swordplay

Whoah!

Time flies when you're having fun... and replacing water heaters, and alternators, and furnaces, and laptops.  I turn my back for a minute and the Sabres go on a 10-3-3 tear.  To be honest, I've been watching most of the games or, at the very least, parts of most of the games.  I just haven't had time to sit and type up my thoughts lately, but Trevor and Erik have been holding down the fort admirably. 

The Sabres, with rare exception, have always been a second half team.  It would appear that this year is no exception.  The thing is, they aren't scoring any more goals than they were before the break.  The good news, though, is the goals are starting to come from sources other than Vanek and Pominville.  For example, is it possible that Drew Stafford is trying to reignite my man-crush with him?  I had all but given up on him ever scoring on a regular basis again, yet here he is racking up points all of a sudden.  I said in a prior post (that I'm too lazy to go get the link for - I guess that "Sabre mentality" is rubbing off on me) that his play has been there all along and if anyone on this team was truly snakebit it was him.  He's proving that persistence pays off as things finally start to go his way.  Derek Roy is another guy who is finally starting to find the net.  Pat Kaleta continues to impress me with solid play every night.  The team has definitely rallied since the break and, as a whole, is showing passion and fire consistently.   Heck, Tyler Myers actually dropped the gloves in Anaheim!  Who needs more proof than that?!?

But as far as I'm concerned, the success of this team since January rests squarely on the shoulders of one Ryan Miller.  As I said, the team isn't scoring any more goals than they were in the first half of the season.  But they aren't giving up nearly as many either.  Some of that can be attributed to better back checking and guys actually getting in lanes and blocking shots.  Some of it can be attributed to a noticable decrease in the amount of bone-headed turnovers in the defensive zone.  But most of it is a direct result of Ryan Miller finally shaking off the funk he's been in and playing like an absolute beast between the pipes.  In the past three weeks, we've seen him play stellar hockey.  And back-to-back shutouts in two nights?  I think that's a first for him.  And I'm not talking "Ryan Miller shutouts"... I'm talking legit goose eggs. 

There are many Ryan Miller detractors, of which I've been one lately.  But no one can argue with his recent play.  Forty-three saves in Anaheim?  Thirty-nine in San Jose the very next night?  Are you kidding me?  Don't get me wrong, I still have my concerns... he does disappear for long stretches, and he's a whiney little bitch when things don't go his way.  Look at his commets earlier this week about his boyfriend, Paul Gaustad, being traded.  But when he turns in all-star performances like he has been lately, it's hard not to want him on your team.  But, Jesus, some consistency would be nice. 

It boils down to this.  When he plays well, the team wins.  When he doesn't, they lose.  It's as simple as that.  I don't think Enroth gives you that.  So if you don't like that model, you have two options.  Find another goalie who can provide that level of play on a more consistent basis, or go to a lesser-skilled minder and stack the team in front of him and hope you can outgun the other guys on a nightly basis. 

If it sounds like I'm changing tack and saying Ryan Miller is our savior, that's not the case at all.  But he IS winning us games right now.  If he can keep his head straight and do it regularly, then he should rightfully have a place as the starter on this team.  I'm just afraid that he'll keep this up long enough to save his job and that's all. 

"I like our team. I like everybody we have."

This was Jason Pominville's response at the NHL All-Star Game when Sabres rookie Luke Adam asked his captain, "If you could pick one player on this team to be part of the Buffalo Sabres, do you think you could pick one player?"

Pominville's full response: "I don't know if I'd pick a player. I like our team. I like everybody we have. I like the chemistry we have in our locker room, so I would keep it that way."

Really? Was Jason Pominville aware that his team is in 14th place in the Eastern Conference?

The tragic irony here is that Adam obviously phrased the question in a manner implying that it would be difficult for most people to pick only one player from Team Alfredsson, yet Pominville literally didn't think the Buffalo Sabres could use any help from guys like Jason Spezza, Henrik Lundqvist, Claude Giroux, or Steven Stamkos.

Apparently the job of team captain in Buffalo these days is to master politically correct interview responses, not to play a pivotal role in leading a team to victory.

I have three words for ownership: O. Ver. Haul.

2012 NHL All-Star Shame

The results are in for the NHL's mid-season talent show, and one of the best and hardest working players in the league won't be there.

This doesn't bother me as much as you may think, but I do believe that if one is deserving of being selected, then selected he should be. (Most) Players work very hard and want to be recognized for their talents, so when someone like Thomas Vanek gets the cheek turned on him, it just isn't fair.

I thought that the initial voting was the only popularity contest format: the voting for the six captains. But it seems to me that actually the entire joke of a game is a popularity contest as well; as players like Jarome Iginla, John Tavares, Corey Perry, Alex Ovechkin, and Patrick Kane help fill out the roster, while all trailing Thomas Vanek in scoring this season. Just lets you know how much more it is about money and marketing than anything else.

I know that having all-stars isn't going to change the luck of this turd season we've all witnessed thus far, but at least give some credit to the two people on this team that actually deserve it, not just one of them.

Assuming Vanek isn't the reason for Pominville's success in the first place, of course.

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"

Stafford Infection

Last night, I didn't know it at the time, but eventually realized later on that I had made a good decision. I figured it would be a better idea to go out and grab some steaks with the wifey rather than watch what ended up being yet another poor Sabres performance at home. Upon my eventual return, I quickly shuffled to the computer and scurried my fingers across the keyboard in an attempt to locate nhl.com with a lightning pace. I had a strange feeling in my gut -- not from the over-consumption of raw protein -- that maybe this sad example of a hockey team could actually pull out a victory against a team that they, and everyone else has manhandled over the past few seasons. [smirk] To my surprise, I was wrong.

Digging a little bit deeper into the game, my prior sarcasm was immediately verified. The first thing I did was watch the highlights, and that never really gives you a telling understanding of what really happened, so the next step was to go to the replay of the game itself and skip ahead in small chunks.

Honestly, I was easily able to see the problems in complete clarity, and it looked like this: The usual flat-footed start leading to a quick goal against; the prompt effort to even the score and eventually pull ahead, ultimately taking ownership of the game; the ever so common lazy 2nd period; the ever so common lazy 3rd period; the conceding of the tying goal against; the inability to bounce back after that tying goal and at least get that extra point in the overtime or shootout.

I realize that I'm not exactly excavating an ancient treasure and telling you all something you don't know already with that basic overview of the game. But I honestly found it hilarious that I could watch a minute, skip a minute, watch forty seconds, skip two minutes and so on, and actually understand every problem with the Sabres effort (using that last word lightly of course).

We've known about the demons that the Sabres have been dealing with throughout their inadequate play as of late, but what makes it even worse is the whole run-around that both coach and players have been giving us, and seriously, I think the interviews after yesterday's game were the worst yet.

This is about the time that you probably figure I'm going to lay into Lindy or Darcy, but that's not what I'm going for at all. Today, I'm going to steer my direction into the captains of this team.

When one of your captains says: "We're not playing a full 60 [minutes] right now, we're not even playing a full forty minutes right now." That bitch gots to go!

When another one of your captains says (Speaking of his blown coverage in overtime): "That all happened kind of fast." That bitch gots to go too!

You're all at the NHL level, if the game is too fast for you and you're still struggling with how to go about playing an entire hockey game, please just do us all a favor and take a barrel over the Falls already... I don't know, just an idea. Call me sick and twisted, but for some reason I feel that if I spent my money on watching that, it would seem like a better investment than what I've been paying to watch in these most recent days.

I mean, who do you hold accountable anymore? There are so many flaws from the top down that I hardly know where to start nowadays. But no matter what, the players that have a letter on their chest are automatically obligated to step up, take responsibility and learn from their mistakes, ultimately improving themselves and creating team progress by day's end. Stafford and Roy for example, seem to be deviating from that simple philosophy, and in turn are poisoning the morale and chemistry of this team even further. If these two guys continue to stick around for much longer, I don't see any foreseeable improvement happening throughout the remainder of their stay.

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.

You Don't Play Games on Paper

I'd be tempted to think I'm actually a psychic if the Sabres weren't so easy to read. As I suspected, Buffalo was flat-out absent last night against Columbus. The only problem was, no one bothered to tell the Blue Jackets they were supposed to take the night off too.

The Sabres, coming off an impressive showing against the Bruins two nights prior, apparently figured they'd already put in their work for the week. For all you guys out there wondering why Sabres fans seem to be growing increasingly impatient with a team that can undoubtedly skate with anyone in the league, last night's no-show was as good a reason as any.

I had to watch the game on about an hour delay because Christmas trees apparently can't set themselves up yet -- Hello? 2011! Can somebody figure this out already? -- so a live blog was out of the question. But I did jot down some notes as the game went along. In no particular order:

- Kevin Sylvester is not a good play by play man. I consider myself a fairly nice person, so I won't say anything more. I know he's got some impossible shoes to fill, but still.

- Lindy Ruff seriously does not know when to pull a goalie. He demonstrated this in Philly when he waited one goal too long to pull Miller. Enroth was the only reason it wasn't 5-0 after the first period, but once Buffalo went down 3-0 last night in the second, that was the right time for a wake-up call. This would have given the Sabres a sporting chance to win a game that was clearly all Columbus up to that point, but it was all over once Enroth let a little squibber go between his legs to make it 4-0.

But that's basically all you could fault Ruff for last night. Even though I often wish you could pull a coach, he can't skate for his team, and it was clear the Sabres figured they could just show up and that would be sufficient to beat the last place team in the league. Even though I literally can't remember the last time they won in Columbus.

- In yesterday's post I naively let my optimistic side show when I commented that we might actually see some jump out of Buffalo because they have quite a few kids up now for the injured regulars. But then during the game I said to myself, "Apparently there's not enough injuries yet."

You're welcome. I take full responsibility for jinxing Robyn Regehr, who left the game at some point during the second period. Just for the record, though, the Buffalo Sabres are honestly the only team in the NHL that can lose players without anything noticeable happening. I was pretty bourboned up by the third period, but I couldn't see anything happen to Regehr that would've caused him to leave the game.

- Yes, the injuries are starting to pile up for Buffalo, but there's not a team in the league that wouldn't make room overnight to add Vanek, Pominville, Leino, Stafford, Ehrhoff, or Leopold. They're all still healthy (yes, I know I just jinxed someone else tonight). Great teams really only need an effective system, two great forwards, two great defensemen, and a great goalie (or a good goalie who's playing great). Everyone else essentially is filler, and as long as everyone plays with tenacity a Cup is within reach. On paper Buffalo was still a better team last night; Columbus won because they wanted it more. Much more, as it turned out.

- Gerbe was invisible.

- I think T.J. Brennan could be fo' real.

- I've essentially given up hope that Leino will ever hit someone. Thankfully all his points earn him a pass.

- No intensity, no desperation, no finishing checks.

- So, Sabre dudes ... after six hours working in the yard yesterday, could you really do no better than to give me a game that was over in the first period? I mean, yeah yeah .. I obviously expected and predicted your fate, but do I have to be right all the friggin' time? All I wanted to do was lie on the couch with my drinks and watch some good hockey, and it turns out your performance was even more painful than my aching ass body.

What's with people's fascination with trees? They're like cats that continually shit all over your carpet.