EZBills7

A great day for the Blue and Gold. I have to believe that Pat can bring in some strong GM candidates between his resume/reputation and Pegula's willingness to shell out money to try to build a winner. And with Nolan in as interim coach I may need to dust off the ole' "Hardest working team in hockey" plastic hard hat and satanic goathead jersey from the late 90s.

That's where I stayed for Game 5 of the 06 ECFs. Good times beforehand, not so much afterwards.

Yes, the higher seeded team advances which would have been me (that's how I advanced in the first round). Good game!

Barring any stat corrections coming soon, I just lost in the semifinals by one Faceoff win or one shot on goal. Either one would have done the trick. :wallbash:

That's a tough way to lose and a fortuitous way for me to win especially with both my regular goalies on IR last week. I am always afraid to make a 2nd move before Friday unless I am getting killed for that reason. It came down to me getting enough face-off wins on Sunday including from mid-week addition Marcel Goc in order to win that category. I hope this narrow escape from playoff death and the return of Mike Smith will spur the team on to greatness this week.

A tough race to the finish of the regular season but I was glad I was able to punch a ticket after dropping 13 games under .500 after the first three weeks. I thought I might "pull a Sabres" by going on a hot streak after a bad start but still miss out on the last spot by a few points. Should be a fun couple of weeks to decide the champ, and good luck to Touched by Boyes this week.

Agree one billion percent. Spot on.

I'm floored, relieved, excited, and a bit sad all at the same time. I have been a Lindy supporter over the years but moved to "on the fence" last year and to "this is *&^%ing ridiculous, he needs to go NOW" this year. I would not say that Ruff or the roster is bad, but rather that the marriage between him and this organization has been souring to the point of needing a trial separation and eventual divorce as of at least last season. Ruff and the Sabres will both be better off apart (knock on wood with the new coach decision pending). As for the rest of this season, I think the team gets their act together and heads in the right direction sooner rather than later, and we'll probably see more of Grigs and less of a McCormick or Ellis type forward in the lineup. And who would dare to take even one shift off the rest of the season after this firing?

Agree. Here's hoping.

Time to put up or shut up tonight and the following four games. I'm guessing they will play well enough at times to fuel the optimists and poor enough at times to fuel the pessimists, leaving us where we are now as of next weekend. Is it too much to ask to not have several Jets' offensive zone possessions per period extended by a Sabre failing to clear the zone when a clear is available? (I'm afraid the answer is Yes.) That alone would cut down the goals/shots against by a sizeable margin.

Some food for thought. Last Dec/Jan the Sabres were in a horrible stretch where they won just 3 times in 17 games. They picked up a win in a shootout against the Devils which helped to spark a 20-8-6 run to end the season. Right now they are one point out of a playoff spot, albeit with two extra games played, and have 37 games remaining. Realistically they would need to go something like 22-13-2 to likely make the playoffs. Just trying to lend a bit of perspective to the roller coaster of expectations. Before the first game a lot of fans were expecting a playoff appearance and to give a good run at a first round win, after starting 2-0 people were wondering whether a struggling Canes team would be able to steal one win or even one point out of two games vs. Buffalo, before the Boston game many figured they would lose by a ton of goals, etc. No one has the answer as to what will happen, but it's probably somewhere between the extremes.

I can't either, other than this glorius 7-3 game last year against some guy named Dustin Tokarski, who was pulled for Roloson after 4 goals. http://scores.espn.go.com/nhl/recap?gameId=400047744

Vanek and Miller were superheroes among mere mortals tonight. Strong games by several others, but I'm giving Erhoff some props. Lots of playing time against the top guys it seemed, some nice plays in the offensive zone. Way too many quality chances allowed as a team, which will need to get corrected ASAP. Maybe my ever-expanding hate for Boston sports is getting the best of me . . . but is it just me, or are the current Bruins the "douchbagiest" NHL team of at least the past decade, if not longer?

I'll probably get some low-ball offers... but I'm open to dealing Scott Hartnell (drafted 19th overall). Out for a month or so and is currently IR eligible. He'll pay nice dividends for someone once he's back.

I'm glad someone brought up going with a man short after Miller was pulled... I had completely forgotten about that. The faceoff was right in front of where I was sitting, and before the puck drop I wondered where our extra attacker was. Seemed like several seconds after the puck drop before a 6th guy came off the bench. Inexcusable for Hodgson or whichever player messed that one up.

Disappointing result but entertaining game. Got to chat with Brian Duff from MSG before the game, seems like a great guy. He took and tweeted this picture of my friends and I: Also, nothing quite sums up Sabres fans at road games than the girl in the row in front of me with a Sabres jersey on who told nearby Caps fans to "suck her d-ck" at least five times. Oh yeah, and she's a DC area math teacher - hopefully one of her students doesn't bring up the game today in class.

Ditto, probably my only chance to get to a game this year, hoping they can keep the Caps winless one more game.

I agree, the other location's food is somewhat better. Never been to that one before/after a Sabres game though.

Enroth starting in Carolina? Not good for the Hurricanes!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nyAAuU14CQ&playnext=1&list=PL31C1DDDC5354C26F&feature=results_video

Disappointed to miss out on the Raleigh games this year but I'm getting my Sabres fix in D.C. instead on Sunday. If you're going I'd recommend the Lake Boone Trail location of Buffalo Brothers (http://www.buffbrothers.com/) for your pre- and post-game festivities. Tons of Sabres fans there for previous games and close to the arena.

Right, I had the sports pack for a few months and any live games in sports that were part of a PPV subscription package were blacked out on those channels.

It's great having players stick up for Miller when opposing players make contact with him, which it looks like the Sabres will do a lot better job of this year . . . but at some point don't you have to at least consider fighting fire with fire by making contact with the opposing goalie? I'm not talking about "Lucicing" a goalie or trying to cause an injury, but it seems to me that for every one time a Sabre bumps a goalie there are 3 or 4 times that an opposing player bumps Miller/Enroth. It's kind of like throwing at the opposing team's batters in baseball if your team's batters are getting hit with pitches - the other team's desire to not have their batters thrown at will in turn decrease the times that your own team's batters are thrown at.

I was wondering how many points an Eastern Conference team would need in the 48 game format to expect to make the playoffs. In the past several seasons, the 8 seed in the East finished with between 88 and 94 points, which basically translates to 52 to 55 points this season. So, a team would have a good chance of making the playoffs at 55 points with a record of something like 25-18-5. Also, looking at the 1995 shortened season is not a perfect comparison since that was back in the good old days when there were ties and no points for losing in OT. If you basically convert every tie into half an OT win and half an OT loss, however, the numbers are somewhat similar, although the 8 seed was relatively weak that season. NJ - 5th seed at 52 points, 22-18-8 [Modified: 26-18-4, 56 pts] BUF - 7th seed at 51 points, 22-19-7 [Modified: 25.5-19-3.5, 54.5 pts] NYR - 8th seed at 47 points, 22-23-3 [Modified: 23.5-23-1.5, 48.5 pts] The modified standings are not perfect because they do not account for actual losses that occurred in overtime. The Devils won the Cup that season with just 5 points more than the 8 seed and just 1 point more than the Sabres.

Yeah, I've been sitting at home during the lockout while others have been posting in Europe or the minor leagues.

Thanks. I'm blaming the lockout for that mistake.