Alaska John

Phil Housley would like a word. You know, the guy who was a great favorite and a HOF player in Buffalo, who got creamed by the fans, the media, and the current players when he was the head coach. It's always been a mystery to me why he was not better treated, considering what he'd meant to the team previously, or why the players didn't seem to care what he had to say.

Interesting that there's nary a word about this on the nhl.com website. That doesn't mean it's not happening just that the league doesn't know what to say about it. And be called the Missionaries. No telling how well they'll do, or what the Missionary position will be in the standings.

So after losing to Dallas they're 6 points out, riding a two game losing streak. They're not going to match last year's fingernail finish. My guess is they'll end up 8 points behind the final wild card team, a little worse than I guess when I started this thread.

Imagine if they'd beaten the god-awful Anaheim Ducks in both games, instead of losing both games.

There's a really good book (and a not quite so good movie) called The Art of Racing in the Rain, where a race car driver says you can't win the race in the first turn, but you can sure lose it in the first turn. The Sabres consistently manage to lose their race to the playoffs in the first turn, by having a lousy record out of the gate. For this there's no culprit as obvious as the coaching, which doesn't have the team ready to compete when the games start counting. Granato acts like training camp is just a tryout process, and that keeps on going for 10 or 20 games. When the Sabres finally get down to business, the race is over. There was an article in The Athletic in late 2023 about the Sabres going into one of their patented early-season swoons, where it said "It's happening. Again." And that was on the money, except it could have said "It's happened. Again." Really the question is whether the team is willing to watch in happen again this fall.

Last year the Sabres were one point behind the final playoff team. They're currently four points behind the Flyers. Assuming their usual fools-gold late season surge continues, how close do you think they'll be before failing once again? Yeah, I'm a bitter fan, but my guess is they'll slip a little from last year, and finish three points behind the final team.

Any team that can lose twice to Anaheim and give up 5 first period goals to Ottawa is not going to get me interested in watching. And they gave up the first two to New Jersey and scored none in the first period tonight. Just too slow out of the gate, both in games and in the season.

The difference is that Reinhart wants to be there. He didn't want to come to Buffalo and he never consistently put forth full effort.

The Sabres while still mathematically alive are clearly not going to make the playoffs. Facing facts, they should be tanking to get the best draft position possible. And based on the third period against Edmonton, it looks like the Sabres got that memo. It would be better not to bring any Rochester players up so they're not in the locker room while this is going on. Toxicity is contagious.

It isn't stressful to cheer for the Sabres. It's masochism. Tease me, tease me, never please me.

Losing twice to Anaheim will probably turn out to be the difference. Can't do that if you're on the edge of the playoffs.

Tuch is the guy ready to take leadership.

Groundhog Year. We see this year after year. The days get a little longer and the Sabres start playing well. Not well enough and not soon enough, but enough to see some tickets for the next year.

I didn't see the game. Was the officiating in the Florida game particularly egregious or just standardly egregious?

A rule's a rule every day, until someday it isn't. Happy for the Sabres.