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Eff You, Sabres

Don't count me among the many Sabres fans who are ecstatic now that their Buffalo Sabres have finally decided to grow up and play like the hockey team we were all promised at the beginning of the season.

For the second year in a row this team waited until mid-season to give a shit. Only this time there will almost certainly be no playoffs. Even after taking nine of 10 possible points in their last five games, the Sabres still sit in 12th place, two points out of 15th.

And even if they did miraculously happen to make the playoffs, what then? Another first-round exit followed by excuses about injuries to key personnel? Jibberish about how juggling lines compromises team chemistry? More canned statements about the need to put in 60 minutes a night and be stronger on the puck?

I'm half-tempted to think that this is the year Buffalo wins the Cup. I mean, no kidding, ever since I actually began legitimately rooting for the Sabres to lose out the season so they could pull a top three draft pick, they've gone 4-0-1. You can't make this shit up. Boston had its only goal of the game disallowed last night on the worst call I think I've ever seen. This is the type of stuff that always used to happen to the Sabres.

Trevor Luck is a compelling phenomenon, my friends. Back in college my housemates used to tell me I was just feeling sorry for myself whenever things wouldn't go my way. Then they all just "curiously" stopped getting laid. Just sayin'.

But on the off-chance the Sabres' fate doesn't revolve completely around me, I'll tell you what all of this means: The Buffalo Sabres will -- for the umpteenth time -- do just enough to convince ownership to keep Regier and Ruff around for yet another season. Or five. I can't even keep track anymore.

Awesome.

So go ahead and root on your team. I don't necessarily begrudge Sabres fans for that. But I'm not going to forget how this team crumpled under the pressure of losing players during a rough injury stretch. I'm not going to forget that ownership, management, and the coaching staff condoned abject failure when things got a little tough. I'm not going to forget that many of the players who weren't hurt were playing like crap well before they had to play with the farm boys. And I won't forget that the Sabres blew out the Bruins last night without Thomas Vanek.

I think Boston's play last night was largely due to its underestimation of the Sabres. You can't take anything away from Buffalo's effort because it was easily the best game they've played all season in every facet, but there are few teams who laugh at the Sabres more than the Bruins do. That said, Buffalo reinforced what I've said for the past two months: that this team is not short on talent, it's short on heart.

One game doesn't make a season. And neither do 40. It actually pisses me off more to watch a game like last night's than to never see one at all, because all it does is illustrate the fact that this team can play hard every night but chooses not to. Sure, you're going to have off-nights. Just ask Boston about that today. But if you can't show up for 90 percent of your games willing to lay it down, then massive changes need to be made. And a handful of good games don't come close to changing that in my mind.

Injuries are a bitch, but they are and were not the problem. Buffalo's injuries this season merely served as a sympton, albeit a very noticeable one, of the underlying causes of this team's failure: lack of focus and mental toughness.

You're probably not going to do much better than .500 with eight regulars out of the lineup and a goalie who may or may not have been suffering lingering effects of a concussion. But you're not going to spiral into the abyss if you're mentally tough either. You're not going to watch your season sail down the train over the span of 20 games if you can win half your games.

Forget for a moment physical toughness (which the Sabres need to improve upon but nevertheless showed last night they can bring when they want to). A team that isn't mentally strong is incapable of mustering the will to play physically in the first place.

So suck it up, guys, and play your little hearts out for the remainder of the regular season. Do just enough to save your jobs and finish with mid-round draft picks this summer. After all, I'm not sure it's really even your fault anymore.

Injuries to Byfuglien/Bogosian Hamstring Sabres

The Buffalo Sabres couldn't overcome the absence of Dustin Byfuglien and Zach Bogosian as the Winnipeg Jets cruised to a 4-1 victory last night in MTS Centre.

Blackhawks Blame Victory on Injury to Patrick Sharp

That's all I wanted to say.

Time to watch Moneyball.

Schadenfreude, Anyone?

I've never really been the type of person to take pleasure in other people's misfortune, but when people seemingly insist on visiting despair upon themselves, it's hard not to laugh.

Or to root them on, for that matter.

As recent events have illustrated, the Buffalo Sabres have not only failed -- and failed spectactularly -- to live up to self-imposed expectations, ownership has also made it clear that there will be no attempt to salvage the season (or to get a jump on improving prior to the summer) by doing anything but adhering to the status quo.

I think Erik might have been a bit too harsh on new Sabres owner Terry Pegula yesterday, but let's not confuse harsh with offbase. The Sabres are indeed the softest team in hockey, a culture that has been instilled by management and reflected by most of its players over the years.

In fact, if I read one more article about Ryan Miller's lip quivering during a post-game interview, I swear I'm going to burn every last one of my fucking Sabres hats. To quote Phil Wenneck, pull yourself together, bro.

Here's where we are: When the face of your franchise is a basketcase, you're pretty much screwed.

Erik commented last night that it's "rather fun" to watch Miller's career unravel before our eyes. I don't share this sentiment. Interesting? Surreal? Yes. Fun? No. I don't want the Sabres to suck (Well, suck enough for the rest of the year to get the first pick in the draft? Sure.) I don't take any pleasure in watching an individual's career go down the drain, especially if he's on my team.

However, what I do enjoy watching is insanity in action. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. This is Darcy Regier in a nutshell. So while I may not get much satisfaction watching a player battle psychological issues that could be out of his control, I can't say the same for a GM who has every opportunity to objectively evaluate his team yet chooses to adhere to fantasy as a strategy for success.

Ryan Miller has always been somewhat of a headcase, but I believe he now realizes that every player in the league can beat him over his glove shoulder. He can do nothing about it. He is done.

Let me repeat that: Ryan Miller is done. I take no pride in writing that. He still gets the last laugh because he's a multi-millionaire, but just because an owner, GM, and coach think you can live up to your contract doesn't mean you can. Failing to both realize and act on this now will only further delay the Sabres' reversal of this downward spiral.

The problem is not injuries (you don't see Philly bitching about the loss of Chris Pronger for the season). I hope Mr. Pegula knows this. I hope he was just trying to provide some positive reinforcement while he figures out how to right this ship when he chalked up his team's horrendous play to bad luck. Because if he truly buys the injury excuse -- and let's face it, he seemed pretty convinced last week -- he's going to sell this team well before he wins a Cup.

Terry, this is what complete disarray looks like.

Complete disarray metastasizes itself in things like pathetic excuses when you can't pinpoint tangible reasons for failure. It's just like chemistry, which the Sabres continually say they need to develop in order to find success. But "chemistry" is the word you use when you can't find any rational, tangible explanation for why things work so well.

Just as things often work out unexpectedly and with seemingly little effort, sometimes nothing works no matter what you do.

I may not know much, but one thing I do know is that guys like Derek Roy, Drew Stafford, Ville Leino, Nathan Gerbe, and Tyler Ennis do not suck; they're in a pretty exclusive fraternity for a reason. But despite all the denial by Sabres brass, the combination of players they've assembled just isn't working.

Yes, your guess is as good as mine.

But the job of a GM is to, at minimum, be able to identify this. I've never thought much of Lindy Ruff as a coach, but this poor schmuck just looks lost behind the bench. He has the look of a guy who knows he's lost his team and, if nothing else, he needs to be fired for his own sake (in addition to my own).

In the meantime, the Sabres find themselves mired in a dreadful seven-game roadtrip. Any sober fan knew the Detroit game was over before it started last night; it was only a matter of by how much. The same goes for tomorrow night in Chicago. The word "dismantled" comes to mind. I don't see Buffalo winning more than one game on this roadie -- hell, they've already dropped the first two -- but the only thing that could potentially improve their odds is for Enroth to get the starts from now on until he loses two in a row.

Like it or not, the future is either Enroth or someone else. The options going forward for Miller are 1) buyout or 2) AHL. He is currently untradeable -- who'd give up property and take on that contract? -- and I doubt he'd even be picked up on waivers. He is the definition of sunk cost, and even I don't think Regier is dumb enough to keep him around given his cap hit. (Of course, Regier ideally wouldn't be around to have this decision on his hands.)

There's really no succinct explanation for the state of the Buffalo Sabres -- they've worked hard to create this mess over many years -- but if there's one thing that needs to end it's the incestuousness that defines this team. From the cozy, unhealthy relationship that is Regier/Ruff to the famed "core" that has spent more time together than most married couples, it's just time for a divorce.

And yes, until Terry Pegula and Co. realize this, I'll be reveling in the ignorance and naivete that currently define them.

To paraphrase Phil Wenneck, You actually gonna ride this or are you guys just fuckin' with me?

Injuries Are Not the Problem*

* The one caveat, as I mentioned last week after the Edmonton game, is an injury to Thomas Vanek.

Well, according to the Buffalo News, Vanek is out with an upper body injury -- or food poisoning, or the flu -- after leaving last night's game in Toronto after the first period following a hit by Dion Phaneuf. Whether the hit was the cause or not, we don't know at this time. But if Vanek is out for any extended period of time, you can write off this season entirely.

Whereas even Sidney Crosby's absence can be absorbed to significant extent by the Penguins because of his deep supporting cast, Vanek has been the only consistently reliable forward on this team all year. He's also the only player who insists on playing through pain if he can actually skate, so that's about the only reason he hasn't joined the rest of his teammates on the shelf up till this point. But just wait to see how laughable this team will be if Vanek actually has to miss a few weeks.

All that being said, the season is effectively already over in my mind. I don't buy into the argument that guys like Roy, Stafford, Ennis, and Gaustad necessarily are inferior hockey players. These guys are all in the NHL for a reason and they've obviously found success in the past. However, sometimes shit just stops clicking for any number of reasons, not least the fact that your psyche can really start to fuck with you once you realize you're just not living up to the hype. Anyone that's played a sport even at the high school level should be able to tell you that physical strength is no match for mental weakness once you let yourself get too heady.

I think the effects of Lindy Ruff's stagnant system and acceptance of soft and uninspired play have simply finally come to fruition. His players have grown far too comfortable with the status quo, especially with regard to internalizing the reality that there are very few consequences for failure and poor performance. Ruff himself has probably even lost any edge he once had because he too knows he won't be shitcanned by current management no matter how badly his team plays.

Me? I'm now just along for the ride and actually taking pleasure at how awful this team is even compared to other bad teams in the league. Personally I think you might as well play for the first pick in the draft if you're not going to make the playoffs anyway, so maybe that's what we're actually seeing. But even if not, I actually trust that the combination of Ruff's coaching, impotent offense, and Miller's goaltending could still pull it off unintentionally.

Sabres 0-2 Since Return of Tyler Myers

Well, technically they're 0-1-1 but whatever. Looks like the team is going to have to find yet another panacea du jour for getting back to the win column, because anyone with an IQ above room temperature knows the Sabres' injuries have played a very minimal role in their lackluster performance of late.

Obviously injuries aren't irrelevant, but what's pissed off Sabres fans the most over the past month or so is twofold: 1) the club's propensity to place more emphasis on making excuses for losses than on finding ways to win, and 2) the front office's insistence upon pussyfooting around with a GM/head coach tandem that has overstayed its welcome while yet another (potentially salvageable) season washes down the drain.

As I've mentioned several times before, injuries are not the problem. No one wants to be without guys like Tyler Myers and Christian Ehrhoff, but players get hurt; good teams can accommodate short-term injuries.

Take a look at the D right now. The Sabres are absent Christian Ehrhoff and Andrej Sekera. If you plan to argue that Sekera is any sort of significant loss whatsoever, please pass the hooka now because I need some of what you're having. And Ehrhoff wasn't even on the team last year yet it found a way to make the playoffs without him.

So this year -- right now, even without Ehrhoff -- the Sabres' defensive corps has Myers, Leopold, and Weber -- all holdovers from last season -- only they've exchanged guys like Morrisonn, Butler, Montador, and Rivet for Regehr, McNabb, and Gragnani.

Would anyone out there actually take last year's lineup over the one that will take the ice tomorrow night against Toronto, even absent Ehrhoff and Sekera for now? I sure as hell wouldn't.

Injuries are not the problem. Hell, most Sabres fans would tell you that the reason the team got it together last year was because Derek Roy missed most of the season. If that's the case, what's the excuse now? That underachiever Tyler Ennis is still out? Please.

When Lindy Ruff has the luxury of making Zack Kassian a healthy scratch -- which, if you ask me, is just plain stupid -- you can't really bitch about injuries. I love Matt Ellis. Would that even half the team had his fucking heart. But the guy looks like a cat in a bathtub when he stickhandles, and you play him over Kassian? If anything, maybe try playing him in addition to Kassian and benching any forward not named Vanek or Pominville for a game or two. Gee, there's a thought.

Injuries are not the problem. However, Ryan Miller sucks. The forwards making $4 million a year couldn't hit a 25-cent whore with a roll of quarters in their pocket, much less the back of a net. Lindy Ruff allows/encourages soft play and from what I can tell has essentially lost his team. Blah, blah, blah.

So what cosmic events have conspired to cause this perfect storm of shittiness? Who knows? Probably a lot of things, and most likely many intangible ones at that. I've never been the kind of person to advocate change simply for the sake of changing, but you can't fix intangibles without changing the tangibles. It's already 2012. They're long overdue.

There's a reason a team with the third-highest payroll in the league can't win. There's a reason it doesn't retaliate against a team that runs its goaltender. There's a reason it refuses to lay bodychecks on an equally weak team that's obviously travel weary.

There's always a reason for everything. I'd love to get paid to figure it out if the Sabres would like to give me a shot. After all, I'd love the job security.

Just When You Think Your Team Can't Get Any More Pussified ...

Derek Roy gets hurt on a faceoff!!

You honestly can't make this shit up.

No worries, though. The Sabres will start winning once Myers comes back. Oh, wait..

Who thinks of this crap, anyway? The same people who anointed Ryan Miller the best goalie in the world during the Olympics?

Remember that dude Buffalo used to have who actually was the best goalie in the world and won gold all on his own?

DVR-blogging: Oilers/Sabres

I almost never have time most nights to sit down and watch anything real time, but I managed to take some notes during Tuesday night's game while I was watching the tape. I figured I'd post my exact comments as I jotted them down and then elaborate now if necessary.

First Period

- T.J. Brennan is good and is going to be very good. Sweeps puck out of the crease less than three minutes into the game and saves what certainly would've been an easy tap-in for Edmonton.

(Buffalo is without Ehrhoff, Sekera, and Myers but I really don't see any gaping holes in the D that weren't there prior to the injuries. Sekera is tremendously average and Myers was hardly playing his best hockey when he broke his wrist, so that leaves Ehrhoff as the only loss that could noticeably impact the production of the defense. He logs huge minutes and is generally steady, but keep in mind that injury replacements aren't always the detriment they may appear to be on paper. Whereas teams key on Ehrhoff every game and keep him in check, guys like Brennan and McNabb aren't nearly as well-scouted yet, so good teams can take advantage of this, um, advantage.

- Good idea by Ruff to play Kassian with Vanek and utilize his talents as a top six forward

(Well, that didn't last long. Maybe two shifts.)

- There's a lot of talk about M.A. Gragnani's subpar performance. Yes, you'd rather have Ehrhoff and Myers, but if Grags isn't capable of filling in to the point where the team expects to win, he shouldn't have made the roster in the first place.

(Translation: I'm tired of listening to this club blame losses in part on injuries. If Ruff thought Gragnani was good enough to make the team, he should expect him to be good enough to play in this league, even if his ideal role at this point is to be used as an injury sub. I know, shocker.

- Injuries are not the problem. Buffalo is getting outplayed by a team on its sixth game of a roadie that got into town at 2 a.m. the day of the game.

(If anything, Buffalo has impressive depth that would render this rash of injuries essentially moot on many other teams, namely those that realized that body checks are a part of hockey. Not to mention, injuries really only impact specific parts of the game, like special teams or shootouts. If guys like Vanek are playing, you should be fine. Most other players are filler. That said, if Vanek goes down, the Sabres' season is all but over (if it isn't already).

- Speaking of injuries, we're into the part of the season where guys need to start playing with pain. I'd be interested to know how many guys on the shelf right now could play if they really wanted to.

(Tyler Ennis, I'm looking at you. High ankle sprains suck so I could be wrong. However, note to Christian Ehrhoff: If you can't fight without putting yourself out for "weeks," don't fucking fight! It's not like you can win anyway. Kudos, however, to Jason Pominville for sucking it up when he probably felt pretty shitty after having the flu. Very captainly.)

- Great goal allowed by Miller. WEAK!

(Hey, lots of goalies allow goals under their glove arm from bad angles. Just not ones making $6 million a year!)

- Zack Kassian's passing is not good in the first period. Then again, this has been a pretty shitty period by the Sabres in general.

Second Period

- Brennan loses the puck and turns it over in his own zone but recovers to make a nice shot block.

(I think Brennan's actually better than Gragnani already.)

- I seriously can't remember a single body check thrown by Buffalo.

(I think that's because there weren't any to that point.)

- Weak goalie interference call on Hemsky. Edmonton didn't protest too much, but that's probably because they're out of breath.

- Equally shitty charging call on Kaleta for what appeared to be a perfectly good smack on Ladislav Smid. Maybe I just missed the part where the refs outlawed hitting tonight. That would at least explain Buffalo's lethargic approach to the game.

- I'm so tired of Ryan Miller and his soft over-the-shoulder goals.

(Given Miller's salary and atrocious season, I honestly doubt he'd get picked up even if he were waived. No shit. So anyone thinking Regier would be able to trade him even if he wanted to may as well stop dreaming.

Third Period

- Buffalo looks like the team that got in at 2 a.m.

- These guys just refuse to hit and take control of an opponent that almost seems to be waiting to be steamrolled. The Oilers weren't even willing to kick Roy's ass after he shot a puck on Khabibulin well after the whistle at the start of the third.

- Against ANY other team not in Edmonton's situation, the Sabres would easily be down 5-2 at this point.

- Sabres used to play down to their competition's level. Now they just don't really seem to give a shit against anyone.

- Whee, "victory"

Those Darned Injuries Strike Again!

When Ottawa's Erik Condra scored into an empty net last night to make it 4-1, I couldn't help but think, "Hey, that wasn't much harder than when Miller's actually on the ice!" I guess the one upside to last night's loss, though, is that it didn't start with Miller for a change.

But as I've said before, it didn't start with injuries either. The first Ottawa goal came after a turnover by Mike Weber. The second was the result of a turnover by Luke Adam and a good play by Kyle Turris. The third was on a power play tap-in by Erik Karlsson.

Hell, the best forward for the Sabres last night was Derek Whitmore, the 26-year-old rookie making his NHL debut. Derek Roy and Drew Stafford, on the other hand, who together comprise an $8 million cap hit, were flat-out putrid.

So please, once and for all, let's dispense with the notion that the Sabres' unraveling and disarray are due to injuries. After all, it's not like Ottawa's any effing good.

The Pendulum Swings Both Ways

In response to what Trevor said: The next time you want to blame all of your problems on injuries, take a look at the list of injuries that I copied and pasted from the official Pittsburgh Penguins website. Last I heard, at least 2/3 of this list are pretty important (and arguably more talented than the scratched Sabres) to their team too.

C Sidney Crosby, undisclosed
F Dustin Jeffrey, knee
D Kris Letang, broken nose and concussion
D Ben Lovejoy, broken wrist
D Paul Martin, lower body
D Zbynek Michalek, concussion
F Richard Park, fractured foot
F Jordan Staal, lower body
D Brian Strait, hyper-extended elbow

Capital Punishment

Over the past few years, the Washington Capitals have had the luxury of using the Sabres as their personal whipping boys. I'm not going to do any serious research on the exact numbers, I just know that the scale has been tilted severely in the wrong direction.

The Sabres and Caps play each other four times a year, and if my memory serves me right, I don't think Buffalo ever wins more than once a year. So, the one in four odds look even more devastating to a team that has just lost eight important players (I'm not counting Miller, I just don't think he's relevant anymore). I gave them more of a one in sixteen chance last night, which is actually very generous considering their recent misfortunes.

I can't say that I really hate the Caps though (I'm not real big on hating teams for the sole fact that you can never beat them). I guess that's what living in Pittsburgh for ten years does to you. If you want to know what it's like to hate a team, live there. Not to go totally off course here, but I have never been around a more undeserving group of fans than I was while living there. There isn't any more of a Sabres/Penguins rivalry than there is a Sabres/Caps rivalry -- Buffalo's had a couple important games or series against both -- but just seeing how fair-weathered those people became when they got Crosby and started winning was disgusting to me. For Christ's sake, I'm pretty sure they've been bankrupt more times than the Sabres, but at least Buffalo's bankruptcy came as result of a felony, not as result of hockey boredom. I guess it's kinda like how Washington became when they got Ovechkin. Can't say that for sure though having never lived in or around the District.

There have been certain moments when I have not liked the Caps, like when Briere was boarded by Ovi into the open bench door, or when Olie the Goalie got hot for a week and ruined the Sabres' entire year. It's just that those few and far between moments never transcended into hatred. I guess when you find yourself cheering for them to beat the Pens every year in the playoffs you tend to let some of those things slide.

But let's get back to yesterday. To be completely honest, I wasn't even going to pay attention to the game last night. I had already been physically feeling like crap since Friday morning, and follow that up with the Colombus game later that night, why give a damn about something that would seemingly amplify the pain? The reason I watched at all was to see Kassian play. I would type the other guy's name too, but I don't feel like looking up how to spell it. Also, I never realized that Kassian's name was pronounced "Cash In"; hopefully that's some awesome foreshadowing toward what kind of player he'll be one day (or maybe just is already). It would save R.J. a lot of time and effort giving him his own little tag line too. Either way, good job netting your first goal, hope to see many more of those.

The thing that made me the most happy though was watching the Capitals steal a page out of the Sabres playbook and taking the majority of the night off, obviously resulting in their eventual demise. There seriously wasn't one moment of nervousness for the entire 60 minutes. The Caps definitely lost this one more than the Sabres won it, but what the hell, it's still fun to watch a game like that once in a while. The funniest thing was that you knew the Washington bench totally heard Rob Ray criticize their focus about ten times throughout the game, and they obviously didn't care. Priceless.

If the Capitals would've come out playing with a little more intensity, the game could have ended up much differently than it actually did. Judging by the Buffalo effort alone though, I still think the Sabres win that game by a goal or two. So I have every reason to believe that if Vanek, Pommer and the rest of the Rochester Americans work this hard every night, this rough, injury-filled time of the season could go unnoticed by the time everyone is healthy. In reality, it should set the bar even higher for the others when they return. I don't know, it's just one game, but it would be nice if that actually ended up being the situation in the end.

Battle of Attrition vs. Caps

Injuries have a way of bringing a team closer together. Players are forced to dig deeper, stick together, and gut it out if they expect to win.

Of course, then they can just get plain out of control. It seems we're getting to that point with this Sabres team as nine regulars will be out of the lineup tonight. We already know Regehr was hurt last night, and now an unnamed forward has been ruled out -- good money is on Vanek or Pominville, per Mike Harrington at the Buffalo News:

So the injury rundown is this: Ryan Miller (concussion), Tyler Ennis (ankle), Tyler Myers (wrist), Cody McCormick (upper body, believed to be concussion), Brad Boyes (lower body, believed to be ankle), Mike Weber (upper body), Patrick Kaleta (lower body, believed to be groin), Regehr (upper body) and Mr. X No. 9.

Ooph.

Hey, I'm the first to admit injuries can actually be a good thing, but you can only expect to compete for so long against healthy teams while your players continue to drop. Remember two years ago how injuries reduced to mere mortals a Bruins team that was otherwise every bit as mighty as this year's squad.

The Sabres won't admit this to the media, but the truth of the matter now is that they're quickly getting to the point where their sheer lack of NHL talent is going to start costing them games.

If Vanek's the one who's out, I'm not sure how realistic a win can be against the Caps tonight given the way he and Pominville have been carrying the team. But if they can't muster any more effort than they did against the Blue Jackets last night, they really ought to just sit this one out and try to go at least one game without losing anyone for a change.