One of the most legendary players in Sabres history passed away today. According to The Buffalo News he died of a heart attack while driving this morning.
The Sabres organization and the Buffalo sports scene as a whole lost a great piece of their history today.
I have to say I am very surprised that the NFL reached a lockout. I thought they would reach a deal after all of those extensions of the deadline.
But, they didn’t! I love it. Hopefully we all can go an entire year without looking at Bill Belichick while he thinks of new ways to cheat. We don’t need to hear how awesome Tom Brady, Peyton Manning etc. are at quaterback. Buffalonians also can go a year without watching the Bills stumble through the season. Continue reading
Just as the six-game home stand a few weeks back was supposed to define the Sabres’ season, the recent seven-game road swing was tabbed to do the same. I just love living in the present, don’t you?
Unlike the wasteful string of home games, the Sabres ran up a 4-2-1 record and vaulted into a playoff spot. While I never take too much stock in games in hand, they still have a few on the teams they are battling with in the race. Last night’s loss to Toronto cast a pall over the previous success because it was one of those “four point games”. Had Buffalo won, they would have taken a two point lead over the Rangers (albeit a brief lead), a four point lead over Carolina and effectively eliminated the Buds from any playoff contention. With the loss Buffalo dropped to eighth after New York’s shootout win and the Leafs are still within striking distance. Continue reading
Last night Zdeno Chara, in an attempt to rub out Max Paciortetty, just about killed the Canadiens forward. See below:
Due to the severity of the injury and how viscous the play was, I think that Chara probably deserves a game or two suspension. Bob McKenzie has a similar viewpoint, which I agree with. It does look like he knew what he was doing as they approached the stanchion because his arm does come up a the last moment.
Was this more than likely a bad coincidence? Yes. But based on the severity of the play, you need to continue setting the precedent that head shots and dangerous plays have no place in the game.
I will say this, for the people saying Chara isn’t a dirty player. I have watched him enough to see that he takes as many liberties as he possibly can. Maybe he doesn’t take it to the level that Chris Pronger does, but he still takes his fair share of cheap shots.
When Tom Brady let his flow grow out past The limit of being defined as “flow”, his douche status began to grow larger.
He has always been a douchey tool, his interviews alone confirm that. He has that obnoxious, condescending, nasaly tone that make me want to call Tanya Harding up for a clubbing appointment.
But that hairdo was just brutal. Then he busted out at Carnival with an even worse do and he showed just how bad a dancer he is too.
All of these things continue to pile onto the notion that he is a huge doucher. End of story.
I’m not sure why, but innate always been a fan of Mark Parrish. His career has tailed off quite a bit, but his style of play has made him the type of guy I would like to see wearing blue and gold.
Therefore, when the Sabres brought him in on a PTO this summer I thought it was a brilliant move. He has 11 goals and 35 points in 42 games with Portland. He has scored eight points in his last two games, so there is still some talent there.
He certainly isn’t a long-term answer, but he has to be better than Mark Mancari. I’m fairly certain that Mancari’s photo and career stats serve as the definition for career AHLer on Urban Dictionary.
I am admittedly a few days behind. Jerry Sullivan was going off about a variety of topics in his weekly radio appearance. I have regarded this hour of radio as kind of a joke where the hosts kneel and kiss the feet of the greatest sports columnist ever.
Sullivan made a few points of contention this week. The first was calling out Terry Pegula for saying the media is too hard on the Sabres. he was dead on in his criticism. The media is here to challenge the team and management. If Bucky Gleason thinks the policy on free agents is backwards or if Mike Harrington says the arena is like library, so be it. They are paid to do just that. Same goes for John Vogl asking Ryan Miller how he feels. I said it in this space before, Vogl was dead on with his question, it had to be asked. That is why I don’t have a problem with Sullivan finding fault with what Pegula said in regards to the media.
However, he made a point about the deadline that was off a bit. He seems to think that the Brad Boyes in da Hood trade would still have been made under Golisano. he challenged the thought that the Sabres wouldn’t have taken on that salary before. He used past deadlines as his barometer but he left out a vital point.
The past three deadlines were highlighted by fairly good moves. In 2008 the Sabres traded Brian Campbell because he wanted too much money, they received Steve Bernier in a salary swap. The 2009 deadline saw Mikael Tellqvist and Dominic Moore brought in as Ales Kotalik was shipped out. The 2.5M that Kotalik made was more than enough to cover Tellqvist and Moore. They also extended Tim Connolly which did add about 1.5M to the payroll.
Last year was a similar situation; Dan Paille was traded early on and Clarke MacArthur cleared a significant amount of space for acquiring Torres. Not to mention, each acquisition was not resigned by Buffalo.
This year there was no player sent out to grab a guy who added 4M to the cap this year and next. Please explain to me how the two regimes don’t have a different outlook.
The Sabres dropped a big point last night to Carolina in OT. However, in a losing scenario, last night’s result was the best case.
Looking back at the loss the most glaring issue was the play of Ryan Miller. His performance certainly wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t good either. The second goal rests squarely on his shoulders -he admitted as much in his post game presser – and the overtime goal is just one that needs to be stopped.
I don’t want to discount the fact that the Sabres didn’t get a single bounce. Thomas Vanek had one roll along the goal line and Tyler Ennis was probably inches from sliding one inside the pipe after beating Ward. Not to mention Drew Stafford and Brad Boyes missed golden opportunities. Add to this list the first Canes goal. A wacky bounce and miraculous catch and drop led to a crazy goal mouth scramble. Not something you see very often in a game.
The silver lining is the loser point and the fact that they didn’t lose any ground to eighth place. Carolina vaulted the Rangers and the Blueshirts now sit in eighth with 70 points. The Sabres have three games in hand on New York and gain another this evening.
I don’t see Buffalo escaping Philly with a point tomorrow but it will be key to win on Sunday. If the Sabres take three out of four points this weekend it will have been a very successful run.
Well, the Sabres only made one move on deadline day. In fact, it was their only trade of the season.
They brought in Brad Boyes from St. Louis for a second-round pick. A good trade for the Sabres. They acquired a good-sized winger who has a scoring touch. Boyes also has another year on his contract which will allow the Sabres to use him as a building block for next season, and even beyond. Continue reading
In the words of comic book guy, “Worst. Deadline. Ever.”
It was a very slow day with only 16 trades completed. The final hour gave up the biggest names as GMs across the league put in their final offers on different packages.
The biggest trade of the day saw Dustin Penner sent to LA for Colten Teubert, a first-round pick and a conditional pick. Quite a bit to pay, but likely the right price for the Kings. Continue reading
Two in the Box 