#but the game is so unfun that i would think that should’ve cancelled it out

[silent-partner-412]

i’m STILL seeing fire emblem awakening content against my will after almost a year why did this mid ass game have to become like the most popular in the series

give me fates or the elibe games or echoes or ANYTHING else i just don’t want to see awakening content anymore it’s all i ask

[andrewuttaro]

New Look Sabres: GM 31 - EDM - Dumb and Dumber

3-2 OT Win

Dumb and Dumber is an iconic movie. It was one of three enormously popular movies the great Jim Carrey made in 1994. There is this one scene where Lloyd (Carrey) and Harry (Jeff Daniels) are at luck’s end, on the run from the law and literally hundreds of miles off course. They had even lost their ride, the 1984 Ford Econoline van dressed up as a dog. The two titular heroes are split up and Harry is walking down a desolate prairie road when Lloyd rides up behind him on the smallest of motorized scooters. Harry utters the legendary memeable line: “Just when I think you couldn’t possibly get any dumber… you do something like this… AND TOTALLY REDEEM YOURSELF!” Okay, so I don’t recommend that movie if your faint of heart or squeamish but it’s a classic my dad beat every line of into me. I could recite that film to you. The Buffalo Sabres found themselves in exactly the position to make me utter such a line for such a situation. After outright losing to the Calgary Flames on Thursday, the easiest win out of the NHL Clubs in Alberta and British Columbia simply by virtue of the standings, they put up an entertaining but frustrating show in Vancouver that saw Tyler Myers remind us of old days before an OT loss that was ultimately just not good enough. Like Dumb and Dumber stupid crap like Tyler Myers’s two points, or a Milan Lucic goal or an Eichel OT winner essentially getting iced by a separate penalty comes up to make your jaw drop. All the while the lack of a desperately needed roster move is forcing the coach to rotate in and out players and tank the value of Colin Miller who now is apparently on the trade block (WE WANT YOU TO TRADE A D-MAN, BUT NOT THAT ONE)! This game came with the dumb plot element of Casey Mittelstadt getting healthy scratched for Evan Rodrigues. In the Dumb and Dumber analogy I’m trying to figure out who the headless parrot is. Either way the little scooter comes humming down the highway late on a Sunday night when you think the road trip has tanked all hopes for the resurrection of this Sabres Season. Then it happens: “…you do something like this… AND TOTALLY REDEEM YOURSELF!”

The Dumb and Dumber analogy felt so right. The trials of this insane road trip and the team they fully beat is the best of them: the Edmonton Oilers! This Eichel v. McDavid thing has gotten old hasn’t it? Nobody really cares for that narrative in a league bursting at the seems with hot young talent. Nonetheless I’m bringing it up. McDavid was kept quiet on the scoresheet, you know who wasn’t? CAPTAIN JAMES JACK EICHEL OF NORTH CHELMSFORD, MASSACHUSETTS! Ok, so it was a secondary assist on the OT game winner BUT BY GOLLY THE STREAK CONTINUES! WATCH OUT NASHVILLE, WATCH OUT ST.LOUIS, YOUR BANNERS AND TROPHIES WON’T HELP YOU NOW! Yeah, so this game was 90% confused Santas wailing on each other at Santa Con. There was not a notable name on the scoresheet but there was four goals in regulation. The first was Kyle Okposo, somehow on a real roll now, tipping in a shot originating with Marco Scandella four minutes in. With that the GLO line, somehow the most consistent line on this team in this version of Dumb and Dumber, drew first blood. This game was excellently matched as all of the top lines seemed to cancel each other out. That’s shocking for me to see written on this page because I woke up this morning not worried about the Baltimore Ravens or the challenges of my Master’s Project; no I woke up fearing Connor McDavid. The guy is an animal and four years in Edmonton has turned him into a Liam Neeson movie villain all grizzled and hairy with nothing to lose.

Well the dumb part of this game was nothing went the way you expected it… well except the powerplay: that’s dumb, it still sucks ass. Did the Sabres give up juicy chances for the Oilers when they were in fact on the powerplay? Dumb gets dumber and Jimmy Vesey and Rasmus Asplund come flying into the Oilers zone shortly after the home team got a great chance in the other end. Asplund’s shot didn’t go and who finds the rebound? Johan Larsson. How about that? He tucks it in five hole on Mike Smith with a just abhorrent level of disrespect. So as fun as that weird dumb shit was it is followed by just enough expected malaise this team has gotten us used to. They don’t score again in regulation. The Edmonton Oilers come back and dominate the shots battle in the second period. They climb all the way back; they don’t call 2-0 the most dangerous lead in hockey for nothing. The Sabres sure as hell aren’t bucking that trend against a team not from New Jersey. Like we’ve been seeing so much since the end of October really, the Sabres completely devalue possession. They dump the puck in. They slow down the passes because they like to pretend scoring effects don’t come for everyone. They drop the puck in dangerous places and so many offensive zone turnovers turn into scoring opportunities for the other team. That’s exactly what happened when Riley Sheahan got the puck in the neutral zone and took it all the way in past Linus Ullmark to cut the lead in half. What a pretty first goal as an Oiler, eh? Want to get mad? It seems to be all the rage on Sabres twitter right now. Here it is: Zach Bogosian single handedly gave Edmonton all their powerplay chances in the second period. Oh you bet! On the second installment of that shit saga Joakim Nygard tips in a Darnell Nurse shot to even it up. Goodbye lead! Hardly knew you. I should’ve warned you the Sabres aren’t a safe place for leads.

By dumb luck that score line remained through the third period. No goals for the rest of regulation and I had a feeling we’d see poor possession come into play in 3-on-3 OT play. It just felt like we were due for one of the three headed monster on the Oilers to eat us alive. Here comes the redemption: the Sabres possessed the puck for the 1:13 of OT we did get. Bucked trend. Jack Eichel paraded the puck all the way around the offensive zone not taking a shot before laying it off to Marcus Johansson on one side of the Edmonton net who pitched it to Colin Miller on the other side. In the press box no more, out for Jake McCabe’s sake no more, trade asset for a not sexy Alex Galchenyuk no more please! Colin Miller slams it into Mike Smith’s pads, and it trickles in for the Game-Winning Overtime Goal! You lose two games you should have won and then you go AND TOTALLY REDEEM YOURSELVES! SABRES WIN 3-2 IN OVERTIME! And you bet that secondary assist was Jack mother fucking Eichel! You bet! You thought the Bills would be your source of joy today and… well that was a good guess, but No, it was the Sabres who won their game! Surprise assholes!

Okay so the problems are still there. We’re still going to need y’all to win more than about three games a month. We’re going to need you to make a trade, a smart one preferably, involving a defenseman of salary. We’re going to need more than 50% of the points out of a soft(er) road trip. But funny thing: right after Miller scored the OT winner Dan Dunleavy said something curious: “The Sabres get the much needed two points here out of Edmonton!” All points in the standings matter in the unfun language of the hockey world but the Sabres were in a playoff spot before this game. Say what you will about the last three games, what was so especially needed about these two points? Dunleavy will never admit it, but these two points were for us angry, cynical fans. We needed some holiday cheer in all this dumbness. Two points out of Western Canada is ugh. Three out of six? It’s only half but its enough to get us down off the ledge a little. We’re going to need some patience this win saved against St. Louis and Nashville. It will be an interesting week, especially if Jason Botterill makes yet another trade with his hockey daddy Jim Rutherford in Pittsburgh. Like, comment and share this blog because you bet I’ll be writing that up when it happens. Get those sleigh bells ring ging gingalin’ because December has some more surprises, painful and fun, in store for us! I can just feel it after how this road trip went! Let’s Go Buffalo!

Thanks for Reading.

P.S. But yes, I didn’t forget. I said I’d look like a clown if I predicted four points out of this trip, impossible after the Vancouver loss, and then see the Sabres get two points out of Connor McDavid and the Oilers. I am in fact the clown here. What balloon animal do you want?