel Schumacher is the worst thing to happen to Batman ever.) Two-Face is a deeply tragic character and the reason he is that is because of Harvey, his former position as Gotham City District Attorney and his pre-existing relationships with Batman and Jim Gordon. If you skip all that, you really short-change the character so I was so, so glad to see The Dark Knight really take the time to develop Harvey Dent. I love Harvey Dent. I knew roughly what was going to happen - things go down a little differently than they do in his comic origin - and I was still a total mess. And we're not talking delicate tears streaming quietly down my face. We're talking full-body sobs. Am I lame? Totally. But that's how I roll, yo.


I'll say three things about Heath Ledger as Joker. One, he somehow manages to be both hilarious and terrifying, usually at the same time. More than once he said something that was so funny I really wanted to laugh, but it's in the middle of a brutal scene and I was kind of uncomfortable with laughing. Two, if I didn't know that was Heath Ledger, I wouldn't know it was Heath Ledger. He totally disappears in the role. If you're at all worried about how weird it'll be to watch him, knowing it's one of his last roles - or maybe his last depending on what Terry Gilliam can salvage from the movie they were shooting at the time of his death - I wouldn't worry about it. You'll forget it's him after a few minutes. And three, if Ledger gets a posthumous Oscar nomination, it won't be a sympathy vote. It'll be because he's THAT GOOD. I've spent a lot of time ribbing Mark about how he doubted Robert Downey, Jr. would be a good fit for Iron Man. I told him he was crazy, RDJ was practically born for Tony Stark. He reminded me today that when Heath Ledger was cast as the Joker it was me who had doubts and him who was saying, "No, I think it might be cool." I'll gladly eat crow. I was wrong about Heath Ledger as the Joker. He is amazing and absolutely deserving of all the raves he's getting.

I hate to be all cheesy and say, "This movie is so much more than just a comic book movie!" but... this movie is so much more than just a comic book movie. There are special effects and chase scenes and lots of things blow up. But that stuff never overshadows the characters and the story those characters are telling. There are a lot of pretty serious themes going on: What's good, what's evil, how thin the line between the two is, and how hard that line is to define and how easy it is to cross. It's a fantastic movie. Not a fun one per se - tough to watch at times and not all that happy - but pretty darn interesting and so well-done. The writing, directing and acting are all top notch. See it. But if you see it and don't like it, keep it to yourself because I will think less of you and probably question our friendship.

(I'm kidding.)

(Mostly.)

(Please don't take your small children.)

Woot! Woot!

I can't say a lot right now because I'm on my way out the door to see The Dark Knight, but I just wanted to say a quick word to everyone who's been insisting that Ryan Miller hates Sabres management. That he didn't think the franchise was committed to winning. That Darcy Regier would bungle the talks and that Golisano and Quinn would nix the money. That, in his heart of hearts, Ryan really wanted to be a Red Wing.

Bite me!

WoooOOOOOoooooooOOOOOOooOOOOOOoOO00!

I was right, you were wrong.

Ryan Miller Sucks! (Not)

Buffalo, are we seriously going to have a "We should have kept Marty Biron over Ryan Miller" debate? Seriously? Because I seem to remember Marty having plenty of time to establish himself as the number one guy in Buffalo and not being able to do it. I seem to remember Marty getting eaten alive some nights in the run and gun system that the Sabres played the last few years. I seem to remember Marty making a habit of getting really hot and reeling off a lot of wins - kind of like right now - but then giving up a softy that lets the other team back in or suddenly going cold and reeling off a lot of losses. Is he playing very well right now? Yes, he is. Is he one of the best players in his series? Yes, he is. Is he a good man who deserves every good thing that comes his way? As far as I know, yes, he absolutely is. But there's a reason he played in the first playoff series of his career this season. Ryan Miller helped get the Sabres to the Eastern Conference Finals in two of his first three years as a starter and I think came pretty close to doing it single-handedly in last season's playoffs. Does it suck that Ryan's doing intermission interviews in street clothes during the playoffs while Marty is still playing? Absolutely it does. Does it mean that Marty Biron is a better goalie than Ryan Miller and will be a better goalie than Ryan Miller for the next five to six years? No, it does not. Even great goalies have bad seasons. Even great goalies miss the playoffs. One great postseason does not a great goalie make. I love Marty but for the sake of my sanity I really hope the Flyers either collapse against Montreal or get destroyed by Pittsburgh so this conversation can go to the grave where it belongs.

Other things:

- On a similar note, yes, I see that Daniel Briere is having a good postseason. Believe it or not, this doesn't shock me. He's a good hockey player. I didn't expect him to cease to be a good hockey player once he left Buffalo. It is possible for him to be a good hockey player in one city and still not be the answer to all of a team's problems in another city. Consider this your gentle reminder, Buffalo, that he was actually on the team that choked in the playoffs last season. "Briere is having a good postseason in Philly" does not automatically equal "Briere would have gotten the Sabres to the same point" especially since he had a fairly pedestrian regular season.

- I've had a mad crush on Guy Carbonneau this postseason. His little bowl cut is a bit extreme but he always looks very dashing, I love his accent, I like the way he huddles in the tunnel during the introductions and anthems, and I fully appreciate how he can get across total disgust with a call with a half-smirk and slight roll of his eyes. I thought his comment on the sucker punch on Kimo Timonen was hilarious. ("I think he deserved it. They should have been happy to score and just gone back to the bench.") But Guy. Seriously. How could you not put Carey Price back on the horse tonight? I'm totally second-guessing him on that one.

(Please note: I didn't realize until a few days ago that Guy was on the '99 Dallas team. I'm cheering for Dallas in the West but as long as I don't think about Brett Hull I'm personally okay with that. (Mark is more conflicted. He found himself celebrating a Stars goal in Game 2 and then immediately said, "I just cheered a Dallas goal. I think I can actually feel my soul leaving my body.") Ultimately, the blame for No Goal belongs with the league. But I don't know, discovering Guy was on that team bummed me out a little.)

- My least favorite commercial of the postseason so far is the Acuvue ad with the flag football players. "I can catch, I swear! I just can't see through these friggin' glasses!" Whatever, dude. I think you just stink.

- My favorite commercials of the off-season are the Bud Light (I think) sports show spots. I don't like the "Are sports shows too commercialized?" ad quite as much (although I do love the guy holding the neon sign at the end) but the other two I've seen crack me up every time. I hate the way the talking heads laugh hysterically at everything everyone says - this is especially a problem on the various NFL panels - so the "Is there too much forced laughter?" ad really gets me. There's one guy - I think it's the neon sign guy - who ha ha ha ha ha ha's and then ends with just a couple of ho ho's and for some reason that absolutely kills us at our house. We wait for it every time and then totally crack up and have even started laughing that way ourselves. The "Do commentators disagree for entertainment purposes?" one is good too, especially the end. "It looks like we're going to have to agree to disagree." "I couldn't possibly agree to that." Although I also like, "Well, I disagree with your mild disagreement."

Let's Have a Presser!

Thoughts on the press conference and interview Larry Quinn, Darcy Regier, and Lindy Ruff did today:

- I do appreciate management admitting they made some mistakes and mishandled some situations. Now can we move on and give them a chance to act differently in the future? Mistakes were made, mistakes were admitted, no amount of complaining is going to change the things that already happened. Moving along, moving along.

- I liked Darcy Regier's comments that teams have to be careful with long-term contracts. He's absolutely right that you can't give everyone six and seven years especially when you're handing them out when players are so young. I think Thomas Vanek has been consistent enough that he'll probably be a valuable player for six more years but if he doesn't pan out he wouldn't be the first player to get off to a promising start and then peter out. When you've got a bunch of guys tied up for years and some of them don't work out the way you were hoping, you're stuck. Long-term contracts should be saved for special players. I think there will probably always be disagreements about who those guys are - I'm glad they traded Brian Campbell instead of giving him one of those deals, others are insistent that he should have been earmarked for one - but I really don't see how you can disagree with a more cautious approach at least on this issue. I may be in the minority but I'd rather have a GM who occasionally lets the wrong guy go but leaves some flexibility to recover from the mistake than a GM who throws huge money and terms at everyone and ties the organization up for years because those guys were busts and can't be moved.

- Larry Quinn went a little hard on the reminders that Tom Golisano saved the Sabres. Yes, he bought the team when it was close to ending up elsewhere. Yes, he spent a lot of money on losing seasons before the lockout. We get it. Overall though I do think Quinn was a touch less assy than he usually is.

- I do think management was pretty agreeable to some of the criticisms of the current team especially a lack of leadership and overuse of Ryan Miller. I think those are things pretty much everyone can agree on so I was glad to hear them just admit it rather than trying to wiggle out of it or spin it.

- Lindy Ruff's criticism of Henrik Tallinder and Toni Lydman hurt my heart but he's right. They were very inconsistent this year. There were a lot of stretches where either both of them were playing poorly or one of them was playing poorly enough that it was bringing down the other. In a season where a lot of the players were looking at different roles and big changes, the Sabres really needed Tallinder and Lydman, who were in the same role as last year, to be steady especially at the beginning of the season. Instead they were as shaky as everyone else. There was a point in February where Hank was, by some standards (pretty good ones, I think), the best defensive d-man in the league. By the end of the year he'd tumbled to 20th. I don't think it's coincidence that when Tallinder and Lydman were playing their best hockey, the team was succeeding and when they were struggling, the team was losing. (I would also put Ryan Miller in with Five and Dime. He was as shaky as they were - even before the stretch run when he was obviously running on fumes - and slightly better defense or slightly better goaltending during the ten game losing streak means the Sabres are probably still playing.) (Also, I still love you, Hank. Get in terrific shape this summer, okay?)

- I don't really understand the criticism of the Sabres offering Campbell a three year deal. If they didn't want to give him a lot of money long-term but they were interested in him coming back, what does it hurt to see if he'll take more money for shorter years? What if it had come out later that Campbell would've taken a shorter contract but the Sabres didn't offer it? The front office would've been lambasted. And Darcy is right about San Jose. I was talking to a Sharks fan about that not long ago. The Sharks have not made it a habit to hand out long-term contracts even to their stars. I suppose they could start this season but it is a little much to accuse the Sabres of insulting Campbell with a three year deal for a lot of money when they're hardly the only franchise that's being careful. (Please note that I'm not saying the reporter who asked about Campbell's contract offer was implying that - although maybe he was, I don't know. That was more a response to complaints I've heard from others.)

- Maybe you could argue that the Sabres haven't done a good job of setting the market for their own players (although Derek Roy at four million a year is a good start) but how in the world can you suggest that they're partly to blame for escalating salaries across the league? Because they have one outrageous contract on the books? As long as the Sabres are under the current management and the New York Rangers, Philadelphia Flyers, and Kevin Lowe are in the league, I think that's a pretty dumb suggestion. (That had to be Bucky.)

- I can't always tell everyone's voices apart but I think I really like John Vogl at press conferences. He always asks questions I want to know the answers to but he manages to do it without sounding accusatory or biased. He's always very even-keeled. that might just be John's personality and I know sometimes reporters have to be more aggressive to get a real answer out of someone like Larry Quinn but I appreciate that his initial approach is more professional than um... other's.

- I'll accept youth as an excuse this year. The team is young, they went through a lot of change, and they had their first year of regular season struggle. Next year I don't know if I'll buy that excuse from these guys though. This was your year to be stubborn and stupid, boys. Let's fix all that next season.

- On Schopp and the Bulldog, Darcy talked some about the scouting department which I thought was pretty interesting if you didn't hear it. Since we've been given the impression that the scouting department has been reduced to a nine-year-old watching grainy black-and-white video on one of those televisions people have on the counters in their kitchens, it was nice to get more detail. I'm shocked that things might have been exaggerated a little bit.

- Also shocking? Darcy Regier evidently isn't interested in telling us what the Sabres are planning on offering Ryan Miller.

Press conference
Schopp and the Bulldog Part 1
Schopp and the Bulldog Part 2

Ugh.

I'm tired, my ankle is swollen like a balloon, and I just popped a painkiller which means I'll be out soon so I'm going to keep this short and simple. Here's why the Sabres lost this game:

- The powerplay was embarrassing. Almost eleven minutes of PP time in one period and we managed six shots on goal. Note to Ales Kotalik: I don't care how hard your shot is, if there's a guy standing RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, it's probably not getting through.

- A couple of really undisciplined penalties, particularly Max Afinogenov's stupid, stupid hook on Jason Blake after the play was over which led to a Toronto PP goal. Nice work, Max!

- Vesa Toskala outplayed Ryan Miller by a country mile. Not even close. Ryan made some big stops but not when the team really needed them. I try to be careful about putting all the weight of a loss on one player, even the goalie, but he has to be great if the Sabres are going to get to the postseason.

On top of being kind of ugly, this game was really boring. At least entertain me with your badness!

How is it possible to love and hate a group of men I've never met in my life so much? Is this healthy?

More tomorrow at some point. If you need more right now, read the previous post if you haven't already in which I tell you why it might be good for these guys to miss the playoffs. (I know, it still sucks. Missing the playoffs, not the post. I think.)

Why I Still Love This Young, Immature, Inconsistent Team of Little Brats

Here's the deal with this post. I wrote it over a course of a few nights while on vacation last week, mostly after the losses to the Rangers and the Penguins. I think it's clear in some spots that I'm assuming the Sabres are missing the playoffs. But those little rats went on to win the next three games and mostly look good doing it and now I'm back to thinking they probably will squeak in after all. And like I said a few posts ago, once the playoffs have started, it's a whole new season. But I figure a lot of the people complaining now will keep complaining. They'll just shift gears from "I can't believe the Sabres missed the playoffs!" to "I can't believe the Sabres barely squeaked into the playoffs!" and in that case, my defense pretty much stays the same as do my feelings about the team now and in the next couple of years. I also talk some about being a fan and what it means to me which I just talked about a little bit a few days ago. So in addition to being long-winded, disorganized, and scattered, this entry is also a little repititive. How's that for a build-up? Here goes:

A few days before I left for vacation, reader and commenter Jennifer emailed me and asked my opinion on something that she heard on XM radio. Since I know this is going to be long I'll skip all the set-up and boil it down to this: If you're in charge of the Sabres and the Flyers call and tell you Daniel Briere is available, do you take him? Forget who would have to be traded or released to make room for him and forget the money. If you could keep your current roster and fit him in your budget, would you take Briere?

My initial reaction was, "Yes, of course!" Before the season I really thought the team would miss Chris Drury more but as the season went along I decided it was Briere we really needed. Our penalty kill was pretty good and Jochen Hecht and Jason Pominville were doing a nice job of becoming the main checking line. While we probably do miss some of Drury's leadership (more on that in a bit) and his face-off ability, I think that the current team has done a pretty decent job of filling in a lot of the things he did. For most of the season we were missing that guy who could decide, "You know what? We're winning this freakin' game," and then carry the puck down the ice and put it in the net. We missed the guy who played with visible passion most nights. The Sabres were scoring goals but they were having a hard time scoring them when it really mattered and Briere was good at that.

But as quickly as I thought, "Yes, of course I'd take him!" I decided, "No, I don't think I would." A Danny Briere like player? Yeah, maybe. Danny Briere himself? No. I just think it's really hard to turn back the clock. Just because Danny worked well with this team in the past, it doesn't mean he'd work there now. When he was in Buffalo, the Sabres were partly his team. This year they're not his team. To try to recreate that would be a tough thing.

And I'm not sure that's all that bad. Despite what the naysayers will tell you, there's still a very talented core in Buffalo. At some point I think the team had to be handed over to them. What's the point of drafting great young talent, much of it with good leadership potential, if you're never going to let the team belong to them? The change probably happened too soon and I think it definitely happened too abruptly - though I do think management intended for Teppo Numminen to help out with that by providing a leadership bridge from that team to this team - but I don't think it's a bad thing and while it's frustrating to watch it take a whole season, I don't think the season can be considered a waste in that regard.

To me, if you look at the season on a whole, Ryan Miller, Thomas Vanek, Derek Roy, and Jason Pominville have made huge strides both on and off the ice. It was a struggle for most of them but why shouldn't it be? They were all cast in new roles and three of them are still pretty young. Miller was suddenly backstopping a team that couldn't overwhelm everyone with talent and became a more vital part of the game. Because the team struggled, he also found himself playing more games because more games were important than in the previous two seasons. Thomas Vanek and Derek Roy went from third liners to first liners, the top defended players, and Vanek was now The Man, the player expected to carry the team. And Jason Pominville became more important as a two-way player. Three of them were up and down for much of the season and even still are a little bit (God bless Pommers, steady and dependable to the end) but there were and are signs that they're putting things together and getting more comfortable. And even when struggling on the ice, I think all four have shown new maturity off the ice. Vanek never shied away from the criticism he received, agreeing that it was more than justified. He just continued to plug away until things starting working. Roy cut down on the diving, really cut down on the whining and responded extremely well when Lindy challenged him to be better because it was what his team needed from him. Pommers busted ass every night even when his teammates were slacking off around him and found other ways to contribute when he wasn't scoring.

Now don't get me wrong. The team still clearly has problems with consistency and the roster definitely needs some tweaking. A physical, stay-at-home defenseman would be nice. A steady, hard-working veteran would be even nicer. But not someone who's going to take over the team. Someone who's going to help the current team take the next big step. Young players have to grow up and while they may not be enough to build a championship team around right this second, I think they will be eventually and I don't think we're even that far away. I think they're moving in the right direction. Putting Danny (or Chris) back in the mix would, in my opinion, be a step backward. Players who are the future of the team, players who played under those two in the past, would naturally give that leadership back over to them and that's not a good thing. Something that I think a lot of people are overlooking is that cores change because they have to. That's the way sports work. Again, I'll definitely accept argument that it happened before the young'uns were really ready but with the long-term contracts that players are getting, I think it almost had to happen that way. If you ask me if I'd rather have a Jay McKee/Chris Drury/Danny Briere led team for the next six to seven years or a Vanek/Roy/Pominville team for the next six to seven years, I'm going with the latter. I might be in the minority but I think there's more room to grow and get better with that group than with the first group.

I'm also going to be a blasphemer and say that I think Chris Drury's leadership has been greatly exaggerated. I loved him and I'm in no way questioning that he did a lot for the Sabres and taught the players who are still here a lot. He absolutely did. But the truth is that last year's team - his team - played uninspired hockey for long stretches of the season, particularly in the second half. They repeatedly coasted through two periods and then turned it on in the third. The only difference between that team and this one is that that team had enough talent to pull that off and this one doesn't. Last year's team - again, Drury's team - sleepwalked through the first two rounds of the playoffs and then got embarrassed in the third round, playing one of the worst games I've ever seen a Sabres team play. Except for occasional flashes, they looked disinterested, unorganized, and almost completely lacking in passion. The only person who saved them from an embarrassing early round exit was Ryan Miller.

Please don't think I'm saying that Chris Drury was the problem or any part of the problem. I think there were a lot of things going on. A very talented team was maybe getting a little too comfortable with winning without full effort. The New NHL was moving back a little to the Old NHL which works against a small, skilled team. Other coaches were learning how to defend the Sabres. But whatever was going on, Chris Drury and Daniel Briere weren't the magic solution. I don't really see why people think they'd be the magic solution now.

I just... I guess I just don't understand why people think this team is doomed forever now. They've had a bad year but it happens. The Hurricanes went from winning the Stanley Cup to missing the playoffs because their most important players had tough seasons and two young guys (Eric Staal and Cam Ward) had a hard time adjusting to being two of the most important guys on the team. This season they got themselves back on track and the team is faring better, right back in the playoff mix and playing really good hockey here when it matters the most. The price of parity is that one or two players underachieving can kill a team's season. Chris Drury and Daniel Briere were two players on last year's President Trophy winning team. They were two important players but they were still TWO players. I really hate the way people are crediting all the team's success last year to two players. They helped make the team better maybe but they didn't give the current roster all its talent. Based on what we've seen from Drury and Briere this season I think it's pretty fair to say it was more of a two-way street. They all made each other better. Jochen Hecht and Pominville helped Briere as much as Briere helped them etc. I don't see why the talent that left outweighs the talent that's still here and I don't see why, with some growing and tweaking, the current roster can't be successful. The team before the lockout was not a great team and here we are two years later with two Eastern Conference Finals appearances. So why can't we turn it around again and do it just as quickly?

Let's face it, the current Sabres have had it pretty easy. The bulk of them played together on a very good Rochester team and then they came to the NHL and played on very good Sabres teams. Everything has broken their way in their pro careers. People talk about them having a lot of experience for young players but very few of them have much experience with losing a lot of games. They learned to win a lot which is good but they also learned to win without putting in a full sixty minutes as we've seen PLENTY of proof of this season. While it totally bites as a fan to watch them dither away an entire season, I'm not sure it'll be a terrible thing for them to wake up the day after the regular season ends and have to face the reality of not being in the postseason, not to mention facing the reality that they're sitting at home because that's exactly where they deserve to be. Their play this season doesn't merit anything else and despite what the media or some fans will say, that's ultimately on them. Not on management and not on coaching. It's on the guys who take the ice every night. Having plenty of time to think about all the one period games they played might be exactly what they need because you know what? No matter how much they've talked about the need to play harder I really think a lot of them fully expected to play exactly the way they have the last couple of years and get exactly the same results. And even when they struggled early, I think a lot of them figured it would be fine in the end. Finding out that it might not be as fine as they thought will suck for them (and us) but hey, sometimes you learn the lesson the most clearly when you screwed everything up.

When the Sabres were winning the division and leading the Conference people complained about all the bandwagoners who were suddenly buying jerseys and going to games. And now all those same people are freaking out and telling me that I need to stop drinking the Sabres Kool-Aid and stop supporting the team with my money. That seems... a little hypocritical, you know? If you're unhappy with ownership and you're pissed about the team and you feel like the only thing you can do is stop going to games and buying merchandise, hey, knock yourself out. But please stop assuming I feel the same and please stop telling me I should feel the same way. I don't have to. I don't want to.

I've been having a lot of discussions lately with a few friends about how being a sports fan consists of really high highs and really low lows. Jason Pominville's shortie against the Senators in the 2006 playoffs was a really high high but the reason it was such a high high was because of the low lows that came before it. Missing the playoffs completely the season before the lockout. Believing it was just a matter of time before the Sabres moved. Going without the NHL for a year. Struggling against the Senators all season. That goal wouldn't have meant nearly as much as it did if it wasn't for all the struggles that led up to it. Losing to the Hurricanes - watching a fun, talented team hang on as long as they could, battling to the very end despite the blueline blowing up around them - was a low low. And part of the reason it was so low is because of all the highs that came before it. Watching a fast, skilled team surprise the NHL. Seeing young players start to blossom and make real contributions to the team. Feeling the buzz in the air around Buffalo all season. Beating the Senators in five games on Jason Pominville's shortie. Living through all of that made thinking about Jay McKee crying in a hospital room while the Sabres lost feel that much lower.

But that's sports. You have the good and the bad and you need both. If you skip out on one, the other doesn't mean as much. When we're laughing at what a bargain Vanek is at seven million - a day that's going to come pretty soon, I think considering that Dan Boyle just re-signed for 6.67 - it'll be even funnier because everyone complained this season that he was never going to be worth that much. When Andrej Sekera is a steady, contributing member of the defensive corps we're going to laugh at how he initially showed up because the blueline blew up for the second time in three years. When Ryan Miller is saving the Sabres' bacon in the playoffs again we'll shake our heads when thinking about how he looked so exhausted and beat down this season and how Buffalo was all up in arms about how it was just a matter of time before he became a Red Wing. And don't tell me that those things aren't going to happen because they might not. But something like them will and that's the point really. Building a relationship with a team and a player means being there for the good and the bad and this year was just a whole lot of the bad. And yeah, I get that people who have been in Buffalo longer than I have been have had their fill of bad but again, it's part of the deal and you're a bunch of spoiled brats because while you haven't had a championship team yet, you have had plenty of high highs, a lot more than some cities have had. Championships are hard to win - even harder to win in the NHL and even harder to win in an NHL so full of parity. If you're watching sports just to win championships, you, my friend, are probably going to spend a lot of time being miserable.

So what's my point? I was a Sabres fan last year when the team was mostly good. I've been a Sabres fan this year when the team was mostly bad. I'll be a Sabres fan next year when they're hopefully mostly good again.

And I would definitely not take back Daniel Briere. He's got Flyers cooties.

The Sabres are Schizo

So this is why I can't totally jump on the "management screwed this team!" bandwagon. The Sabres that played the first half of the game looked terrible but the Sabres of the second half are a playoff team. This team probably does not have enough talent to win the Stanley Cup - not without a lot of hard work and good fortune - but they do have enough talent to make the playoffs and I think win a round (maybe two), especially in the Eastern Conference. The team that got beat tonight didn't get beat because Carolina is more talented than them. They got beat because Carolina outworked them for half of the game. The Sabres are underachieving and at some point some of the onus of that has to be put on the guys who actually play the games. Larry Quinn isn't getting out-battled in the corners, Darcy Regier isn't failing to tie up his man in front of the net, and Tom Golisano isn't making lazy passes to the other team. And you can talk all you want about management creating a poor environment. I think that's a bullhonky excuse for a team battling for a playoff spot to play the way they did the first half of the game tonight. The roster definitely needs some tweaking in the off-season (and currently needs Henrik Tallinder to return so Paetsch can have a seat) but they should not be on the outside looking in. That's what I say at least.

The first half of this game was pretty brutal though. Mark and I were actually discussing who we were going to cheer for when the Sabres failed to make the playoffs. If and when the Sabres officially miss the playoffs, I'll share those choices with you. For now, the Sabres live to fight another day. One point is not as good as two but it's certainly better than nothing. And I'd much rather lose in overtime than lose in another freakin' shootout.

Okay, well that's it for me for now. I have to finish packing. I'm sure I'll be poking in here and there. If you really believe I'm going to go completely silent for ten days, you don't know me very well. I'm perfectly capable of writing 1,000 words on a game I listened to over the computer for fourteen minutes. And if I get stuck in an airport somewhere along the way, well, there's no telling what I'll end up writing here to pass the time.

For your amusement, here's a snowstorm Birmingham style. This is what was at my mom's house today. This snowfall is enough to have everyone scrambling for milk and bread, scare people off the roads, and close down nonessential businesses. And if it was a school day, there probably would've been no school. In fairness to Alabama, they have no salt trucks or snow plows - there's no need since this kind of snow is generally a once a year thing - and they have totally different kinds of trees so any accumulation or ice build-up breaks branches and wreaks havoc on power lines. Still, after living in Buffalo for almost seven years, it's pretty funny to think back on the snow of my childhood. Somewhere I have a great picture of me and my little brother with the snowman we built using every drop of snow in the yard during the biggest snowfall of our lives. I'll have to see if I can dig it up somewhere. The snowman is about a foot tall and has grass and dirt all over it because the snow was so thin.


All right, see you guys later. Don't burn the place down while I'm gone.

(P.S. Ryan Miller was great tonight. I love when a guy has clearly started to celebrate a goal and then has to stop. I especially love when that guy is Eric Staal. Also, that goalie interference call on Goose was b.s. He might have been going hard to the net but when another player puts a stick in his back to help him get there, you can't make that call.)

This Game's Going to a Shootout! (NOOOOOOOOOOOO!)

A few odds and ends here... but first! A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FOR ALL OF BUFFALO!

BUFALLO! THE DETROIT RED WINGS HAVE A GOALIE IN THEIR SYSTEM BY THE NAME OF JIMMY HOWARD! THEY REALLY LIKE HIM! THEY THINK HE'S GOING TO BE REALLY GOOD! HE PLAYED IN A GAME ON NBC A COUPLE WEEKS AGO AND LOOKED REALLY GOOD! EVEN THOUGH PIERRE MCGUIRE ACTED LIKE THIS KID HAD APPEARED OUT OF THIN AIR, I ASSURE YOU HE DID NOT! THE WINGS HAVE KNOWN ABOUT HIM THE ENTIRE TIME! I REALLY DOUBT THAT THEY'LL BURY HIM BEHIND RYAN MILLER WHO IS GOING TO COST A LOT OF MONEY EVEN IF RYAN MILLER IS FROM MICHIGAN! THEY DON'T CARE! THEY JUST WANT A GOOD GOALIE! WHICH THEY HAVE! NO NEED TO FREAK OUT OVER SOMETHING THAT HASN'T HAPPENED AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, IS NOT VERY LIKELY TO HAPPEN IN THE FUTURE! PLEASE CEASE AND DESIST WITH THE FREAKING OUT!

ALSO, WHILE I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION! SABRES EDGE! I'M TRYING VERY HARD NOT TO INCLUDE YOU IN MY BUFFALO NEWS BAN BUT I COULDN'T HELP BUT NOTICE THAT BUCKY GLEASON POSTED THERE FOUR TIMES YESTERDAY, ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT DAYS IN THE HOCKEY SEASON! THAT IS NOT COOL! I NOTICED THAT HE WROTE, "GEE, I GUESS THEY SHOULD HAVE ACCEPTED THAT OFFER OF 25 MILLION FOR FIVE YEARS" WHICH IS 1) DUMB 2) SNOTTY AND 3) A DIRECT CUT AND PASTE OF WHAT HE WROTE LAST TIME HE SHOWED UP ON SABRES EDGE! I DID NOT ENJOY THAT! ALSO! YOUR COMMENTERS ARE WHACK-A-DOOS! I KNOW THERE'S NOT MUCH YOU CAN DO ABOUT THAT! I JUST WANTED TO GO ON THE RECORD!

(This has been a Top Shelf public service announcement. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.)

Opinion seems to be divided on how the Brian Campbell trade is going to affect the Sabres. I can see both sides and I'm too wishy-washy on this one to commit to one way or the other. But I am interested to see which way it goes. Is it the final blow to a team that's shown itself to be pretty fragile for stretches of the season? Or will it be a load off their shoulders which will now enable them to really focus on hockey? Campbell was clearly distracted and it affected his play which in turn might have affected other people's play. And I think all the guys were probably distracted because while I can't fully jump on the media for doing its job, it was a total circus.

I fully approve of Dmitri Kalinin moving up to play with Jaroslav Spacek. I kind of hate to break up Kalinin and Nolan Pratt because they've found such a nice rhythm but a Spacek-Paetsch pairing sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen to me. I like Kalinin a lot and I think he'll do a fair job of sliding into Campbell's spot because while he's not the skater Campbell is, he can carry the puck and he does a decent job of getting his shot on net. I also think Paetsch is better off with a steadier defensive d-man like Pratt. So Lindy, if you're nosing around to see what I think, thumbs up, buddy!

I've started the much-promised post on the shootout a few times now and it turns out I just don't have much to say that's very insightful. I hate them. I do think they're fun to watch and I do enjoy seeing the occasional unexpected hero pop up, but I can't get behind it being a good way to decide the winner of a game. It's a skills competition and it's such a weird, specific skill. Some goalies who are very good in-game goalies - even on breakaways - are terrible at the shootout and vice versa. Some forwards who are great offensive players in-game - again, even on breakaways - are terrible in shootouts. Some teams who are not good have great shootout records - Tampa Bay was one of the league leaders last season - and some good teams are terrible in shootouts. (I would've pointed to Ottawa here a few weeks ago but I have no idea what's going on with them right now. Man.) There's absolutely no relationship between how that particular game has gone and how the shootout turns out. Does the best team win every game? No, not always. Does the best team on a given night win every game? Not every time but I'd say usually. But not necessarily in a shootout.

I also hate the third point, which I know was around before the shootout. But I hate that some games are worth more than other games and I hate that for every shootout loss the Sabres handed over an extra point to a team they're fighting with for a playoff spot and only because that team happened to be better at a very specific skill than us. (And yes, I'm not going to deny that I'm partly bitter because we stink in shootouts this year.) And really, as much as I hate the shootout as a game decider, it was installed to guarantee a winner and a loser. Why is the loser of a shootout more worthy of a point than the loser of a regulation game? Because they played good defensive hockey for an extra five minutes? I would probably be more cranky if the Sabres lost in a shootout and got nothing for it but theoretically, if we have a winner and a loser, why does the loser get anything. They lost!

But really my main beef with the shootout is this: Everyone - even the people who like them - say, "I don't ever want to see them in the playoffs." Well, if we all agree that they're not a fitting way to decide who wins a playoff game, why is it okay for them to decide games that determine who makes the playoffs in the first place? Let's use the Buffalo-Philly game as an example. (I know, I know, I said we should pretend it didn't happen. Work with me, people!) That game was between the eighth seed and the ninth seed and the winner was going to finish as the eighth seed a.k.a. in the final playoff spot. If that game had been the final game of the season, who moved on to the postseason would have come down to who has the best shootout shooters/goalie and that, my friends, is a blemish on hockey as we know it! I mean, yes, you could justifiably say, "If the Sabres had won more games during the season, it wouldn't have come down to that." And you'd be right. But you could also justifiably say, "If those other teams hadn't picked up so many extra points because they were good at shootouts, they might not be in the picture at all." If the Buffalo-Philly game had ended in a tie - as it should have because both teams were equally good and horrible, I think - then the playoff spot would've been determined by stuff that actually matters like who won more games and how the two teams fared against each other during the season. Am I making sense here? Because I'm feeling a little muddled.

I'm not a big fan of ties. I grew up watching baseball where there's a winner in the end even if two teams have to play all night and into the next morning. But I understand why hockey doesn't have endless overtimes during the regular seasons and if I've learned anything this year it's that well, some games should end in ties. If you're not going to play real hockey until there's a winner, some games should end in ties. Every Buffalo-New Jersey game this season should have ended in a tie. They were hard-fought, evenly matched games. Both sides should have taken its point and moved on to the next game with the knowledge that if necessary, they'd settle the matter of a winner and loser in the playoffs.

If we must keep shootouts, I'd make overtime 4-on-4 for ten minutes and I'd take away the guaranteed point for making it to overtime. Guaranteed points are for wussies. If there's no guaranteed point, maybe teams would push a little harder to get that goal in overtime, especially if they're not good at shootouts and risk leaving the game with no points and ten minutes would give them more time to do it. Winner, whether it's OT or the shootout, gets two points, loser gets nada. If I had my druthers though I'd do the above and at the end of the OT, call it a tie and send both teams off with one point.

Thirty-seven of you said you have no problem with the shootout. Thirty-nine of you said you hate ties and the shootout. Anyone want to throw out a different idea on what you'd like to see happen and why?

This Game Never Happened

Raise your hand if you knew the second that delay of game penalty was called on Jason Pominville that the Sabres were going to lose this game. Yep. Me too.

Even I, the eternal optimist, cannot deny that that game sucked and blew in so many ways that it's tough to quantify. Choking away a three goal lead? To a team that's missing something like 18 forwards? And on a ten game losing streak? Loose play in the defensive zone? Again? Soft goaltending when it mattered? Letting Danny Briere be the hero? Sweet moses that game was pretty much my hockey nightmare come to life.

- Versus was making my head spin. One moment they'd say something that was actually kind of insightful and right on the nose for people who probably don't watch every Sabres game (Jochen Hecht has been the team's best all-around player, Jason Pominville has developed into a mature, responsible player, Roy is becoming a good playmaker) and then they'd say stuff that was not so right (Campbell and Spacek are the top guys (at certain things yes, but "top guys" with no qualifier is not acceptable), Campbell is an amazing open ice hitter, and I know there was another one but I can't remember it. Trust me though, it was there.)

- I was very wishy-washy on the little turtleneck thing Henrik Tallinder was wearing tonight until someone mentioned it was a neck protector. It may look a little silly but by golly, if it means I'll never have to watch Hank hustle to the bench with blood gushing from his throat, I'm all for it.

- Ryan Miller was not good tonight. He didn't get a lot of help most of the night and there were some great saves mixed in but he has to be better, especially in games that are so important. Sometimes I hate how much fans put on the goalie's shoulders but it comes with the position. I know he has a little stretch every season where he seems to wear down a bit before finally snapping out of it but he needs to snap out of sooner this year.

- I was going to shoot my TV if I had to watch that Alexander Ovechkin 60 Goals commercial one. more. time. Mark pointed out to me that when the player names pop up all over the ice, HULL pops up in the crease which was very amusing... but only the first 37 times. After that I hated Alexander Ovechkin, the Washington Captials, the NHL, and Gary Bettman.

- Also, Versus was killing me with the Umberger "poetic justice" bit. Nothing they were calling "poetic justice" was actually "poetic justice." And scoring on a power play is not really scoring in an "unusual circumstance." I hate you, Versus.

- While I certainly will not blame this loss on injuries - that would be ridiculous, especially considering the Flyers were even worse off than us in that regard - I will say again that I don't think Jochen Hecht's absence can be underestimated even though it totally will be. Taking him out means losing our best defensive forward, one of our most responsible players, and one of the guys who never seems to hit panic mode and it means shuffling two lines that have been playing really well together (Roy-Connolly-Vanek, Pominville-Hecht-Player X). I think Jochen is one of the cards on the bottom of the house of cards that is the Sabres roster. Pull him out and the whole thing tumbles down or at least starts teetering an awful lot.

- Some good things: Derek Roy was a beast on the first goal, Timmy made a gorgeous pass on Pommers' goal, Pommers continues to be his steady, reliable self, ummmm... Henrik Tallinder was wearing a neck guard... Timmy was really funny yapping at the Flyers bench... let's see... Oh! Andrew Peters threw a punch! Lindy was screaming and that always amuses me... That's pretty good, right?

- This game was so bad that I can't even fully enjoy the Sens 5-0 loss to the Leafs and that is just not right. Let's forget this game happened and move on, okay?

Tomorrow is trade deadline day and all I can say is thank the Lord. I can't wait for this to be over. I don't think it'll surprise anyone to hear me say I'm firmly on the side of trading Brian Campbell. I think the Sabres are absolutely right to not budge on their most recent offer because Campbell is simply not worth a big money contract. And considering how clearly unfocused he's been for the past few weeks, I have to wonder how well he'll handle the expectations that come with a big contract. Get something for him and then let's all move on and, Darcy, don't even think about calling one of your "Everything is under control!" press conferences because you don't owe anyone an apology for trading an overrated, overpriced d-man. Oh, I know there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth from some quarters about how he's gone and how the Sabres were stupid to let him go and how they should have paid him but I feel pretty good about ignoring those quarters because they are, quite simply, wrong. (As always, feel free to disagree. But you're not changing my mind on this one.) Also I totally want to re-sign Dmitri Kalinin. I would like for Darcy to announce Kalinin's re-signing and Campbell's trade at the same time. It would send some people over the edge but I? I would be very happy.

Dan Boyle's contract? Ridiculous. One, it's awfully close to Nicklas Lidstrom money and while I know Lidstrom probably gave the Red Wings a little bit of a discount, that still ain't right. Two, he got ridiculous money AND a no-trade clause. Really? After all the guys refusing to waive NTCs, GMs are still giving those out? And they're not going to ask the guy to take a little less money if they're included? Three, did I mention that it's ridiculous? Because I don't know if you guys remember but we just had a lockout and part of the justification of the lockout was the need to institute cost control. Which is HI-larious considering that Brian Campbell is probably going to be making Brad Boyle money come July.

Tomorrow - today by the time most of you read this - I'll be strapped to the laptop. Mark has elected me to update him and his co-workers on any breaking trades. Next up: My sparkling commentary on said trades and finally - finally! - my thoughts (and yours) on the shootout.

10 Things I Think I Think

I'm not a huge football fan but I do occasionally read Peter King's "Ten Things I Think I Think" column. I have a few things bouncing around in my head that don't really seem worthy of entire posts but I wanted to throw them out there anyway. Just so you're forewarned, one of my favorite things about King's columns is that every thing he thinks ends up with at least 18 subpoints so instead of 10 things, you actually end up with 180. In case you haven't noticed, I can be long-winded so I wouldn't expect that to be any different here.

1. I THINK THE IDEA THAT ALEXANDER OVECHKIN'S DEAL WILL EVER BE A BARGAIN IS RIDICULOUS.

Yeah, I don't understand this at all. Just because there is a maximum salary in the league doesn't mean there's anyone in the league who should be making it. Ovechkin will be eating up a huge amount of his team's salary cap by himself. How do you build a team around that, especially when a lot of his current teammates are young and going to be in line for raises of their own eventually?

And that's just the money. Thirteen years is crazy. Maybe I'm cautious because I've been raised by Darcy Regier but I can't imagine signing anyone for ten years or more. There's so much that can go wrong. How many players start out great and peter out after a few years? And what about injuries? If Eric Lindros were in his first few years now he'd get a similar contract and yeah, that would've worked out really well for the Flyers. Ovechkin is an amazing talent for sure and he hasn't had injury problems yet but he plays a very tough, physical style. On top of the regular wear and tear of hockey, that can add up to be trouble. Look at Peter Forsberg. He was considered a force of nature right up until the moment he started falling apart and he's never been healthy since. If Ovechkin gets hurt in the latter part of his contract, after the insurance coverage runs out, the Caps are on the hook for his salary and they're screwed big time. Somewhere along the way one of these contracts is going to go bad and it's going to completely cripple a franchise for a very long time.

Also, on a side note, I think Alexander Ovechkin is probably not the only guy in the NHL who loves playing hockey. He's happy and exuberant, I get it. I hope Caps fans are happy that Ovechkin is getting so much attention right now because I'm officially as tired of him as I was of Sidney Crosby two years ago. Shut up and let me watch the kid play. I have two eyes that, with a little help, see perfectly well. I can see that he's really, really good. I can see that he's really, really happy. I can see that he really, really likes playing hockey. Now leave me alone.

2. I THINK IT'S STUPID TO THINK THE SALARY CAP IS GOING TO GO UP FOREVER.

Okay, maybe it's not stupid. But I really don't understand it. I know there were things built into the CBA to insure that the cap goes up the first few years, but is it really going to keep climbing? And if it does, what's that going to mean for the league? There are a handful of teams, including Buffalo, that are already spending more money on player salaries under the cap system than they were pre-lockout. It's my understanding that at least a few teams are increasing their gates, not by attracting more fans but by raising ticket prices. If that continues and teams have to keep raising ticket prices to keep up their revenues, aren't they eventually going to price themselves out of the local market? Aren't we already seeing that in places like Detroit? They have one of the best teams in the league - if not THE best team - and they're not drawing, largely because tickets are too expensive for the local economy. And if fans stop going to games are they really going to drive out to the arena to pay marked up prices for a t-shirt they can buy at the mall instead? And if revenues start dropping, what's that going to do to the financial health of the league?

I will admit that all of this stuff is totally over my head so if anyone out there can explain this to me, please do. For now however I don't believe the salary cap will ever go up enough that Ovechkin is a deal and if it does, I think the league is going to have big problems.

3. I THINK MOST GENERAL MANAGERS ARE STUPID.

Seriously. Players are getting life-time contracts. Young guys are being paid for what they might be some day instead of what they are right now. RFAs are making as much money as UFAs used to make which makes free agency fairly pointless and gives teams very little time to develop their young talent before having to decide whether they're worth a decade long commitment. When guys do get to UFA they're getting ridiculous contracts. I love Danny Briere but seven million dollars? Come on. And instead of responding by saying, "Man, that guy is an idiot," most GMs rush out and make equally stupid offers. Or even worse, they make it a mission to top the previous guy and make an even stupider offer. So then the stupid GMs stand around and pat each other on the back about how they've shown their fanbase that they're serious about winning even though all they did was throw money at the first big name they saw and the smart GMs (Darcy and Lou Lamoriello) sit around wondering what the heck is going on.

Yeah, I'm real glad we did that whole lockout thing, guys. Dion Phaneuf should totally be within a million dollars of Nicklas Lidstrom and Thomas Vanek should absolutely be making ten million in his third year in the league.

(I'd completely forgotten this until I saw I already had a "GMs are stupid" tag but I've written about this a little before.)

4. I THINK WADE REDDEN IS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT TO REFUSE TO WAIVE HIS NO TRADE CLAUSE.

Well, gee, if you didn't want him to use the no trade clause, maybe you shouldn't have given it to him. The guy actually wants to stay in one place and he's willing to take less money to do it and we're gonna crucify him for it? I get that he's been a disappointment and Wade, if you suck in the playoffs everyone in Ottawa will hate you forever, but I give him a lot of credit for knowing what he wants and sticking to it. I'm curious to see if a) more players start refusing to waive the no trade and if b) GMs respond to that by refusing to hand them out. Do any Sabres have no trade clauses? I don't know but I'd be surprised if any of them did.

5. I THINK THESE NUMBERS ARE PRETTY INTERESTING.

Daniel Briere: 21 G, 33 A, 54 points, -20... 6.5 million cap hit
Jason Pominville: 16 G, 35 A, 51 points, +11... 1 million cap hit

Chris Drury: 18 G, 22 A, 40 points, -11... 7 million cap hit
Derek Roy: 21 G, 25 A, 46 points, +9... 4 million cap hit

Briere and Pommers aren't really comparable since one's a wing and one's a center. I just matched them up because of all the talk about how Pommers was going to be lost without Briere. Maybe Briere is lost without Jason and Yo-Yo? If nothing else, I think it's pretty fair to say that Jochen was doing the defensive work on that line. Ouch.

Roy-Z should probably be compared to Briere since he's moved into his place as top line center but that comparison turns out pretty well too. I'm certainly not going to pretend that we don't miss Danny and Chris in some regards but right now at least, their salaries are ridiculous.

6. I THINK GOOGLE ANALYTICS IS THE MOST ENTERTAINING THING EVER.

Google Analytics is a tool that allows a blogger to see what kind of traffic he (or she) is getting and how that traffic is being directed to his (or her) blog. My favorite thing is looking at the various internet searches that have brought people to Top Shelf. Usually there's some fluctuation - recently "Brian Campbell negotiations" has been number one but that wouldn't have been the case six months ago - but there's one search that is always, always in my top five: "Rod Brind'Amour's girlfriend." And I get two or three variations on spelling. This is... perplexing. I can only recall talking about Rod a few times and I don't think his significant other was involved in any of those discussions. But for the record, internet searchers of the world, I have no idea if Rod Brind'Amour has a girlfriend or not. There seems to be a lot of you wondering however so you might want to make your move quickly.

7. I THINK LINDY RUFF HAS DONE THE BEST COACHING OF HIS CAREER THIS SEASON.

I admit it, as much as I love Lindy there were times this season when I questioned how he was handling the team. I wanted so badly for bad-ass Lindy to rear his head and knock some sense into a struggling, seemingly uncaring team. But you know what? He was right. As fragile and shaky as they were even a month ago, he was right to gather his players up under his wing and protect them from the negative media and the increasingly desperate fans. He was right to assure them, "You're still good, you're still good, don't listen to them." And now that they're playing better and looking more confident, he has been a little more critical like when he called them out for playing stupid a few games ago. He knew when to protect, when to criticize, he knew who to call out and when to do it. Basically, Lindy Ruff rocks. He should get a lifetime contract.

8. I THINK JOHN BUCCIGROSS IS AN IDIOT.

I have a love/hate relationship with Buccigross - I think his annual "Here's how I think your team is going to do and here's a cool, hip song to go with it!" column is one of the dumbest, most pretentious things ever - and this week's column pushed me more toward hate.

Which means a highly competitive team probably would go to eight years, $50 million. This is the reality the Sabres have to deal with. This is why this should have been dealt with a year or two ago. If they aren't prepared to pay that or can't stomach that kind of contract, they will need to trade Campbell before the Feb. 26 deadline, then get out of the NHL business.

Here is what I have to say to John Buccigross:

a) Read point 3 above, John. Just because some idiot out there is willing to give Brian Campbell between six and seven million dollars doesn't make it a good deal.

b) The reality the Sabres have to deal with is re-signing a number of upcoming UFAs and RFAs while staying under the salary cap. The reality is having to prioritize players and deciding who's replaceable and who isn't. You can't give everyone six million dollars especially with Thomas Vanek and Derek Roy already making a lot of money. I think if the Sabres do refuse to re-sign Campbell it's not because they're cheap or stupid, it's because a fella named Ryan Miller is coming up for renewal next and HE'S the must-sign player. He's the heart of the team on and off the ice.

c) The Sabres couldn't deal with Campbell "a year or two ago" because the current CBA doesn't allow teams to negotiate with players until the summer before the last year of a player's contract. (Gee, shouldn't the leading hockey mind at ESPN know that?) All sides have acknowledged that negotiations have been going on all season. So... what exactly were the Sabres supposed to do differently here? I suppose talks have been mishandled because the Sabres didn't just give Campbell what he wanted, right?

d) In a league that consists of the Kings, the Oilers, the Leafs, and the Rangers, the Sabres are the ones who need to get out of the league? Really? Because that's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. Has Sabres management made some mistakes over the past couple of years? Sure. Are they the worst run team in the league? Are you serious?

e) Hey, have you noticed which Eastern Conference team is playing the most consistent hockey at exactly the right time of the season?

f) Put your man crush on Chris Drury away and get over yourself. By the way, did you get a look at point number 5? Sure hope the Rangers are enjoying their seven million dollars worth of intangibles.

9. I THINK PATRICK KALETA HAS TO STAY IN THE STARTING LINE-UP EVEN WHEN EVERYONE IS HEALTHY.

Does that even need an explanation? Really?

10. I THINK I CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING ELSE TO TALK ABOUT SO I'LL LEAVE YOU WITH SOME RANDOM FACTS

Movies I've recently watched: Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (seen it before but I really like it), The Great Escape (my second all-time favorite movie), Meet John Doe (pretty good), The Apartment (good), Battlestar Galactica: The Miniseries (good enough that I'm moving onto the series next)

Books I've recently read: Boy: Tales of Childhood and The Witches (read them both before but you can't go wrong re-reading Roald Dahl, How Doctors Think (a little disconcerting to read while undergoing medical care but very interesting), Born Standing Up: A Comics Life (Steven Martin's autobiography and a great read) and T is for Trespass (the latest Sue Grafton - I love this series unashamedly)

The last 15 songs that played in my iTunes: Life Ain't Always Beautiful (Gary Allan), Poor Little Fool (Ricky Nelson), Listen to the Band (The Monkees), Step by Step (New Kids on the Block), Just What I Needed (The Cars), Under Pressure (Queen), Somebody to Love (Queen), Thirteen (Big Star), Right on the Money (Alan Jackson), I Will Follow (U2), Lullaby (The Dixie Chicks), So Happy Together (The Turtles), Papa Gene's Blues (The Monkees), Don't Worry Baby (The Beach Boys), Bring it on Home to Me (Sam Cooke)

Holy smokes, this is long. Sorry.

A Little Perspective

Wow, that sold out crowd being so quiet you could hear the Zamboni scraping the ice was easily one of the spookiest things I've ever heard. Devastating. I'm glad they managed to get Richard Zednik off the ice so quickly. He was clearly going limp as they hit the bench. Clint Malarchuk was before my time in Buffalo and I'm glad. Tonight was more than enough for me. I would hope every crowd would respond appropriately but when the PA announcer let the crowd know that Zednik was stable and on his way to the hospital and the crowd stood up and cheered and the players started tapping their sticks (one of my favorite little things about hockey), I definitely got teary-eyed.

I almost feel bad talking about the game so let's just hit some quick points.

- Tim Connolly made it through the whole game in one piece! Granted, I have no idea how he's feeling now so I guess we'll have to see. I will say this for Tim, our powerplay is unquestionably better when he's in the line-up. He gets the puck moving better and quicker than anyone else out there.

- After Brian Campbell gave that puck to the Panthers on the tying goal, I would've gladly put him on the Panthers' plane in exchange for Olli Jokinen or a pile of hockey sticks, whichever they were willing to part with.

- Four goals in six games for Thomas Vanek. He's been looking much more confident the past few games. Is he finally busting out of his slump?

- Another game where Ryan Miller kept the Sabres in it until they pulled it together.

- I did have to giggle a little when while doing the post-game highlights Mike Robitaille responded to the tying goal with, "The Sabres had to be feeling their necks here." Kind of an unfortunate turn of phrase considering the events of the evening, Roby.

- I won't get too excited about the fact that we pulled ahead in the third and held on for the win since I doubt either team - the Panthers especially - had their heads completely in the game but we did get the win.

Man. Weird night. Let's not do that again.

Oh, you might have noticed that there's currently a poll about the shootout at the top right of the page. Every once in a while I kind of assign my opinion to others - real fans hate the shootout! - which is ridiculous so I'm curious to see what everyone else really thinks. If you're here, take a second to vote even if you don't leave a comment. The poll will be up for a week or until I get tired of looking at, whichever comes first.

Prayers and positive vibes to Zednik and his family.

Let's Go Streaking!

Thomas Vanek scored the game-winning goal.
It was also a powerplay goal.
Ryan Miller played lights-out.
And got a shutout!
The forwards were forechecking and creating chances.
The defense was good enough to make a one goal lead stick.
And Hank swooped in handsomely to sweep a loose puck out from an open net.
We beat another team that we should absolutely be beating.
And we have a three game winning streak!

Mr. Henrik Tall Indian (Getty Images)
Sports fans, I'd call that game just about perfect! If Drew Stafford's injury turns out to be not as serious as it looked - my ankle started throbbing after that slow motion replay - this can officially be called A Good Night to be a Sabres Fan. I'm not going to ruin it with any in-depth analysis. (Or I'm just feeling lazy, take your pick.)
But be sure to tune in tomorrow for an exciting, stat-filled post that will prove once and for all that Brian Campbell is NOT more valuable than Henrik Tallinder. And bring your brains because there will be numbers involved!