Eric and I try out a new format for The Instigator as we serve up a pregame and intermission podcast as the Sabres take on the Jets.
http://mixlr.com/instigator-podcast/showreel/instigator-podcast-live-sabres-jets-pregame/
http://mixlr.com/instigator-podcast/showreel/instigator-podcast-live-sabres-jets-intermission/
It’s been nearly five years since I decided to start this little boondoggle called Two in the Box. I had spent a month blogging about my time at the Vancouver Olympics and I decided it was a good time and that I’d continue the fun when I got home.
My time as a venomous, small time, basement brigadier has given me the chance to keep writing on a semi-regular basis about a topic that is near and dear to my heart. It’s been fun and it’s even given me the chance to take on some cool opportunities. One of those opportunities is the ability to receive a press pass at Sabres home games. Another is access into the back room of Willy Wonka’s Factory – aka, the Sabres front office.
The Sabres have been running blog summits with slightly more regularity than my writing schedule over the past few years. I’ve personally made it to four or five of the meet ups and they’ve all featured their own level of intrigue for me.
My first Sabres Blog Summit occurred in the media room in press conference fashion with the Sabres PR and marketing teams on hand. Ted Black was the guest of honor and he sat at the front of the room, took our questions and answered them earnestly. Whether it was a question about the chances of starting a regional sports network, the return of the Frozen Four or the makeup of the roster, he addressed everything we asked with quality information. We all reported on the process and it was massively successful.
What I took away from the summits featuring Black was the positive discourse and his willingness to answer each question to the best of his ability. Hell, he all but confirmed that the Sabres were going to retire Dominik Hasek’s number once he was retired at a previous summit. Those encounters with Black as the MC not only gave us a chance to voice our opinions but to get answers and report back on them. It was a terrific practice that was unique in many ways.
Somewhere along the lines all of that changed. Continue reading
Things are going well at One Seymour H Knox III Plaza these days. The Sabres have won 10 of their last 13 games and has done so with a mix of tremendous goaltending and scoring from their top line.
Tyler Ennis was just named the NHL’s first star of the week after picking up five points in three games while his linemates, Zemgus Girgensons and Matt Moulson have helped to combine for 14 goals and 18 assists during this stretch. Their scoring accounts for nearly 50% of the goals that have been scored over this 13-game streak. Further, Jhonas Enroth has been a brick wall, picking up nine of the ten wins and posting a .920 save percentage or better in eight of the contests (once in a losing effort).
So, Buffalo’s surge can be credited to a number of factors. A scalding hot top line and equally impressive goaltending are the two biggest contributing factors, while additional continuity throughout the roster has likely helped to galvanize the lines and defensive pairings compared to the first month of the season. The sparing use of Brian Flynn and one-month absence of Nikita Zadorov clearly had a negative impact on the club compared to the team’s state with them as nightly fixtures.
One other factor that has likely helped to contribute to Buffalo’s recent run of impressive play is that their opponents have almost exclusively played their backup goaltenders in each Buffalo victory. In fact, since November 15, when the streak began, the Sabres have faced six starters compared to seven backups. The Sabres are 3-3 in games against those starters and undefeated against backups. Continue reading
Things went off the rails last year when the Buffalo Sabres unveiled their newest alternate uniform that has since become known as the Turd Jersey (or #TurdJersey). It was the fourth alternate sweater designed by the Sabres and is by far the worst alternate jersey ever to grace an NHL ice surface.
In honor of tonight’s Second Annual Black and Red Night, I thought I’d honor the other third jerseys worn by the Sabres in an unofficial, but definitive, ranking.
Third jerseys can be tricky. Sometimes teams opt for a futuristic look which often results in mixed opinions. The most recent trend in hockey has been to lean towards traditional or “throwback” designs when it comes to these uniforms. The Sabres have run the gamut in terms of their designs and my rankings are based on a number of factors.
An effective third jersey should serve as a true alternate to a team’s current uniforms. Above all else that is always my first point of evaluation on an alternate uniform. That is obviously a broad definition as the Sabres themselves have done a good job differentiating their home and away uniforms from their alternates, but they haven’t always had well executed jerseys. The key, for me, is something that offers a truly different look to the team’s normal set of uniforms while staying in line with the overarching brand standard. Ultimately determining how a certain jersey fits a team’s identity requires a handful of different evaluations, but the final determination still falls under one umbrella.
One feature I’ve grown to appreciate with any third jersey is the use of an alternate logo. Plastering the current crest on a drastically different uniform can often bring terrible results and introducing an alternate logo that aligns with the team’s #brand is not only a way to branch out from the traditional home and away uniforms, but many alternate logos and jerseys have been quickly adopted as home and away uniforms by teams around the league. Look no further than Los Angeles and Minnesota as great examples of this.
The final way I like to look at a jersey is simple looks. Does it pass the mirror test? That doesn’t mean a jersey can only have horizontal lines, neck ties and traditional design points; simply put, if the jersey has an attractive, flowing design, I’m probably going to like it quite a bit.
With all that taken into consideration, here is how I rank the third jerseys worn by the Sabres: Continue reading
Ok. Not really.
The start of the season has gone about how you might expect it to and there is still a long way to go before the suffering is over. Sometimes it’s important to take a step back, take a deep breath and just relax. So I took some time to bring a little levity to the current state of the Sabres. Enjoy:
I took the opportunity to write out a number of thoughts I had regarding the exterior of First Niagara Center and the steps the Sabres could take to alter the exterior of their home.
It was a lengthy post that touched on a handful of topics that centered on the bland exterior of the building, the atrium and the visual and architectural relationship between FNC and HarborCenter. In the wake of that post, another idea came to fruition – via another talk over beers with a friend – and an alternative to the water feature in the Alumni Plaza was born.
The water feature is nothing more than a green space buffer that softens the transition between the Alumni Plaza and the First Niagara Center parking ramp that opens onto Illinois Street. You can see some of that green space in this photo.
I’m of the opinion that the water garden is painfully dated and is bordering on becoming an eye sore simply because that portion of the plaza is so underused and the garden simply exists. What came of my conversation was an idea to better integrate the portion of the Alumni Plaza that sits behind the statue of the French Connection and the bridge between the ramp and arena.
With the assumption that at least one or two more Sabres statues will grace the Alumni Plaza in the near future (see: Hasek, Dominik), why not use that wall of the garage as part of the plaza itself? I’d like to see the wall of the parking ramp that is currently obscured by that garden turned into an interactive mural celebrating Sabres history. Continue reading
Even after Sam Reinhart had been selected the collective eyes of Sabres Nation were on the 2015 Draft and Connor McDavid. Even as Tim Murray approached the podium in Philadelphia he had three first round picks in this year’s draft sitting in his back pocket and a ragtag roster with fairly limited potential.
Fast forward beyond July 1 and the first month of the season and not much has changed. The Sabres are bearing headfirst towards the draft lottery, allowing an astronomically high number of shots per game, barely scoring and showing little capacity for carrying out any sort of hockey system.
While I don’t endorse rooting for losses, I fully understand the course this team has been set on and I can accept the decisions based on the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
I put together a post at the end of June that gave a peek at which teams may or may not compete with the Sabres for 30th place in the NHL and the precious 20% lottery share that comes with a dead last finish. Some of the teams that I expected to nosedive have managed to keep their heads above water while others are surprisingly bad. So I decided to take the opportunity to revisit the teams who could sneak in beneath the Sabres in last place.
The entirely subjective 1-5 (one being the highest) ratings I gave each team were designed to reflect my opinion on where a team would likely finish in the final standings. I made a slight change from “Lottery Threat” to “Lottery Chances” to reflect the influence each team could have on the draft. A team with a one means they have a strong likelihood of picking very high. The opposite, of course, is true of a team with a five. After offseason acquisitions and a month of play, my rankings have undergone a slight change as the NHL landscape has taken shape. Continue reading
The Buffalo Sabres have managed to fall victim to the NHL’s agreement with the CHL yet again as they’re stuck in limbo regarding defenseman Nikita Zadorov.
Zadorov’s predicament is quite unique as Bill Hoppe reported this weekend. If you haven’t read Hoppe’s report, do it now. He did a great job digging up the information on Zadorov lacking the release from the Russian club that owns his rights which is preventing him from being sent back to London. Hoppe’s report is an all-encompassing recap of the various issues at play regarding Zadorov’s fate.
Hoppe’s report illustrates the precarious situation the Sabres are in as the CHL agreement comes into play along with the added confusion from St. Petersburg holding some control over where Zadorov can go. It leaves the Sabres with very few options. 
The situation is even cloudier when you consider that the Dallas Stars were able to find a loophole that allowed them to send Julius Honka to the AHL despite selecting him from Swift Current in the AHL. This report from Defending Big D notes that Honka was loaned to Swift Current from JYP after he had signed a contract with the SM-Liga club. Because Honka was on loan with Swift Current he was considered a European skater as opposed to a North American skater. It appears this is not true for Zadorov.
What I’m unclear on – and what seems to be one of the overarching questions – is Zadorov’s status with SKA and why he wouldn’t qualify for the same loophole as Honka.
Zadorov played for CSKA Moscow prior to heading to London to play in the OHL and it would appear his rights were later traded or otherwise acquired by SKA. Based on my read of the situation I would assume that is why he wouldn’t qualify for the same exemption as Honka. I’m somewhat surprised that the Sabres haven’t tried to take the league to task on this as the situation between Zadorov and the Sabres and Honka and the Stars does share a few very similar traits. Of course, there are some stark differences as well.
Ultimately, the Sabres have been done in by the NHL/CHL agreement again and are struggling to find an out; and that’s truly the root of the issue here. Continue reading
The Sabres are in the left hand column, registering a shootout victory over one of the primary competitors for the top picks in June’s draft.
For those keeping track of each and every game for tanking purposes, the fact that Carolina managed to tie and send the game to overtime was helpful as the Canes still wound up with a point. Meanwhile, the Sabres still managed to trail in a number of major statistical categories despite pulling out the victory.
It’s woefully early in the year to start comparing the Sabres to the rest of the league but their four games are beginning to paint a telling picture. The Sabres have allowed over 70 attempts at goal in each of their four contests, being out-shot 156-83 along the way. While that may not sustain itself through the entire season, the Sabres are clearly struggling to possess the puck with any sort of authority and have paid for it on the scoreboard.
Buffalo’s biggest issues appear to come with their defensive zone breakouts. There is barely any sort of semblance of a system in place with many zone exits and when combined with poor passing, puts the Sabres back on their heels. It could simply be a situation of bringing the forwards a bit deeper into the zone in order to shorten passes and find lanes to complete the breakout. It may also just be execution of the system in place as there have been countless sloppy plays made by every person on the ice.
It’s odd because often there’s only one glaring weak point in a team’s breakout – passing, board play, execution – but the Sabres have been able to hit on every facet. Further, the disjointed breakout that is acting as little more than a punt back to the other team’s defensemen has also led to breakdowns in Buffalo’s forecheck. Their lack of possession has served as a trickle down to unsuccessful dump-ins or mishandled zone entries that ultimately wind up back in the Buffalo end of the ice. All of these factors add up to show why the Sabres are seeing so many more pucks directed towards their net and why the ice feels tilted in the wrong direction. Continue reading
I was asked to come step in as a guest on the 716 Sports Podcast yesterday and had a great time talking about the Bills, Sabres, Pegula and Buffalo with the group. The guys get together on a weekly basis and produce a very strong product, I highly recommend checking them out regularly. Enjoy my Ed Jovanovski reference about halfway through.
