Randall Flagg

I think Larsson's gruesome injury is finally fully in the rearview mirror. His stickhandling this year was inconceivable last year.

The trade in which we shipped out one piece for three that combine for, like, a quarter of that one piece's production this year and include our two worst forwards over the course of 25 games? That's the best fleecing in Buffalo Sabres history, and not a different trade in the very same offseason that brought the NHL's leading goal scorer into Buffalo without giving up more than a 2nd round pick and our eighth best prospect? I mean, I'm over the ROR trade, but I'm still going to post when I see something like that said about it.

Nobody will beat Risto between now and New Year's. Jack's cup winner will take the cake as goal of the season, but that will of course happen in 2019.

I didn't get any work done tonight because I realized that this is the stuff that I watched 164 consecutive games of tank with the hope of seeing again. We're living the moments that make hockey one of our favorite things on earth. I'm trying to bask and soak it all in as much as I can. Rick being here still does indeed make it that much better. And the right hockey memory/video at the right moment can bring tears to my eyes in the dead of summer, after mowing the lawn and changing oil in the car and before doing other summer things like BBQ that have no ties with hockey whatsoever. That's why I found this place and post here haha

IMO this is more impressive than the Crosby goals of similar style.

Duchene's goal tonight was ridiculous. And Brady Tkachuk has 16 points and 9 goals in his first 14 NHL games...More goals than he had in 40 games at BU last year. What even are the Senators

Right? This is all happening despite that. If you had told the board before the season that through game 25, they'd combine for 8 goals, only 5 of which came in regulation against goalies, we'd assume another season was lost.

I thought I was ready to end the season and face the Leafs in the 1st round two weeks ago. But actually let's end it here, because we're now slated to knock out Carolina before taking on Toronto.

He was FAST a few times tonight. Adding to the notebook that I've filled trying to calculate if Reinhart is a good, bad, or average skater. The most unsustainable thing about the Sabres right now is how few goals Jack and Sam, two of our best three forwards, are scoring.

Rantanen has 40 points in 24 games, a 137 point pace. The 2015 NHL draft was decent enough eh

I would pay somebody money to collect all of those amazing bench shot moments, and things like Dahlin's hands on his heads, so that we never lose and forget what this has been like. Sam jumping up and down was great too.

10 points separate Buffalo and the team knocking on the playoffs' door.

My b, was overcome in the moment. I'll go edit.

I never hoped for this much fun this season. It's truly magical. These are memories I'm going to daydream about for years, like I still do for 2005-2006, the way this hockey has melded beautifully with getting to come home after the longest stretch away in my life, and then again soon for Christmas.

I hope somebody can find and post that.

I'm not really sure - I just watched a bunch of years of bad Sabres hockey where it never happened.

Hutton very quietly saved their bacon again in this one. It's so amazing when you're getting above average NHL goaltending. IMO he's the team MVP, just ahead of Skinner, and Jack following right behind.

I just wish they cared as much about that as they do if Jack flinches when they fake the puck drop as if the players are 5 years old or four legged animals

Agreed, but ticky tack stuff late in the game that throws a wrench in the flow of it looks really bad when three blatant trips go unnoticed earlier on. Those could have ended the game at 4-1 too. But the NHL wants the invisible hand making their product great, which is dumb because the players are good enough to do it on their own.

Dahlin was an elite NHL defenseman tonight. Just wow.

IMO the Sabres played great with a lead tonight. Not their fault "close game narratives" matter more than what the teams do in battle against each other.

I think the puck grazed Dahlin after Jones shoveled it, so he should get an assist.

That whole sequence was beautiful chaos. So reminiscent of those magical teams a decade+ ago