Not Much To Say

- Boston again? Really? Aren't we done with them yet? I missed one of the games against them and I still feel like we've played them twice as much as last season. We're done with them after this game, right? Please?

- I'm so glad to hear Lindy Ruff just straight-up call out Derek Roy. There's an interview with him on Sabres TV right now where someone asks about Thomas Vanek being moved from his line and Lindy said, "Derek has three even strength points. His game needs to be better." Hallelujah and amen!

- It's time to put Tim Connolly down. When the team is throwing in fancy words to make an injury sound extra-special, it's time. (For some reason it cracks me up that the PR guy text-messages statements to the press.)

- I know everyone is clamoring to see Nathan Gerbe and I know Tim Kennedy is the center but the Portland guy I'm the most interested in seeing is Mark Mancari. For some reason I got it in my head that he was one of those guys who wasn't going to ever stick at the NHL level so I'm a little intrigued by his production so far. He's a pretty big guy too which we need. (For the record, at first I accidentally typed "he's a big pretty guy.")

-Interesting list of some of the local charities various Sabres players are involved with at Sabres.com. They're all worthy causes, of course, but I have a little bit of a soft spot for Patrick Kaleta's involvement with Cradle Beach Camp. A lot of my kids go to Cradle Beach and it's a really wonderful place with lots of different programs for kids who might not otherwise be able to go to camp whether it be for behavioral reasons or because of various disabilities or because of financial need. I know kids who look forward to their week there all year. They also have all kinds of really cool stuff all year round to help families with special needs kids. If you're ever looking for anywhere to donate time or money, I cannot say enough good things about them.

Annnnd that's all I got. More tonight.

I Hate The System and Other Complaints

A number of bloggers have recently written about how much they hate The System. I am fine with The System. If The System wins hockey games - and clearly it does - I say sign The System to a long-term contract pronto. I am all about responsible defensive hockey. I like offense in the sense that it's hard to win without at least a little bit of it, but I'm perfectly happy to watch solid defense and it doesn't even have to preclude offense.

What I am tired of - and what I suspect most people are tired of - is The System being used as an excuse after every loss. "We didn't stick to the system. We need to stick to the system." This bothers me for two reasons. One, if sticking to The System works maybe you should all consider... sticking to the system. You know, EVERY GAME. Watching you play painfully disorganized hockey and then say, "Huh. Guess we should have stuck to The System," is tedious at best and homicide-inducing at worst. Two, blaming The System has turned into a very convenient way to avoid taking any personal responsibility. I guess technically when Jason Pominville says, "We didn't stick to The System," he is saying, "We didn't play very well," but just once I'd like him to just SAY, "We didn't play very well." When is the last time time someone not named Ryan Miller came right out and said, "I was garbage." It's been a while.

That brings me to Derek Roy. Many, many people love to hate Derek Roy and for totally understandable reasons. He's a whining, diving punk who has a smirk on his face 98% of the time. I, however, have never held any hate in my heart for Derek. I love him, I have always loved him, and I have never failed to defend him. Ask Kate or Pookie and Schnookie all of whom have had to listen to me pontificate about Derek Roy and how underneath all that little person swagger is a really, really good hockey player. As I've over and over and over, "Ah, I love that little bastard."

If I ran into Derek Roy on the street tomorrow I'd punch him in the nose. He is driving me INSANE. I don't know what has happened to my Roy-Z Tolerance but it's completely gone. Everything about him right now makes me feel homicidal. The tripping all over the ice in desperation to get a call is killing me. The lolly-gagging around the ice is killing me. The nonchalant, "I think I'm playing pretty good I'm just not scoring," is killing me. (An email to friends after that quote: I wanted to punch Roy-Z square in the nose when I read a quote from him this morning saying something along the lines of, "I think I've been playing well, I just haven't been scoring goals." Dude, you're blowing chunks out there. You're hurting hockey. You're making hockey cry in agony. Just fess up.) The stupid penalty in friggin' OVERTIME is killing me. The whining about the call afterwards and the hinting that the opposing player took a dive IS KILLING ME. Derek Roy is lucky I was in Pittsburgh when he was standing in the room whining about his stupid penalty because had I been in Buffalo I would have jumped in my car, driven to the arena, crashed the dressing room and put the heel of my snow boot through his front teeth. At this point, I would vote to deduct from his All-Star totals if I could. Derek Roy, for the love of all that is good and right in this here world, just say it: Tonight I sucked at hockey. My bad.

Look, I don't want guys who are playing poorly to be all dreary and suicidal. Watching Thomas Vanek give interview after interview last season in which he looked like he was going to leap from the top of HSBC Arena as soon as he was done wasn't really that much fun. I know part of being a successful athlete is staying on an even keel, not getting too high after the great games or too low after the bad games. The NHL season is a long one and players are going to have stretches where they struggle and they just have to push through. I have no doubt that the way Vanek was beating himself up last season was just sending him into a deeper spiral. But I also hate it when I feel like I care more about losses and struggles than the team does. It's annoying.

You know those Mac/PC commercials? (I love those commercials but for me they just don't accomplish what I think Apple intends. I find PC very sweet and lovable and Mac a little bit of a pompous douchebag. But I digress...) There's a spot out now where PC is carrying around a buzzer and every time someone says "Vista" he buzzes over it in an effort to get people to stop saying it. I'm about to beg the Sabres for press credentials just so I can stand in the corner of the dressing room on a stool and hit my buzzer every time someone says "System." And then on the way out I'm going to kick Derek Roy in the shin.

On a completely different note, I'm having a hard time deciding where our pregame meal should be tonight. I've narrowed the choices down to Founding Fathers, Gabriel's and Mother's. Any opinions?

The Season To Come, Part Two

A quick continuation of yesterday's thoughts coming up but first a reminder that today (Thursday) is NHL Preview day for the Buffalo News. I know I'm pretty hard on TBN sometimes but they usually do a really nice job with the preview section. It's one of the few days I make sure to buy a hard copy of the paper. And let me just say, I'm pretty sure this is going to be the BEST NHL PREVIEW SECTION EVER! Trust me and click on the link.

CRAIG RIVET

I'm shocked that Craig Rivet is the new captain. I figured he'd be wearing a letter since he wore one for almost the entire preseason but I really thought it would be an A. I'm not gonna lie, I've made fun of teams in the past for appointing the new guy the captain right away. It seems really weird.

The fact that this was the result of a player vote makes me feel better. People like me can ramble on and on about what was missing last season and what needs to happen this season but the only people who really, really know what went wrong are the guys in the dressing room. I don't think you can stress enough that most of the current Sabres team has been playing together for a while now. They know each other very, very well. If they looked around the room and didn't find what they wanted in a captain in each other, I think you have to trust that they know what they're talking about. And really it's not that far-fetched. We've been watching these guys for a few years now so I think we forget sometimes that the core players are all still really, really young. Rivet can wear the C for the next three years and if he moves on after that, one of the kids should be ready. And as an aside, good for Lindy for taking the pulse of the team and appointing one captain.

At any rate, I'm really excited to see what Rivet brings to the team not just on the defensive end - one more dependable body back there can't hurt - but in overall attitude. He's made it clear already that he's not going to hesitate to stand up for his teammates on the ice and he said very straight-forwardly in his most recent interview on Sabres TV that opponents will not take liberties with the team on his watch. The fact that the Sabres are still young can be a bit of a double-edged sword in that some of them are still very influenced by what's going on around them. I think we saw a lot of situations last season where one guy's frustration or panic bled out and affected his teammates. Hopefully if the guy with the C is calm, kicking ass and working hard, everyone else will follow his lead.

And seriously, don't you love that moment when someone new to the area finally says, "Wow, Buffalo gets a bad rap. It's a great place to be."

SPECIAL TEAMS

I was pretty surprised when a stat check showed that the Sabres power play was the 14th best in the league last season and was actually a little bit better than it was in 2006-2007. Of all the struggles we sat through in 2007-2008, the power play is the one thing that absolutely made my eyes bleed. I'll admit, my little pea brain still doesn't understand how it can be THAT hard to score when you have more people on the ice than the other team and especially when you have two more people in which case it felt like we suddenly got a thousand times worse. God bless the 16 fan bases who had to watch a power player worse than ours all season.

Porky mentioned on his blog that the power play was hit by a lot of injuries last season. I hadn't really thought of that but it is true: Tim Connolly, Jaroslav Spacek, Teppo Numminen and Max Afinogenov all missed large chunks of time and that's not even taking into consideration Brian Campbell being traded at the deadline. There were definitely some oddball power plays units out there at times so I don't know, maybe we're lucky it wasn't worse than it was. Hopefully the re-addition of Teppo and the presence of Rivet will help steady things a little. I think a lot will also depend on how Andrej Sekera develops.

On the other side, I'm hoping Teppo will steady the penalty kill a little too. Henrik Tallinder and Toni Lydman spent a lot of their time on the ice last season killing penalties and while yes, that's what the top defensive pairing should be doing, I think there were definitely times when they were just worn out. The more bodies who can dependably kill penalties, the better. And of course, as they say, your most important penalty killer is your goalie. Ryan Miller struggled last season and there were times when he and the defense looked really out of sync with each other. Better play from him should help a lot when the Sabres are short-handed.

CONSISTENCY

Consistency is such a sports cliche that I kind of hate to even bring it up but it's a cliche because it is important. I think we've all heard that much ballyhooed stat the Sabres had the 4th best offense in the NHL last season and while that's definitely impressive, I think it's a little deceiving. Those numbers are skewed a bit by a number of games where the team suddenly exploded for 6, 7, 8 goals in one game. There were long stretches where the Sabres struggled to score and they had a hard time scoring when it really mattered which was reflected in their 14-18 record in one goal games. Scoring a lot of goals is great obviously but it needs to be more spread out.

Hopefully Derek Roy and Thomas Vanek, probably the two most important offensive pieces, will find a little more consistency this season as well. Vanek, a goal scorer first and foremost, will probably always be a little streaky - I think that's normal - but hopefully he won't disappear for half the season like he did last year. He really started to look more comfortable as the season went on and he had the second most goals in the league in the second half (behind only Alexander Ovechkin who was on a pretty torrid pace) so it'd be nice to see him spread that pace out over the entire season this year. Derek also improved as the year went on and I really think he's the motor that keeps the team running. When he struggles, everything is going to slow down a little so he needs to be working hard every night.

For me, one of the most frustrating things about last season was that parts of the team played well but never at the same time. If the offense was clicking, the defense was a sieve. If the defense stood tall, the offense couldn't score. If the goaltending was good, it was undone by poor defense. If the defense did its part, the goaltending was terrible. There were very few games where everything was working together. Guys, you are all allowed to play well in the same game. Really.

HENRIK TALLINDER

Hank will be totally awesome this season. Seriously. I know it.

Jeez, how did it get to be 1:10 a.m. already? One more post tomorrow should do it. Then we can finally move on to talking about actual games.

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

Friday Musings

A few quick hits:

- The classic logo at center ice looks awesome and surely - SURELY! - it means the death of the slug is right around the corner. Now that the franchise has squeezed every dollar they can out of it, we're moving on, right? Do you know how happy I would be to not have to not buy a really cool t-shirt or hoodie because it has a slug on it? How much I'd love walking into the Sabres store and seeing a store full of classic logos? That would be amazing.

Taken from a link provided in the comments at Sabres Edge.

- I've given this Nathan Gerbe thing a lot of thought and I think I've decided he should start in Portland. Definitely use him as the first call-up if he's ready for that and definitely use him to pressure anyone who may be underachieving in Buffalo but let's see the kid play with pros in the AHL first especially since offense is not a pressing concern right now. If he totally kicks ass down there, well that'd be a pretty good problem to have.

- Mark went to practice yesterday (Wednesday) and reported that Henrik Tallinder and Toni Lydman were paired together during most of the defensive drills. What the hizzle, Lindy? Are you trying to confuse them, not to mention me?

- John Vogl reports that Lindy plans on keeping Jochen Hecht at center this year which is more than fine with me. I love Jochen at center. The rest of Vogl's potential lines are as follows:

Thomas Vanek-Derek Roy-Drew Stafford

Daniel Paille-Jochen Hecht-Jason Pominville

Paul Gaustad-Tim Connolly-Ales Kotalik

I hope this means he thinks Maxim Afinogenov is going to be gone because Max definitely does not belong on the fourth line. I get that that he's frustrating and inconsistent enough that you might shy away from putting him on one of the top lines - when he's playing poorly he's sometimes a real drag on his line mates - but he needs to play with people who are fast and skilled. People have given him a lot of crap for last season for good reason but after he came back from his injury he was on the worst possible lines for his skill set. He can't play with muckers and grinders who can't skate and carry the puck. He's useless then. You almost may as well just bench him if that's how you're going to use him.

I'm fine with that first line though I wouldn't be against trying Max with Roy and Vanek just to see what happens. (Blow it up fast if it doesn't work though since in the past Max has been a bad influence on Derek.) Love, love, love Paille with Jochen and Pommers. I don't know if I'm sold on Goose on the third line. I like him immensely but I go back and forth on how good he actually is and how good he can be.

At any rate, it's so nice to be close enough to the season to be talking about this stuff! Wheeee!

- Speaking of Max, he's going to be either traded or let go at the end of the season. We all know that. We may as well admit now that the change of scenery is going to be good for him. He'll be in a new system with new teammates and a new coach and he'll probably score 20-25 goals. Can we agree now to not retroactively pretend like we thought the Sabres should have kept him all along when that happens (Bucky)?

- Derek Roy will score 100 points this season. That's my one prediction for the year.

- Note to Gambler: Roy-Z was definitely short. I want to say he was a little bit shorter than me because I seem to remember glancing down but I wasn't paying enough attention to really say for sure. He was definitely not taller than me though. If anything he was even with me. I also didn't see what kind of shoes he was wearing which I would have taken into consideration as well had I been paying attention. (I was in the front row of the most recent U2 concert in Buffalo and while I already knew Bono was a shorty he was also wearing boots with rubber soles that were at least 3 inches thick. I'm pretty sure he's really only 4'3".) I'm 5'7"ish so I'd say Roy-Z is in the 5'6"-5'7" range. No way he's his listed 5'9".

- I haven't had a chance to flip through the media guide but I've enjoyed all the stuff other bloggers have pulled out of it. Anne discovered that Patrick Kaleta's nickname is "Kaltsy." Okay. Friends and I have joked about how the Sabres seem to just slap "sy" on the end of something for a nickname but Kaltsy doesn't even make sense! His name isn't Kaltleta! And I had to actually sound it out to think about how to say it. Anne's comment is worth repeating here: If a nickname is harder to say than the guy's actual name, it's a stupid nickname.

- The only real nickname I've ever had is "Heat."

Puck Drop 2008: A Novella

I admit it, there were times this summer when I felt like this day was never, ever going to come. Doesn't it feel like it's been years since the Sabres played their last game? It does to me. When I finally stepped into HSBC Arena Saturday morning, I felt like I'd just entered the pearly gates. Ahhhhh...

Noticeable right away was the brand new Winter Classic mural in the pavilion. I'm not gonna lie, I could do without the pictures of the fans mixed in. I get that it was a huge community thing blah blah blah but I really liked the huge player photos, the fu manchu Tim Connolly excepted.

Click on the image for a closer look.

Luckily for me - and them - there was a huge Henrik Tallinder photo in almost exactly the same place there was one before.

You can click here too.

We didn't lollygag too long before making our way to the ice. It was still fairly early but people were starting to stream in and I wanted to sit up close. For games I'm definitely a believer in sitting far enough back that you can see the whole ice but for stuff like this I think it's fun to sit as close as possible and see the ice and the players in a way we don't usually get to see them.

Ooh! Ooh! Hank is on the ice! Ladies and gentlemen, Henrik Tallinder is on the ice!

The stripes on those practice jerseys absolutely glow when photographed, making everyone look like they're in a science fiction movie.

Unfortunately, when Hank was playing defense, this is what I saw through the entire first period:

Down in front!

This girl, in her spunky little glasses and her hand-lettered jersey was cute for about five minutes. And then she was just really, really annoying. I can understand leaping up when something exciting happens or standing through a real game but come on, please sit down. Those pictures are not going to come out anyway. And you know, for a girl who had Stafford on her back she spent an awful lot of time cheering for Max. We also had a somewhat rowdy Roy-Z contingent("ROOOOOOOY-ZEEEEEEEE! ROY-Z YOU ARE AMAAAAAZING!") and a comedy troupe of college-age boys - you know the ones who act like they know everything while every word coming out of their mouth proves they know very little - behind us. But hey, it's not hockey unless there's one fan around you you kind of want to punch in the head!

And still... HOCKEY!

Look! Hockey!

Usually Mark and I end up pulling for different teams in scrimmages but today his guy - Drew Stafford - and my guy - hello, are you new here? - were both wearing blue. And lo and behold, they won 7-4. The numbers on the roster handed out didn't match what the players were wearing, making them pretty much useless, but I do know Mark Mancari had two goals, one beautifully placed slap shot and one very nice tip-in, while Drew Stafford also had a pretty good-looking goal. Alas, Hank did not score any goals but he also did not get hurt so we'll call it a wash.

Speaking of not getting hurt, not only were the rumors of Tim Connolly's death greatly exaggerated, he made it through the first practice of the season in one piece! Let's give him a round of applause!


We were sitting right next to the Sabres TV set-up so we ended up seeing all kinds of cool people up close and personal.

Kevin Sylvester and Rick Jeanneret! (And Harry Neale.) They're pretty cute in their little matching jackets, aren't they?


Jaroslav Spacek! (Jaro, Toni Lydman and Teppo Numminen didn't participate in the scrimmage. There may have been others missing but they were the ones I noticed. Toni and Teppo did practice after the scrimmage. I didn't notice if Jaro did or not.)

Enter hilarious Czech inflected gibberish here.

And your General Manager, Darcy John Regier!

Darcy! Wheeee!

After I took this picture I stood there for a few seconds, trying to see if I could hear what they were talking about. As I walked back toward Mark I clapped and squealed "Darcy!" (Mark: "You're an odd one all right.") That led to this conversation with the guy at the end of the row we were standing next to:

"Oh, don't tell me you were just clapping for DARCY REGIER?!"
"I sure was," I said defiantly. "I love Darcy Regier!"
"I hate that guy! He lets all the good players go and keeps all the shitty guys. I can't wait till we get rid of him."

Many responses went through my head - Who brought those good players here in the first place? Exactly which player signed this off-season is the shitty one? How easy do you think his job is? Do you enjoy being a sheep-like idiot? among some more unprintable thoughts - but I just walked away. I had a feeling the two of us were not going to have a friendly, logical discussion about Darcy Regier's tenure in Buffalo. (And yes, I'm probably as biased in Darcy's favor as that guy was against him, I know.) It did make me wish I had some Top Shelf business cards though. I could've handed that guy a card, told him to look up the web address and instructed him to read all the posts labeled Darcy Regier.

I'm not super familiar with Maria Genero - I never, never watch the news - so I'm trying not to pass judgement on her before she really gets a chance to do her thing. I'm very excited about increased web content because I really, really love what the San Jose Sharks do with Shark Byte and it sounds kind of like that's what the Sabres are going for with the web features/magazine show. I love seeing the guys in more casual, fun situations. But holy moses, the bejeweled slug shirt she was wearing today was one of the ugliest things I've ever seen. I don't know how it translated on video but up close and in person it was terrible. I guess you can take it with a grain of salt though because that shirt is pretty much the opposite of anything I would ever, ever wear.

Looking at this photo, the sheer awfulness of that shirt doesn't really translate. Trust me, it was bad.

After scrimmage was the big jersey reveal. It should have been a little anti-climactic since Sabres Edge had a leaked photo of the jersey a few days ago but it was still pretty exciting. The lights were dimmed, a neat little video was shown, the dry ice was released and the players were individually introduced by RJ. The usuals got huge cheers along with Teppo Numminen who I think got the loudest ovation for good reason. Craig Rivet and Patrick Lalime also got warm welcomes. Mike Weber, Andrej Sekera, Clarke MacArthur and Patrick Kaleta were included in the introductions with the established starters.

Overall I'd say the jerseys looked really sharp in person and on the players. I liked the colors a lot more than I thought I would and the logo, of course, is awesome. The blue in the jersey still doesn't quite match the blue of the breezers though which is a tad annoying and I really, really hate that silver piping and unfortunately I hate it in person even more than in the photo. The stylized piping looks stupid with the classic striping and it's a touch too busy to have both. For now it would keep me from buying a third jersey but when the time comes to replace my current vintage, I'd have no problem picking one up. Anyway, the team did a lap around the ice so we could all get a good look before heading to center ice for a stick salute.

Click for a closer look. No C on Pommers. We were on the look-out for that.

The whole morning had Mark feeling VERY excited!

Look alive, man!

After that it was on to the autograph sessions. Mark and I had a pretty laid-back attitude toward autographs. Neither of us is really a collector and neither of us was super eager to have a long conversation with our favorite player but we did think it would kinda cool to get our jerseys signed if we could.

There were tables spread out around the 100 and 200 sections, two to three players to a table. Each table had its own line and each line was capped at 500. When you got in line you were given a ticket by a security guy and once the tickets were gone that line was closed. Here's the tricky part: No one knew which players were going to be at what table until the players showed up so you had to decide if you wanted to stand in a line and see who was signing there or walk around until a certain player showed and then get in his line. Obviously the risk there is the line being full by the time you realize who is where.

The way it was supposed to work as explained by the guard who gave us the ticket for the line we finally decided to stand in was that when the player showed up if you decided to get out of line, you gave your ticket back to the guard so someone else could use it. For example, if a Ryan Miller fan discovers she's in line for Henrik Tallinder but really wants to find Ryan, she gives the ticket back to the guard so there's a ticket for the Henrik Tallinder fan who's discovered she's in line for Andrew Peters. It all makes a very convoluted kind of sense, I guess.

The way it actually worked was like this: People just kept the tickets they had, went in search of the player they really wanted and once they found him, went back to the previous line. The guard pretty clearly told us that once you had a ticket you had to stay in line. If you left that line, you wouldn't be let back in whether you had a ticket or not. But anyone carrying a ticket was let back in line, no questions asked which is understandable. If I'm an arena security guard I'm certainly not going to get into a pissing match about someone wanting to get in line when they have a ticket. So the problem was, lines were running out of tickets even when there weren't a lot of people in line. When we finally found Hank, his line was not super long and there was still a lot of time left until 2:00 but there were no tickets left so the line had been closed. I'd be curious to know how many people took a ticket and jumped in line but then took off with said ticket in their hand when they realized they were waiting for Hank and not Jason Pominville or Derek Roy. I think the tickets are a fine idea. I certainly understand the need to cut off lines at a certain point and that's an easy, clear cut way to decide who gets in a line and who doesn't. But I don't understand why they can't just tell us what player is going to be at what table. If it takes 15 seconds to hand out 500 tickets at Ryan Miller's table so what? Tell everyone after that the line's closed and move on. At least people know who they are and aren't getting. That was the biggest complaint I heard from other fans. The lady in front of me in Hank's line said she'd gladly spend the whole time in Maxim Afinogenov's line even if meant only getting him but she couldn't find him and she was afraid if she kept looking she'd end up missing everyone.

Anyway, to make a long story even longer (another sign that hockey season is finally upon us: really long-ass posts from Heather B.), the lines in the 100 section were already absurd by the time Mark and I made our way up from the ice so we decided to head straight for the 200s. There's less room up there so we thought maybe they'd put some of the lower profile players up there. We found Drew Stafford pretty quickly and Mark jumped in line while I made my way around the rest of the level, trying to see if Hank was up there. I had to circle a few times because while some players had already started signing, some hadn't shown up yet so there were still empty tables. Mark had his jersey signed and was ready to move on and half the players still hadn't showed.

A little slow with the camera so I missed Mark with Staffy. Here he is pretending to care about Clarke MacArthur and Philip Gogulla.

Somewhere in the course of that half hour or so my nonchalance had morphed into borderline obsessive determination. I don't know if seeing other players up close made me realize it might be really neat to see Hank like that or if I got caught up in the crazed crowd or if I was jealous that Mark got his jersey signed but I was turning insane. I was running around the 200s, making sure Hank wasn't up there before I headed down to the 100s, looking everywhere but in front of me, thinking only, "HANK! HANK! HANK!" I suddenly ran into someone, half stepping on his foot and hitting him with my messenger bag. I glanced up, mumbled an apology and walked a few more steps before my brain registered, "Hey, that was Derek Roy." I don't know if there are many females in Buffalo who can say they ran over Derek to get to Hank but I'm one of the proud few. And if it comes out soon that Roy-Z is out with a broken toe, it's on me. Sorry.

Once it was clear Hank wasn't in the 200s, we rushed to the 100s. Okay, I rushed. Mark poked along behind me. And finally, finally! There he was!

Hank!

I jumped in the line, excited that, as I said before, it wasn't really that long. The security guard wandered over to ask if I had a ticket which I didn't because they were all gone. He announced that anyone who didn't have a ticket had to leave the line. So I did. At first. And then I decided hey, eff that. I've been running around this place like crazy and unlike some of the people in the line I actually WANTED Hank's autograph. So I got back in line. The guard made his announcement a few more times, looking at me every time, but I guess he decided to leave me alone because he never really kicked me out of line. He did close the line right behind me though.

That blue is my jersey which I had taken off for autograph purposes (I had a t-shirt on so get your mind out of the gutter) and that's the end of the line right behind me.

I was hoping that they wouldn't get to me, the very last person in line, and declare that I couldn't have an autograph because I didn't have a ticket and if it did happen I was prepared to wave my Tallinder jersey around and appeal directly to Hank since he seems like a pretty nice guy. Just in case however, I managed to snag a ticket from someone who was bailing because they'd heard that Max had finally showed up at his line and there were still tickets left.

(As an aside, I think every third person was looking for Max. My mind, it was boggled. I knew he was popular but I guess I didn't realize he was still that popular. Every line I waited at for a few minutes contained a herd of people who were hoping and praying they were in Max's line. And not just kids although there was a lot of them too. Craziness.)

So now I could relax a little, plan what I was going to say when I finally came face-to-face with the guy whose picture is at the top of my blog, and stand back and observe a little. I was pretty delighted to see that Hank really is as pleasant and friendly as he always appears to be in interviews. I don't think being nice to people for a couple of hours is too much to ask of a person but we've all been to those autograph sessions where it's clear, especially toward the end, that players are going through the motions: take jersey/picture from fan, sign, say "no problem," reach for the next item. Not Henrik Tallinder. He looked up and made eye contact with everyone, he had a huge grin on his face the whole time, he made different comments to everyone, posed for as many pictures as people wanted, occasionally suggesting they check and make sure they got their picture and he went out of his way to fuss over any kids that came through the line. I think it was exactly the kind of experience that a small kid will remember years later as a really nice moment and I think that's lovely. I'm a grown-up so I've long come to accept that sometimes pro athletes aren't people I'd necessarily like and sometimes you just have to put personality aside and appreciate a guy's skill on the field of play... but I still want to like players, especially my favorites, so I was really happy to come away really liking Hank. But I'm jumping ahead of things. (I know, you were probably quite thrilled with that development at this point :P)

So it was finally my turn. Locked in on my target, I walked right by Drew Schiestel (sorry, Drew!) and spread my jersey out on the table in front of Hank. Being a less popular player he'd been signing a lot of other people's jerseys along with the little photos and slugs they were giving out. Our conversation went a little something like this:

Heather: HI!
Hank: (sees jersey, smile gets a little bigger) Ah, that's the number I like to see!
Heather: (after much thought about what to say, I say the first thing that pops into my head) YOU'RE MY FAVORITE! (I'd like to think I said that in a very calm, composed way but I fear there might have been a hint of a squeal in my voice. No idea what happened.)
Hank: And that's what I like to hear! Thank you.

I asked him if I could get a photo and he said, "Sure, you just have to come back here," so I shoved the security guy to the side. Hank was very, very tall - more on that in a second - and I was a little worried that Mark wasn't going to get us both in the picture. He's not super comfortable with a camera and he had already expressed concern about messing it up. Fortunately, Mark said aloud, "Wow, I can barely get both of you in. You're a tall guy!" at which point Hank leaned down a little closer to me. And the picture you saw yesterday was the happy result. Oh, heck. Here it is again in case you missed it.

:::happy sigh:::

Okay. Would any gentlemen reading this please skip to the next paragraph? I need to talk to the ladies. Personal stuff. You wouldn't want to hear it. Might be embarrassing for you. Really. Move along, move along... Are they gone? Okay, let me tell you this, ladies. Henrik Tallinder? Is beautiful even with that awful buzz cut. You know how in cartoons, sometimes the good-looking guy smiles and you get the little "ping!" sound effect with the twinkly glint and the sparkle in the eye? Well, Hank is the real-life equivalent of that. He's just so very sparkly. Noticeably blue eyes, big dimples, extremely charming. And when he stood up for the picture, holy cow, I thought he was going to go on forever. He's very lean which probably accentuates his height but man. Man! And you know what else? His hand was THIS CLOSE to being on my butt. Seriously. I'm pretty sure only the presence of my husband held him back. So, so, so pretty. Once again, Top Shelf business cards would've come in handy. I totally could've slipped one into the pocket of his hoodie.

Anyway, gentlemen, as I was telling the ladies, I really laid out my expectations for this season to Hank. I insisted on fewer turnovers and stronger play on the puck. "You're 6'3"," I said. "Now, I know you're a slim guy but really, there's no reason for you to get pushed around like that out there." He nodded in total agreement and thanked me for the help. It was a good talk. I'm confident he'll have a great 2008-2009.

One more note about Hank. I love him (in case I've been too subtle in the rest of this post) but he has the WORST signature in the world.


I know it's probably terrible signing your name over and over and over and I should talk because even in the best of circumstances my signature is H--th-- B followed by a squiggle way too short to actually be my last name. But Hank, come on now. He wrote HT 10 and then that little squiggle at the end. I don't know if that's supposed to be the rest of Tallinder or what. Mark interpreted as a little hockey stick which it does sort of resemble. Upon closer inspection I'm pretty sure it's Swedish for "Top Shelf is the best blog on the internet and I love Heather B."

And that was pretty much all she wrote for Puck Drop '08. We walked back to ice level to watch the end of practice but we were pretty wiped by that point, not to mention starving so we headed out after a few minutes.

The day had two more hockey surprise for us. One came with the announcement that Darcy had been renewed for two more years. I know of one guy in Buffalo who wasn't very happy when he heard that (ha ha!) but I love it. The second came when we fetched the mail.


We were beginning to quietly freak about not getting our tickets yet since it seemed everyone else in the blogosphere had received theirs. Turns out they were just sent to our old address - even though we changed our address with the Sabres - and caught up in mail forwarding.

Oh, hockey, sweet hockey. It's so good to see you again.

Seriously, I'm REALLY Bored

Another video link. It's the lazy blogger's way.

Mark sent me to the Bills website to watch a video of Paul Posluszny doing an interview while wearing a backpack - I don't know, I think that's cute - but instead I found this totally adorable interview of Poz being interviewed by a nine-year-old fan. It really must be watched. (If the link doesn't take you to the right video just click on the video labeled "Junior Bills Backer Interviews Posluszny.") As someone who works with kids I think it's pretty obvious when someone is comfortable with children or not and Poz is a charmer here. Man.

(I'm in no way suggesting that there's something wrong with people who aren't comfortable with kids. I get that that's not everyone's thing and that's probably particularly true of young athletes who don't have kids of their own and might not have been around them a lot. My Safety is Harvard featured this hilarious picture of Derek Roy holding a baby a while back and it suggests that Derek has not held very many babies in his young life. Even the kid is like, "Who is this yahoo?")

So yeah... Poz is cool.

Why I Have Hope: Youth

In retrospect, I probably should have filed that first post about Darcy Regier under "Why I Have Hope" - even if it would disgust some people - so let's pretend I did, okay?

A few months ago - I think it was March, Kevin Sylvester's blog on Sabres.com featured the chart below:

I stole this chart from Kevin Sylvester's blog.

Now granted, this was in March so the final numbers and placements might have changed a bit. A professional would probably re-crunch the numbers but a tired, overworked blogger with no editor who isn't getting paid for this will just go with the above. Sylvester pulled some interesting observations from this chart. I'll also add a couple of my own.

1. Buffalo was the youngest team in the top five at the time - actually they were the youngest team in the top fifteen - and although it wasn't in the chart, he also mentioned that the Sabres are younger than the Capitals and the Blackhawks, both teams that are often mentioned as talented young teams on the rise.

2. Ottawa, Detroit and Carolina - especially Carolina - got huge chunks of their offense from players 26 and older with Carolina especially skewing old. The only team in the same neighborhood as Buffalo for scoring from players 25 and younger was Montreal but their second highest percentage by a pretty good margin came from players 30 and older. Buffalo's goals are more evenly spread out.

3. Most of the under 25 goals for Buffalo were scored by Thomas Vanek, Derek Roy, Jason Pominville, Danny Paille, and Drew Stafford. I'm not sure what's going on with Stafford at this point but Vanek and Roy are locked up long -term, discussions have begun with Paille, and talks will move to Pominville after something is hammered out with Ryan Miller. The offense that was near the top of the league last year will remain intact for a number of years to come and these players are just moving into their peak years. They should continue to match their output from last season if not improve upon it.

4. Most of the players listed above - Vanek, Roy, and Pominville - already have a ton of playoff experience, something that's pretty nice considering how young they are.

I know there are a lot of fans who hate the idea that we should just leave the team alone because they're young and they'll get better as they get older and I agree that the team needs some tweaking but... they're young and they'll get better. We saw it with Montreal last season. Two years ago they finished out of the playoffs with 90 points (hmmm... that sounds familiar...) and last season they won the Eastern Conference and they did it without any huge changes to their line-up. Heck, we saw the same thing here not that long ago. The 2003-2004 Sabres team made a last minute grab at a playoff spot and missed. They broke for the lockout, got some experience in Europe, and came back in 2005 with a couple of seemingly minor additions (Toni Lydman, Teppo Numminen) and a couple of kids (Thomas Vanek and Ryan Miller) and they had a pretty darn good season. Some of it was an infusion of youth from Rochester through the season but some of it was players like Chris Drury, Daniel Briere, J.P. Dumont and Jay McKee getting more comfortable with playing with each other and getting more experience in their roles on the ice and in the dressing room. The team that gave up a lot of leads in 2003-2004 was suddenly playing till the end, sometimes making miraculous comebacks themselves. The captaincy that rotated in 2003-2004 finally found permanent homes on the chests of Drury and Briere. Or did we forget that they didn't show up in Buffalo as fully formed leaders of men?

Vanek and Roy initially struggled on the first line and really only had one good half last season. Stafford was up and down throughout the year. Miller put a lot of pressure on himself and played a lot more minutes than he's used to playing. Pominville took on more responsibility defensively. Paille played twice as many games in Buffalo as he ever had before. But most of them got noticeably better and more comfortable as the season went on and I don't see any reason not to expect that to continue. They're babies and babies need time to learn and develop. Additions like Craig Rivet will make a difference by bringing in some new energy and leadership but time will make a difference too.

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.

Just When I Think I'm Out....

Well, despite the days and days of hate mail from me to the Sabres, it turns out I really do love them. I know this because a) all those days off made me miss the little brats and b) one win has me thinking, "Hey, we're not mathematically eliminated yet!" I have a sickness, people. A deep, dark sickness.

A few thoughts:

- Wow, Dallas was... not impressive. After all the hullabaloo from the Buffalo News and Lindy Ruff (They're so big! So physical! So athletic! So beautifully led!) I was expecting more. I've often wondered about the teams who have a powerplay worse than ours (okay, in fairness to Dallas, they're ranked one above us). I guess our powerplay really isn't the worst in the history of man. Who knew?

- Nice to see good goaltending make a difference. Ryan Miller was definitely looking a little cranky last night - loved the reenactment of the tripping penalty for the ref and the spearing of the guy who was hacking away at his glove. I was a little worried because a couple of times he started to do the "Hey, look at that other goalie! Me too! Me too!" routine he likes to do when he plays a goalie who handles the puck a lot but he kept it reined in pretty well. Overall I'd say he did a pretty good job of responding to Lindy's recent remarks about the guy between the pipes needing to be good.

- Lindy was not kidding about Marty Turco's puck handling abilities though. Some of his passes were pretty impressive. I really like Marty. He's one of my favorite non-Sabres in the league and I do wish we saw him more often. He makes me laugh.

- Top Shelf glove taps to Toni Lydman for blocking what seemed like eighteen shots on one powerplay and Jochen Hecht for more or less saving the game with his poke check at the end. Defense is sexy!

- Speaking of defense, I hate to get into the habit of pointing out every little thing Brian Campbell does wrong but come on, Buffalo. He totally forgot what position he was playing on the Dallas goal. (I did let out a good "STUUUUUUUUUUUUU," just for old time's sake.)

- Okay, let's talk about Derek Roy. A couple of days ago I mentioned that Derek Roy was the Sabre that has disappointed me the most this season. The Dallas game (along with the Toronto game) is a perfect example of what I've been expecting from Derek. He was buzzing, he was involved in the play, he was making his linemates better. You noticed him almost every time he was on the ice. He's had spurts like that all season, a string of games when he's had multiple points. But he's also had long stretches of games where he was either damaging the team with irresponsible play or just not there at all. In one of my hate letters I think I mentioned that I expected this year's team to be, at the very least, hard-working, determined, playing with a little bit of a chip on its shoulder. What I didn't say was that I expected a lot of that to come from the team taking on a bit of Derek Roy because when he's playing well, that's how he plays and as we saw tonight, it makes a difference. Of all the guys in that little Rochester core, I really expected Derek to be the one who stepped up to fill in some of the leadership gap. He's been the leader before - he captained the Kitchener Rangers to the Memorial Cup - and in the preseason he seemed eager to be the guy.

In fairness to him however, I probably had my expectations a touch too high for this season, especially since I even admitted in a preseason post that he had a lot of growing up to do on the ice. Between the excessive diving and the never-ending whining about every single call/no call he didn't like, he could be a total baby. It was probably too much to expect him to go from Whiny Baby to Leader of Men in one season. But that's what makes this whole "most disappointing player" debate interesting because it really depends on who you were expecting the most out of.

The good news is, I think Derek has made some progress in the whiny department this year. I can't remember the last time I screamed at him about yapping at the refs. And while I think he'll always be willing to go down for a call, I think that's gotten a little better too. And he has shown flashes of how he's capable of taking over a game and feeding energy into his team. I fully expect his new contract to be good for both him and the Sabres in the long-run. You hear, "He'll be a bargain by the time his contract is up" a lot, but I think Derek really will have been a bargain when all is said and done. (Wake me up when Alexander Ovechkin's contract is even in the same neighborhood as a bargain.)

And on a total side note, those amped up shoulder pads Derek is wearing lately completely crack me up. They make him look even smaller than he already is. He looks like a little kid wearing full gear for the first time.

So yeah, Derek Roy. Disappointing and encouraging all at the same time. It's like the guy behind us at a game last season said. "Derek Roy... Man, I love that little bastard."

Little Roy-Z, 2003

Sweet Relief!

This morning I got the following email from Mark.

If Derek plays tonight, he will have a huge game. When I came in this morning and turned on my adding machine, the number 9 appeared! Okay, I must have bumped the 9 key, but still!!

Monday we're going to see if he can accidentally punch in 26.

In a season when a couple of my favorites have fallen hard (Spinorama on outta here, Soupy! Dipsy-doodle your way to a new city, Timmy!), I'm a little relieved to report that I've really missed having Derek Roy in the line-up the last few games. He hasn't had a very good season and he can be completely exasperating - we have a very intense love/hate relationship - but dang, when I love him, I love him. It sure looks like he took Lindy's words about certain players needing to step up to heart because he had a great game. He was buzzing everywhere, he was involved in a handful of the goals and I admit it, I'm totally tickled at the goalie - I think it was Kari Lehtonen at that point - shooting the puck at him. Hee. Even though he was kind of tripped into the crease, I do think little Roy-Z is at his best when he's bugging other people. I'm a little disappointed that his hat-trick was awarded after the game though. I hate when that happens! Here's a hat from me to you, Roy-Z! You were my first star of the game.



Other observations:

- Despite the fact that he keeps hitting crossbars, I think Thomas Vanek looked pretty good tonight. He was going to the net more often than not and made some really nice passes to the front of the net. I fully expect the message board denizens to pick everything he did apart to pieces and fault him for not earning $70 million in one game but for tonight, they should really give it a rest.

- That was one of the most complete games they've played all season. They'd start to cool off just for a couple of minutes and I'd start getting a little worried but they always pulled it together quickly. The Sabres definitely got some bounces but they also worked really hard for sixty minutes. It's a cliche that you create your own bounces but it's a cliche because it's true.

- I try to not let the girlie side of me come out here too often because I don't want to be accused of being a puckbunny - seriously, try it and see what happens - but that backhand by Smokin' Jochen Hecht was seriously sexy. You can keep your showy slapshots, backhands make me swoon. (Of course, I also have a terrible, terrible slapshot so maybe I'm just pretending to not be impressed with them. I do, however, have a pretty good backhand if I do say so myself. Yo-Yo and I are hockey soul mates because I'd be all about ugly goals, I think.)

- I admit, I tend to kind of ignore it when Henrik Tallinder isn't playing well - he's my favorite player so that earns him a little slack - but he really has looked a ton better the last handful or so of games, even in some of the losses. Good job, Hank. It's nice to be able to actually say, "Hey, my guy is playing really well!" instead of just closing my eyes and pretending I'm not seeing you.

- If I were nice, I wouldn't point out that a clean giveaway by Brian "Six Million Dollar Man" Campbell led directly to the Thrashers only goal. But hey, if you guys want to give him that much money... Okay, seriously, it's just as likely that was Ryan Miller's fault. I mean, the poor guy had a FOUR GOAL LEAD. He was probably panicky and confused. And hey, atleast we didn't have to hold our breaths waiting for the last second goal to ruin the potential shutout.

- Two gorgeous passes from Dmitri Kalinin. Oh, geez. That pass/shot over to Vanek on the side of the net was so, so nice.

- Loved the mic'd up segment when Adam Mair hollers for a piece of gum and somebody brought out a little tupperware dish full of sticks of gum. I don't know, for some reason that little dish cracked me up. I can't believe they chew gum while skating and getting knocked around though. Seems dangerous.

- Nice to see some bumping and scrapping from a lot of different guys. I'm a little disappointed that we didn't get full-blown fights out of Hecht and Toni Lydman though. They're not very good fighters and it doesn't happen very often but I love the way they go from mild-mannered to total flip out and they didn't quite get there tonight. And geez, Jason Pominville got nailed by Eric Boulton. I think I heard him whimpering from my living room.

- All in all, a much needed victory for both the team and the fans, I think. Part of my brain is whispering that it doesn't mean anything until we string a bunch of wins together but the other half of my brain is telling that half to shut up. For tonight, I'm happy. At the very least, it was nice to see some smiles on the bench again.

Buffalo vs. Montreal... Again and Again and Again

In honor of NaBloPoMO, I'll be attempting to post something every day in November. If you're not checking in every day, make sure you're catching all the posts! Geez, whose idea was this?

- Well, I guess there are worse teams to play 18 times in one month. Montreal was one of my favorite teams to play last season and the games have definitely been fun this season too. It's nice to see some fast, wide open hockey. And it has been kind of entertaining watching these two teams get feisty with each other. Still... I'm ready to see someone else.

- The feature on Thomas Vanek during the first intermission was one of the worst pieces I've ever seen. Kevin Sylvester teased us with "Here's a little about what Thomas Vanek does off the ice" and then we got what felt like 45 seconds of him playing bubble hockey - at the arena! - with Michael Ryan. I suppose technically he was off the ice, but he never even left the building. I learned more about Mike Ryan watching that. Usually these little fluff pieces are pretty good so I was really disappointed. Geez, Vanek seems like a kid though, doesn't he? I always forget just how young he is. When did these guys all get so much younger than me?

- Jocelyn Thibault has been unimpressive in every other start this season, but he looked really good tonight. Strike that - he looked great. He came up with a few big saves in the first period to keep the game scoreless and he stood strong for the rest of the game. He couldn't stop grinning after the game and I love when guys are like that. All his teammates looked really happy for him too, especially Ryan. I admit, I thought Lindy should have started Ryan tonight and saved T-Bone for the Capitals on Monday. Shows what I know!

- Thomas Vanek's goal was a thing of beauty. He got that puck in the net on sheer will. He decided he was going to score and nothing was going to stop him. I know I've said this after the last couple of games, but this is the player you build a team around. He's so much fun to watch right now.

- I knew Henrik Tallinder was hurt the second he took that hit. My Hank senses were tingling like crazy. I was waiting through the entire second intermission for them to tell us he'd re-broken his arm while Mark kept insisting he was fine. (Me: "QUIT SAYING HE'S FINE! I'M TELLING YOU HE'S HURT! HE WILL NOT BE BACK ON THE BENCH TONIGHT!" Mark: "Are you nervous?" Me: "NO!") Dear Sabres, I told you! Adamantium skeleton! Anyway... Kudos to Toni (Tony Tone) Lydman for stepping up in his partner's absence and helping hold the Canadiens to a big fat zero. And hey, how good has our penalty killing been? Holding Montreal to 1/9 over two games is pretty impressive.

- Part of the reason I love Derek Roy: Vanek is getting cheap-shotted behind the net and Derek comes flying in to take care of it. Derek could fit very comfortably in my pocket so he's not going to do much damage, but hey, he was in there swinging away.


- This is totally unrelated, but I've been meaning to mention it for a few days so I'm going to shoe-horn it in here. Last season Mirtle attempted to develop a formula to determine the best defensive defensemen in the league. It's not an easy task and what he came up with is imperfect - it doesn't factor in how good the team goaltending is for one thing - but I thought it was interesting. He narrowed down the list to the top 90 d-men in even-strength ice time and then narrowed that list down again by picking out the top 60 in shorthanded time, the idea being that good defensive d-men will be a big part of their team's penalty kill. Within that group, he looked at three different criterion: rate of goals against at even-strength, rate of goals against at shorthanded, and strength of opposition. Again, it's not a perfect science and I'd argue that part of the reason defensive defensemen (and defensive forwards) are so underrated and underappreciated is because defense is such a hard thing to quantify. There's no stat you can look at and say, "See? That guy's a great defensive player."

A few days ago, Mirtle wrote an entry about the best d-men so far this season, again using his formula. You can follow the link to see the whole list, but the top ten were Anton Volchenkov (OTT), Brian Rafalski (DET), Chris Phillips (OTT), Nicklas Lidstrom (DET), Chris Pronger (ANA), Jan Hejda (COL), Marc-Edouard Vlasic (SJ), Hal Gill (TOR), Michael Rozsival (NYR), and Kimmo Timonen (PHI). Squeaking in at number 11? Henrik Tallinder, BUF. Again... not a perfect science and I recognize that, but I liked seeing Hank up there, especially since he got off to such a rocky start.

"He likes me! Mirtle really likes me!"