repster

I was trying to figure out if they were playing drunk or hung over. It’s definitely one or the other. They can’t be sober.

It’s trending toward 6,000 season ticket holders again next year.

The Bills injuries on D in this year’s playoffs are starting to resemble the Sabres injuries on D in the 2006 playoffs… It’s so unfortunate.

I said to my Sabres buddies several times last year that he is reminding me of Mario Lemieux. I haven’t said that this year.

I subscribed to the monthly option from Fubo, and the original cost for the first 3 months is $5 a month. At the end of March, it will be at higher cost ($10? cant recall exactly), so in April, I will likely cancel and go pirating at that point, or if it’s critical, I might sign up again using a different email to get the same deal. I would rather save a different email for the first three months next year, and then ask friend or family to use theirs if they don’t mind for the second half. I don’t know if this deal is only for Fubo Niagara Sports in Canada, which is a separate local channel for us here in the Niagara Peninsula, but it was good enough to get me sign up. The record option, getting the pre and post game shows, pausing, fast forwarding and rewinding are also value added. Good picture vs streams and always getting the Sabres broadcast help too. No TNT games and I’m guessing the ESPN+/HULU games would also not be included, but I get most of those games on Sportsnet.

Oh wow, watching the Leafs collapse in Columbus was priceless. Dangle should be awesome tomorrow. I mean, they even had Friedman and Kypreos arguing during the 2nd intermission! 😆 Hopefully CBJ are all happy and satisfied heading into Buffalo tomorrow… early start too. Rest advantage. Can’t take them lightly. We need to come out energized and score first.

Merry Christmas Sabres fans! Tonight, Santa was bearing gifts dressed in white and blue! Dr. Jekyll was in the house as well and he was wearing his best blue and gold! Happy Holidays to all, and to all we want ten! Seriously though, thank-you Leafs, we appreciate you. To our Sabres, that was a nice way to bring the entire family back together.

All the HNIC games are national now. Long gone are the regional breakdowns. Leafs will be national on SN, Sabres national on CBC and SN360, Senators national on City.

Wow, you’re right. I never would have thought that was the case.

I actually saw Sabres on Fubo on a billboard driving around in town yesterday.

With fresh eyes, he reminds me of a shorter version of Jason Pominville with his puck movement and shot heaviness.

Looks like there’s another option that just came available a few days ago. Fubo is going to be showing Sabres games from MSG, ESPN, ABC, and NHL Network in the US. https://ir.fubo.tv/news/news-details/2023/Fubo-Partners-with-Buffalo-Sabres-for-2023-24-Season/default.aspx So that would exclude TNT and ESPN+/Hulu exclusive games. I know games on NHL Network are a problem for some if it’s not in their package, but more so for people who are Leaf fans (NHL Net shows them most Saturdays) in the US like my uncle who can’t access them on TV in his condo building. I’m guessing for most of you, ESPN+ is probably still the way to go? It also puts the Sabres MSG games in the Niagara region for me again, after Bell pulled the TV plug a few years ago. I’m probably going to stick to my usual reliable free site, as opposed to ponying up the $10 a month, but there’s also Premier League soccer which we don’t have the TV access like you do south of the border on USA and other stuff, so that makes it a little more tempting, but not enough. What a bad time to try to sell this though… Edit: I guess this isn’t news to most of you after reading some of the previous messages, but it’s news up here as the local papers have stories on it today for those of us in the Niagara Peninsula.

Matt Savoie with a special teams natural hat trick tonight. Scored PPG, then SHG, then 5-5 goal. Awesome!

Just got back from the game. It started like the Sabres and 15,000 fans were still recovering from their Bills hangover from last night. It ended like the Sabres and fans were in a morgue also known as the Key Bank Center. In between, the best player got injured twice and the second time has probably sealed their fate. After the game, there were no tough questions asked, nor any overly upset players or coaches. The only thing missing from the last 48 hours was a lake effect wall of snow storm.

Game #2 for me tonight in the arena. I hope the Sabres were watching the Bills last night and are angry and motivated to win. I hope after watching they aren’t demoralized and disillusioned so there’s no passion in their play. The way the season has gone so far, flip a coin. Scoring first will be key to keep the fans from grumbling… I will be yelling where appropriately good or bad.

Why are we all so frustrated despite being in the thick of the standings? Look at some of these losses… Rangers 1st game, not even close. Flames 3rd game, you can’t lose at home to a bad team like that. Habs, 5th game, see Flames game. Flyers loss, not even close. This game, not even close. Except for tonight - they were all HOME games… inexcusable. What about a couple of the wins? Flyers game outshot 40-15, UPL stole it. Wild game, Levi stole it. So in about half the games they’ve played, they’ve been terrible. Too many people (in the media up here at least) were putting this team on a pedestal. I think they slightly overachieved last year and are maybe still a year away from being a playoff contender. Many Sabres had career years last year. This year, SO FAR, there doesn’t seem to be that confidence and some players have slipped. Where is the speed and offensive killer instinct from last year? More focus defensively can’t be at the expense of the offense. I’m just not even seeing much speed anywhere, on defense or offense. Puck control and playmaking is poor. The faceoffs and power play is a huge problem right now. The talent of this team is somehow having them at .500, but they’re just not playing better than their opponents most nights. OK, rant off, back into hibernation…

Gutty, gutty win in regulation for the Sabres tonight. They weren’t going to be denied. Huge response to the debacle last night. They’ve actually won 4 of their last 5 games in Toronto. The road warriors are back. Good thing too because including tonight, 7 of the next 9 are on the road. Let’s make it another Buffalo W tomorrow night! Beating the Leafs is just the best.

Make it an even 30. NHL Centre Ice free preview (at least on Bell) also gives us: - Saturday Oct 14 @NYI - Tuesday Oct 17 Tampa

When Savoie is healthy, I wonder if he gets some games in place of VO if he starts the season again with his liabilities outweighing his goal scoring.

Any thoughts on the implications for Owen Power’s next contract?

For my fellow northern neighbours, here’s what going to be available to us this year (at least it’s what’s scheduled at this time as per the official Sabres website). Thursday Oct 14 NYR 7pm SN1 (my onscreen guide says SN1, website says SN360) Monday Oct 23 Montreal 7pm SN1 Friday Oct 27 @ NJ 7pm SN1 Sunday Oct 29 Colorado 1pm SN Friday Nov 3 Philadelphia 7pm SN1 Saturday Nov 4 Toronto 7pm HNIC Friday Nov 10 Minnesota 7pm SN1 Tuesday Nov 14 Boston 7pm SN Friday Nov 24 Pittsburgh 6pm SN Tuesday Dec 5 Detroit 7:30pm SN Thursday Dec 7 @ Boston 7pm SN Saturday Dec 9 Montreal 7pm HNIC Wednesday Dec 13 @ Colorado 10pm SN360 Friday Dec 15 @ Vegas 10pm SN Thursday Dec 21 Toronto 7pm SNO only (regional) Saturday Jan 13 Vancouver 4pm SN Wednesday Feb 21 @ Montreal 7pm SN Friday Feb 23 @ Columbus 7pm SN Tuesday Feb 27 @ Florida 7 pm SN Wednesday Mar 6 @Toronto 7pm SN Saturday Mar 9 Edmonton 12:30pm SN Tuesday Mar 12 Detroit 7pm SN Saturday Mar 16 @ Detroit 12:30pm SN1 Sunday Mar 24 @ Calgary 9pm SN Wednesday Mar 27 Ottawa 7pm SN Friday Mar 29 NJ 7pm SN1 Saturday Mar 30 Toronto 7pm HNIC Sunday Apr 7 @ Detroit 1pm SN1

Nice thing about SN+ is that they almost exclusively use the Sabres feed when it’s not a Canadian team they’re playing against. If you go monthly, and start the day of the first game, it’s $210 for the season minus the last two games. Depending on where the Sabres stand at that point, you might have the option to cancel before the Florida game and save the $40. Of course, all the playoff games would be on one Sportsnet channel or another.

There were several years in the mid 2010’s when the Sabres were available on TV here in the entire Niagara Peninsula (Fort Erie through to Stoney Creek) if you were a Bell satellite TV subscriber. They had a dedicated Sabres TV channel for non-national games that carried the MSG feed. Ted Black was the guy who put this into place. Unfortunately, this was when the Sabres were absolutely horrible. Because of their historically poor performance, there weren’t too many people watching and for that reason Bell and the Sabres mutually agreed to cancel the deal. Of course, this happened when I was able to get Bell Fibe in my neighborhood. If this deal materialized in the mid 2000’s, there would probably be a lot more new Sabres fans in Niagara after watching Briere and Drury. Pre-COVID, I was a mini-pack holder for more than two decades and went to about 10 games a year with either my work buddy, brother or my wife. Actually usually tried to avoid the Leafs games because of the higher priced ticket and also that fact that there were too many annoying Leafs fans in the building. Usually regretted it later as the Sabres owned the Leafs in Buffalo. Usually attended weekend games mostly. Back in the days when the Sabres were on Channel 2 or Channel 29, there was more exposure over here and the Leafs were historically bad, you had a really good fan base that came over to watch the games in the Aud. It’s different now, but there are still many people like me - probably the biggest proportion of fans would be over 50 - like me. Certainly in Niagara the number of Leaf fans would outnumber the Sabres fans, but restricting ticket sales by delaying availability should probably be based on if you are outside of NF, SC, FE, PC, Thorold and Welland. If you want to make an argument about Niagara restrictions, it should only apply to Leafs games or Habs games. (Welland has a ton of Habs fans). I understand people wanting to make a buck on Leafs games for those that need to budget their hockey discretionary income appropriately, and it does add to the competitive atmosphere when there are Leaf fans in there, but not 80%, not 50%, 33% is pushing it - maybe 25% would be acceptable and still make it a fun atmosphere. So maybe this idea has merit, but delay ticket sales for certain areas only, and only when it’s applied to the specific fans of the games against Leafs, Habs, Rangers, Penguins and maybe Bruins and Red Wings. I agree that if Sabres were scary good again (RIP RJ from my hometown) most visiting team issues would be minimized. The one last thing that I believe has resolved is the tons of tickets that used to be gobbled up by brokers and sold to the visiting teams fans when the bigger market franchises came in. Correct me if I’m wrong on that, but that used to contribute to the issue of visiting fans invading the arena as well. Anyway, go Sabres. Hopefully this is the year when they are back as a legit playoff team. Get well soon please Jack Quinn, and keep that confidence high, Devon Levi.

This would be my special message to our visitors at Leaf games when the Sabres score. You gotta love the guitar solo about 3/4 of the way through too.

Pain