Author: Chris Ostrander

Looking ahead to Buffalo’s goaltending options for 2015-16

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At long last, time is winding down on the Sabres season. The marathon trek to the league basement is all but complete at this point as the Sabres hold a six-point advantage over the Arizona Coyotes for the right to the 20% odds at the NHL Draft Lottery.

While the Sabres aren’t yet guaranteed one of the top two picks in the draft, it’s looking more and more likely that they’ll wind up picking in the top two in June’s draft reports Sports Betting Dime. Even with the final results not yet determined, knowing the talent waiting at the top of the NHL Draft should give Sabres fans solace that the roster turnaround will be nearly completed once Murray announces Buffalo’s pick this summer.

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Fans plunge FNC into bizarro world in Coyotes OT win

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Someone had to win this game. Someone had to come out of the ridiculous atmosphere in First Niagara Center with a pair of points in the standings. Arizona came away with an OT victory and moved one point further away from the Sabres in the league basement.

But the result is hardly the most interesting part of tonight’s game. In fact, Buffalo getting another point in their cushion in the race for McDavid and Eichel isn’t even the most interesting thing to come out of tonight. Buffalo, on home ice, were actively cheered against for the better part of 30 minutes as they tried to battle back against the Coyotes.

Things didn’t get really bizarre until well into the second period. Even after Jordan Szwarz gave Arizona an early lead, most of the building seemed torn on how they should act. But after Oliver Ekman-Larsson and David Moss scored to give the Coyotes the lead, everyone seemed to know what was at stake.

From there, fans gave overwhelming support to Mike Smith and the Coyotes. The fans would boo Arizona penalties and even booed when Brian Gionta scored to tie the game late in the third. When Smith made a desperation stop on Zach Bogosian in the dying minutes, you would have thought it was Dominik Hasek turning aside Trent Klatt. Continue reading →

Game Night Poster for Sabres vs. Coyotes

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In what I hope becomes a regular practice for home Sabres games, I’ve developed a game night poster for tomorrow’s Tank Battle. It’s my hope to have a handful of designers from around Sabres Nation contribute to home dates next season so we have commemorative posters for each home contest.

 

The Instigator Podcast 3.7 – The Sabres Stretch Run

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For the first podcast of the post-3rd Man In era, Tyler and I sit down to chat about exactly how the Sabres got to where they are, the expectations for the final few games of the year and what could be on the way this summer.

Goaltenders, Evander Kane and tanking are on the docket for this episode of the Instigator Podcast.

Follow the link to listen.

2ITB Header Design contest

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About a month ago I chose to run with a new design/theme for the site. The change over led me to abandon the header image I had used previously and adopt the plain blue and white header you see now.

But I feel the time has come to put a new header image up so that I can continue to grow my #brand. Or something. So I’m holding a design contest, of sorts, to pick a new site header. The contest is open to literally anyone and everyone and the winning designer will receive a 2ITB Prize Pack (some hats), so you won’t be doing this pro-bono. Well, sort of pro-bono since there won’t be any money involved, but you still get some cool stuff if you win.

Here are the stipulations for the design contest:

– The header image must be 1000×200 in size.

– The image should incorporate the Sabres, the city of Buffalo and/or the Bills. All three don’t need to be included, but the image should pull on each of these in some way.

– The image needs to incorporate “Two in the Box”, because #brand.

– Be creative. I’m not adverse to overly unique designs and I’m open to new things. So don’t shy away from an idea because you’re worried I’ll hate it. I will add that I’ve grown to like the clean look of the page with the basic blue header, so I’d be partial to a clean, uncluttered design, but I’m truly open to anything.

– Designs should be sent in to 2intheboxbuffalo@gmail.com

Feel free to send along any questions you might have along with tagging your entry on Twitter using #2ITBDesign. I’ll be sharing my favorite designs via Twitter as well.

 

1000 x 220

The curious case of Matt Hackett

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Matt Hackett was very much seen as a serious candidate as the goalie of the future for the Sabres when he was acquired at the 2013 trade deadline. He’s since slid down the depth chart and sits in a precarious position as the 2014-15 season dwindles away.

Entering the year, Hackett needed to get in eight appearances of at least 30 minutes to remain a restricted free agent heading into the offseason. His status is a unique one that isn’t encountered too often, but put both himself and Tim Murray in an odd situation even before the season started.

Hackett’s up-and-down play, late-season knee injury, the emergence of Nathan Lieuwen and the presence of both Jhonas Enroth and Michal Neuvirth made things that much cloudier.

Of course, things have cleared up a bit as Enroth and Neuvirth were both traded and Chad Johnson was injured before appearing in a game, leaving just Hackett and Anders Lindback to man the crease for the remainder of the year. Lindback’s hot play has kept Hackett from seeing the lion’s share of the work and time is running out with only nine games to go in the season. Continue reading →

The best of the Sabres tank narrative

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We’ve reached new levels of stupid when it comes to the Sabres 2014-15 regular season. The Sabres have inched closer to 29th place over the last few weeks despite holding the last spot in the NHL while continuing their largely inept play on the ice.

As we approach the two biggest games of the year as it pertains to the hopes of securing the best chance to draft Connor McDavid or Jack Eichel, those who are both pro- and anti-tank continue to make some very curious points or arguments related to their cause.

Honestly.

I wrote something last night in an attempt to ease some of the tension related to the Sabres run of points over the past week and the inexplicable play of Anders Lindback. I thought I’d add to my thoughts on the tank and all of the ridiculous arguments and opinions related to it today with a slightly more easy-going post that highlights the most ridiculous statements I’ve heard or read as it relates to the Sabres rebuild, the tank and the potential to maybe finish 29th instead of 30th. Continue reading →

Time to relax for the tank stretch run

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Perhaps you’ve heard that the Sabres are in a position to be drafting at the top of one of the richest draft classes since 2003.

Of all the tired Buffalo sports narratives in recent memory, the argument over the tank is making a strong run for the worst of them all. There’s been mudslinging from various members of the media, the fanbase is at odds over whether the team should be trying to win or pushing for the basement – how there are people who are against getting Connor McDavid is beyond me – and every night brings a new round of hand wringing from some contingent of fans.

The Sabres recent run of “good” play has seen them grab four points in their last four games despite being outshot and outplayed badly. This “surge” in the standing has brought them within three points of the Arizona Coyotes and four points of the Edmonton Oilers. It should be noted that the Sabres remain in 30th in the NHL standings heading into this weekend’s back-to-back games.

Perhaps the most stunning aspect of this entire twisted journey called the 2014-15 Buffalo Sabres season is that there are so many people freaking out over things that are out of their control. Of course, all of this is out of all of our control, but for the sake of argument, consider anything related to the Sabres as something the fans and media controls.

The Sabres are bad. Historically bad. In fact, they’re worse in nearly every facet of the game compared to last year’s 30th place, historically bad team. Here’s a chart from Travis Yost from February 4th, the date the Sabres officially became the most outshot team in the analytics era.

Take a long look at that chart, even if you hate analytics. The green and red lines are last year’s Sabres and Leafs teams, both horrendously bad in terms of puck possession. That ugly black line is this year’s Sabres team. That’s how terrible the Sabres are. Continue reading →

Might the Sabres be in line for their own prospect tournament?

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News broke yesterday that Buffalo won’t be returning to the Traverse City Prospects Tournament after three previous appearances.

The news is slightly disappointing as the Traverse City Tournament is a terrific showcase for a team’s prospects and allows management to see their youngsters in more game situations than they’d typically get during camp and free agency. However, the tournament isn’t exactly close and there isn’t any enormous overarching benefit of shipping a busload of prospects up to the upper reaches of Michigan.

Ideally, the Sabres would take the opportunity to remove themselves from the annual event and host a similar tournament in Buffalo, utilizing HarborCenter as ground zero for the games. As John Vogl added today, it would appear that is already in the works.

With Vogl noting that the Sabres already have eyes on using HabrorCenter and First Niagara Center as the hub for such a tournament tells me that this is probably closer to fruition than we may already know. It makes too much sense for the Sabres not to do it. Continue reading →

Sabres should take charge with custom player t-shirts

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The Sabres store can be very hit or miss when it comes to some of the merchandise they offer. Some of it is simply not to my taste while certain items can’t be to anyone’s taste.

As I was discussing the Thirds Not Turds contest with a few people on Twitter last week, friend of the blog @MattyRenn brought up a very intriguing idea which would provide fans with a customization option that would go beyond the typical jersey purchase.

Matt’s idea calls for each team, specifically the Sabres, to provide a service that allows fans to order custom player t-shirts from various points in team history. As a team with a plethora of previous jersey designs, it would allow fans to get a shirt featuring their favorite Sabre along with their favorite Sabres logo and color scheme.

Imagine having the freedom to choose from any player and Sabres logo in team history for your next Sabres Store purchase.

It’s truly a brilliant idea. The team could charge a premium for the service – I imagine upwards of $35 or $40 per shirt – while giving fans the ability to pick and choose who winds up on their shirsey. It would be particularly effective in seasons like this one when barely any players inspire confidence and so many fans are looking to the future or past for good feelings about their favorite team.

This would be easy enough to carry out. The easiest way would be a basic order form where you select the logo from the era you wish to sport and then provide the player name and number you’d prefer. An interactive web forum could pare down the options to either a custom entry or specific players who wore those particular colors. I like the latter idea for continuity reasons and because it keeps the team’s history nicely in line.

If the team really wanted to get creative, some sort of computer workstation in the store could serve as the custom shirsey headquarters where you can see your order on the screen, not unlike the custom jersey generator on the NHL site.

Either way, this is a terrific idea for bringing in revenue from fans who like to hearken back to the black and red goathead jerseys, or the red butter knives thirds. Perhaps someone wants an Afinogenov slug shirt. Who knows? All of those personalities would be served by this idea. It’s foolproof. Dare I say, even the Sabres couldn’t screw it up. Continue reading →