Pimlach

Well that was a fun night for me and the Mrs. The Atmosphere going - We fought traffic and the rumors of a "snow storm" and got to our seats about 10 minutes prior to the anthem. The Blues were pumping loud, bass dominated, electronic garbage over the PA. My ear drums were vibrating from the bass noise. The lady next to me said they started doing this "once they got bad" to get the crowd pumped up. So my interpretation is the energy of the Stanley Cup win is fading, and along with all the Blues injuries and age, the team has fallen to the middle of the pack. Maybe I will finally see a Sabres win in this town? The fans are loud and proud, mostly polite mid-westerners that love their team. The guy who runs the sound system is always present and has an array of non stop crappola on the score board to keep the fans going. First Period - Sabres attacked early and often, the first line scored twice in the first 1:25. Tage and his mates were looking good. Power got the third goal on a great feed from Tage and we held a nice 3-0 at the end of the period. What I saw away from the puck was interesting. The Blues took every opportunity to push, shove and whack the kids - Peterka, Quinn, and Krebs - during play, after the whistle, away from the play, on their way to the bench, didn't matter. Especially Peterka who looks like he wants to push back but can't summon the grit quite yet. It's coming. First period intermission - I was seated in the 100 level. People watching was interesting. No one dresses nice for hockey as a night out anymore. Talked to a few Blues fans and they had no doubt the Blues would prevail, "Buffalo is and easy team to beat", "11 years no playoffs", and "Thompson is good". Second period - Tage with a nice goal for 4-0. Then the Blues got 2. The Blues started to push back and play hard. The Sabres either stopped playing their game, or the Blues are good enough to stop them, in any case the Blues win the period. That first goal should NOT have happened. Lots of lapses in the d-zone this period, no one (I think Power was there) played the man on the backhand goal. The lapses in the D-zone seem to be in large part two things. (1) Face offs, we need to get control of the puck on at least 50% of them. Even when we win the faceoff we don't retrieve the puck and execute consistent and clean break out plays. This is on the everyone out there, not only the defenders. (2) The forwards are not consistently not very strong on the walls and in the corners, and they do not watch for point men moving into the play enough. This part of the game will hopefully come. A lot of our problems in the d-zone are the forwards. Second Intermission - over 20 random Sabres fans walking about collected in one spot to chat and of course, someone decided we had to take a picture. That was nice. Third period - Blues roar out and score in 47 seconds. The crowd is back in it and it is feeling like they could blow this. But they didn't. They did not go "full alamo" but they let a few odd man rushes and a breakaway happen. UPL made a few huge saves, getting out and challenging Tarsenko . The Sabres held them off for the remaining 19:13 and won. That was very impressive considering their fatigue from the B2B. DG could not shelter the kids as much as usual this game. Cozens played a big role at the end and his EN goal was excellent. The 6 Kids: Quinn was hesitant again at times but he did not make stupid mistakes either. I wish he would get greedy and shoot more. Peterka was more noticeable, had an assist, and seemed to draw the attention and ire from several Blues. Krebs was the most active kid-forward, he tried to hit people on his forecheck but was literally swatted away a few times. Muel was not very noticeable, which usually means he is doing his job. Power does not look like a rookie at all. Nice goal and solid overall, although I think it was him that left the backhand goal happen, uncontested on the shooter. UPL lets in 3 but again made huge saves in crunch time. The refs missed a few calls. The hit that sent Krebs head first into the boards, from Mikkola, was not called. Props to KO for jumping in there. The refs blew that call. It was not consistent with the call on Dahlin for cross checking that drew roughing from several Blues that were not called. Inconsistent. I did not understand the Krebs faceoff interference call. Most of the fans around me thought the Blues were getting the call. Overall great game, the first win that I have seen in this building. The Sabres are trending up. The Blues have a lot of good players out injured, they are trending down because of it. Tage was the story of the game here. Lots of people in the Blues organization express happiness to see him reach this level. No one in their right mind would trade Tage straight up for Kyrou or Thomas today. Those were the guys the Blues rated above him at the time of the ROR trade. They are both very good players, but right now it appears we have the unicorn. edit add: Joker impressed me. Nice skater and he sees the ice very well.

Hello Teammates, back from a victorious evening watching the Sabres get a B2B road win at The Enterprise Center, in St Lou. The game was wonderful and loud. Really loud. I watched things away from the puck more. Too tired to review the experience now, I’ll do it in the morning.

I am rounding up the Mrs. and heading up to the Rink (Enterprise Center). Traffic, parking, crowds, stupid prices for food and beer, and snow coming sometime tonight in a place that gets paralyzed with 2-3 inches. - GO SABRES! Muscle Weight Hoping the Sabres can put another W up on a B2B.

Sure, I am aware of Sauve, Edwards and Barasso We have had mostly great goaltending right up until Miller was traded. In our first SC loss, Bernie Parent was the MVP of the series for Philly and was the standard for best goalie in the league. We played both Crozier and Desjardins in the playoffs. With Crozier hurt/sick most of the regular season goaltending was a trouble spot, leading to the late season acquisition of Desjardins for playoff reinforcement. Hasek was the best in the league during his time in Buffalo, no doubt. Ironically, in Hasek's one SC appearance with Buffalo, the MVP went to his counterpart for Dallas, Ed Belfour. Belfour gave up only 9 goals in 6 games (including 4 OT periods). Hasek was also great in that series, and he the reason we were there to begin with. In both of the SC finals series in the Sabres history, they were stymied by insanely good goaltending.

You play the hot goalie. Always. Numbers aside, UPL has been winning games and making huge saves when needed. Timing has not been kind to Comrie so far, but his chances will come.

Nonsense. No, it isn't. It's identity for over a decade is unfortunately losing. At one time with Hasek, goaltending was the identity. Maybe with Miller too. They also had an era with an identity of hard work and fighting too (Ted Nolan, May, Ray, Barnaby, etc). If anything, their overall identity is scoring, skill, and skating - Perreault, Martin, Robert, Turgeon, Andreychuck, Housley, LaFontaine, Mogilny, Hawerchuck, plus the Briere/Conolly/Vanek "scary good" era with Miller. Skip the Eiche//Reinhart tank era - that was part of the losing era. The kids of today are forging another era of high skill, speed, and scoring. The team's identity now is still forming but it will revolve around speed and skill. Look at the roster, how can the identity be goaltending when they don't have a clear #1 yet?

He has nothing to be pissed about. The team comes first. His opportunities will come, and he has to stay ready.

What do you mean by that? It's a Sylvania! circa 1966. I listened to Bison's hockey games on it. By the time the Sabres came around I had an AM/FM radio with an alarm clock. Amazing stuff, man.

Yes, I was joking about old hockey (and sports) folklore, which came about for a reason. I think it varies from player to player. This is were good team leaders come in, and that is not always the guys wearing a letter.

I just made my first attempt to consciously listen to an Avril Levine song. I made to 1:59.

Budweiser. The Matt Ellis of American Lager Beers.

I have seen a lot of these Sabres at Blues roads games, many on road B2B's, and they don't usually have a happy ending. Tonight will be different. Hoping the boys went straight to bed last night, no chasing cowgirls and no drinking Lone Star.

Yeah, The kids were a bit overwhelmed versus Dallas. Peterka had some offensive zone chances, Quinn was not doing much. I watched Quail bail out of the forecheck and quickly get back on defense a few shifts - so he was trying hard to be responsible. Which was smart actually. Cozens is having an amazing year considering he has to carry these two for 9-10 minutes a night at ES. DG uses Cozens more in the 3rd period. Last night he put him with 17-71 and also with 21-28 to get him more minutes and to take important face-offs. That tells me that 37 and 19 got some shelter time. Krebs is looking better on the PK lately, he is more decisive.

He was slow last night. Not a bum, but just seemed to be late to the play for some reason.

Yes, Dahlin and Cozens came off. Tuch keep the puck by himself and kept the play going. Passed to Tage, to Power. Tuch played most of the last 5 minutes of the 3rd. He was gassed, it was a real 45 seconds.

He played the whole OT.

Power, it couldn’t happen to a more worthy player.

One point so far. Let’s get 2!

PP2 > PP1

No one in front. WTF

17-24-71 DG trying to get Cuzzy more ice

Would love to see Tage get the GWG. He needs to come back around.

Ugh. I expected more from that forward group in our zone.

Gotta keep attacking them. They will be pressing to tie it and we could get some odd man rushes.

VO with a laser