#he runs with vladdy daddy as we call him

[jomadis]

Next up for our party is Mia's character, Aoric!! Aoric is a Runeborn, which means he's a very special boy lmao-- 8 limbs counting the wings! This charming individual was raised by Vladimir after he appeared on Runeterra, so he's used to the high life. Poor Aoric has befriended Fargrim and travelled across the continent with him, living in squalor compared to his comfortable life in Noxxus.

[andrewuttaro]

New Look Sabres: GM 7 - ANA - Pandemonium at the Pond

The Anaheim Ducks have actually had a pretty good start after being ass bad most of last year like the Sabres. Counterpoint: Fuck the Ducks! Like most Western Conference teams who really has strong feelings about Anaheim? Unless you have some personal vendetta or a weird anger for the Stanley Cup Final that never happened in 2007 you probably don’t feel anything strongly about this tacky California Club. Last night we were all given a reason to hate these mother fuckers! We’re all just happy to get some weird kinky tweets out of our draft bin for #SabresAfterDark and y’all dirty old shits decide to brain dudes on the boards! What the fuck!? Are we having some kind of whose-actually-for-real pissing match here? You guys decided to jump right into my Top Ten shit list with this second period. I had to work at 8am this morning! Do you think I’m staying up for the third period anyway? Of course not! But with the hate flowing threw my veins like a blue and gold hulk I actually wanted to! With how this game went I looked up the other game against the Ducks later this season: it’s the Sunday afternoon of February 9th. Even if this team is circling the drain per usual by that point I want a fucking revenge game akin to the Andrew Peters versus the Ottawa Senators! I hope we send them home with their little stubby Duck tails between their legs! You SoCal goons sell your shit real good: you watch a game like that and the stupid, monkey part of the brain tells you to goon up as an organization. That Old Time Hockey don’t work no more and Teemu Selanne is the only reason you won a Cup! Eat shit! Luckily Linus Ullmark putting a couple haymakers on Nick Richie’s smarmy face allowed me to turn this one off and go to sleep at a near-decent time. *deep breaths* Okay, you’re probably reading this sober during daylight hours so how about we talk about this game: Pandemonium at the Pond Part One.

I don’t know where to begin with this game. Buffalo had a great first period almost to the very end. Jack Eichel opened the scoring with an absolute magic touch. Our hunky Captain (#SabresAfterDark) got the puck in the neutral zone and went in unassisted. He took three, maybe four strides in a hook route right up and around John Gibson. He tapped it in around Gibson after he split and fell on his face. 1-0 Sabres and let me be very clear, the Ducks had no response for the majority of the first period. Buffalo could have scored two or three more goals than they did before Anaheim even got a shot off in either of the powerplay opportunities this period. We dominated every statistical category for fifteen to eighteen minutes. This team I hardly recognize called the Buffalo Sabres was knocking forwards off their lines on penalty kills. John Vogl said he didn’t know if he saw that kind of drive all last season! This team is now able to pass the puck. I believe the term I’m trying to get at here is puck support. This team can now get possession, transfer that possession between zones and through several passes, and then setup a firing squad in the offensive zone. This first period was a textbook example of this and it’s paying dividends. This new puck support offense is then near fatal on the powerplay. The powerplay was running at 42% going into this game. That’s record levels for the league, and it is bound to regress, but I don’t see why the Sabres can’t stay a top five PP with the units they have running it and our very own Mr. Powerplay Victor Olofsson! Olofsson continued to extend his lead on the record for first goals of one’s career scored on the powerplay with eight after Adam Henrique went to the box for holding Jack Eichel. The mess in front of the Anaheim net went on for what felt like a little while before the puck squirt out (#SabresAfterDark) and Olofsson one timed it to put his team up 2-0. The Randy Carlyle Era is over in Anaheim and though John Gibson will still be left out to dry many games by his defense, Dallas Eakins is not a Coach to let his team lay down and die. Adam Henrique redirects a shot that originated with Josh Manson and Linus Ullmark had no chance of stopping it. 2-1 at the first intermission.

Anaheim’s first goal was a redirect so there’s only so much you can do. Rasmus Dahlin was the defender on Henrique and he didn’t do all he could to force him out. This was one of Dahlin’s worst games as a Sabre. There were several instances this game him and a couple other D-men looked static. Sidebar: Dahlin can screw up all he wants, and you don’t bench him. Did you read that clearly Ralph? I love what you’re doing so far but you can’t bench number 26. That is not an acceptable decision. Good talk. Krueger was open in postgame about where this game really took a turn. Rickard Rakell fired home an equalizer and for the first time this season the Sabres challenged the goal for offsides. It was clearly offsides, pretty obviously even without the replay.  Another sidebar: even when we win it, I could do without offsides challenges stalling out games. Krueger said it: that review broke the momentum Buffalo had even after conceding that first Ducks goal. Hopefully as this club grows it can move beyond relying on momentum to making their own luck but hey, let’s savor what we got going here while we still got it. Moments, and I mean MOMENTS after his goal was called back Rakell, he did a Jack Eichel impression and out maneuvered Ullmark to actually equalize it this time. From here on out the game turned into a real 1970s-style shit show (#SabresAfterDark). It’s time to punch faces, boys and girls! This must be what I hear about when people say the Ducks are hard to play against. It’s not 2007 anymore so it’s not because they’re good at ice hockey! Evidently they’re good at bareknuckle boxing!

I counted at least three fights involving more than two combatants. I damn near threw something at my TV when Carter Rowney came in on Victor Olofsson corralling a puck in the corner and absolutely brained him into the boards. That caused an immediate response from Sam Reinhart and the Sabres; the kind of response a shit team like the Ducks baits you into. A response that is disappearing from the game and should be outright banned. At least two pairs of gloves hit the ice and prairie-ass white dudes galore went at it for the Canadian Dream: stopping being polite for a minute to get into a physical altercation. After that fight there were four major penalties passed out and the two clubs played 4-on-4 for a bit before Rakell shows up again to brain Rasmus Dahlin into the boards at center ice. Dirty as fuck (#SabresAfterDark). Guess who got called for a penalty: Dahlin for putting his HAND ON THE PUCK! Whether or not he did that is beside the point: he’s laying on the ice squirming around because he just got BOARDED! What in the name of Hockey Butts is that!? I am only going to say this once because complaining about the zebras is super-played out and it makes you sound like a sore loser: the refereeing is bad in this league, really bad. Swallow that whistle or blow it (#SabresAfterDark). You know it’s #SabresAfterDark because I felt like I was getting personally fucked by these refs like they had to preserve the Ducks brand or something. Piss off! Ryan Getzlaf capitalized on the Ducks’ stupid powerplay because of course he did, but before they even went up 3-2 Marcus Johansson got hauled down in the defensive zone. No call. At one point the MSG broadcast is about to go commercial, like the outro is rolling and the camera catches Vladimir Sobotka bleeding and Marco Scandella getting hauled off of resident Ducks douche bag Nick Richie only to see Linus Ullmark come out of the net and start pounding him. They came back from commercial and everyone is standing around as penalties assessed. Universal good guy and all-around awesome, gentle daddy Linus Ullmark is fighting!? The Sabres had a brief powerplay though Jimmy Vesey served a penalty to Ullmark and the whole affair was glazed over by officiating. Why did Vladdy bleed? I don’t know and frankly I was so pissed by this point in the second period that when Adam Henrique scored again in the dying seconds of the middle frame to put the home team up 4-2 I just threw my hands up and said bedtime.

Evidently that was a good choice; not just for the sake of my shift this morning but for the sake of resetting on this Sabres team. There was an empty net goal and Anaheim won this one 5-2. The Sabres were going to get that regulation loss sooner or later and apart from being absolutely jobbed by the refs and a Ducks team leaning on MMA when the going gets tough, they looked strong in this game. All told they outshot Anaheim and broke down only after being forced to breakdown. They’ll be okay. My next benchmark for this team is not only can they maintain motivated, puck supporting, “together” hockey, but can they bounce back? Not just tonight up the road against the Kings, can they bounce back within games like they did against Montreal and Florida with some consistency? That’s part of what makes good teams good teams. Are they good now? I think its still too early to tell because consist compete is what makes you good and that’s still spotty. Fuck the Ducks. Casey Mittelstadt had a good game and nobody will remember it because of Ryan Getzlaf. Evan Rodrigues on the other hand has been rough in his return for the injured Conor Sheary. Unfortunately he may have blown his chance. Curtis Lazar got called up and don’t be surprise if and when the Hamburgler’s Knight gets the start over ERod. Since I’m writing this postgame the next day that earns you New Look Sabres reply guy tweet of the game. I made a #SabresAfterDark joke involving Jack Eichel’s domination and @theboonarmies (B Chalk-outline) replied with “Eichel brought his Dom boots to Anaheim.” I know that’s not really analysis, but I thought why not stick with the theme after this Pandemonium at the Pond?

Like this blog, share it with a friend and comment because even though I’ll certainly be writing another day-after postgame after tonight’s LA game your reply could be the next New Look Sabres reply guy tweet of the game. I’m reasonably confident the Sabres can powerbomb the Kings from lower earth orbit tonight like a crappy COD Black Ops sequel. I know that sounds like vain pride given this team’s history but if Vancouver can hang 8-2 on this shell of a franchise then why can’t the other 1970 expansion team? Their celebrating the 20th anniversary of Staples Center tonight. If they’re going to parade around their banners from a half decade ago I’d love to crash that party. I really do want to see a Home opener style rout and I don’t see why not. In spite of how it ended with Anaheim you got to believe they have it in them to beat this Kings team. Until tonight for another #SabresAfterDark, Let’s Go Buffalo!

Thanks for Reading.

P.S. Taylor Hall is never going to be a Sabre but just the fact that in a Post-Skinner world Sabres fans can realistically dream that dream is pretty amazing.

[cksmart-world]

SMART BOMB

The completely unnecessary news analysis

by Christopher Smart

March 22, 2022

NOTHING UP HIS SLEEVE — OR ABOVE HIS COLLAR

Have you heard the news: Utah's great American freedom fighter and sleuth who couldn't find prostitutes at the Sundance Film Festival  — Attorney General Sean Reyes — is “considering” running against Sen. Mitt Romney in 2024. Reyes political skills are, shall we say, remarkable, given that his Midas touch often turns events into something that isn't exactly gold — more of a brownish hue. Shortly after the presidential election, Utah's AG scurried to Nevada to help Donald Trump's team investigate election “irregularities,” after every major U.S. news outlet had called the race for Biden. Nevada AG Aaron Ford politely told Reyes to “mind his own [f---ing] business.” In December 2020, Reyes joined a group of 16 other Republican state AGs in a lawsuit to overturn the results of the presidential election. Critics labeled it “dumb” and The Supreme Court rejected it out of hand. The hits just keep coming: In 2016, Reyes and the boys went undercover at Sundance in search of prostitutes. The Deseret News reported this: “They didn't find anything, but say they learned they might not be looking in the right places." Your tax dollars at work! You could be right, Wilson, maybe the Hawaiian shirts gave them away in that sea of black attire.

“I'D RATHER BE A RUSSIAN THAN A DEMOCRAT”

MAGA Russian lovers are having second thoughts — or are suddenly quiet — about their plutonic relationship with Vladdy “My Daddy” Putin. At CPAC this year, Lauren Witzke, said: “Russia is a Christian nationalist nation... I identify more with Putin’s Christian values than I do with Joe Biden.” In August 2018, two men appeared in The Cleveland Plain Dealer wearing T shirts that proclaimed, “I'd Rather Be A Russian Than A Democrat.” After it went viral they said they were “just foolin' around.” Maybe, but evangelist Franklin Graham lauded the Russian dictator for “protecting children from any homosexual agenda or propaganda [like we have here in the U.S.].” When Putin unleashed Russia's military might on Allepo, Syria, a World Heritage Site, reducing it to rubble, rightwing Christians applauded him for protecting Christianity. (We couldn't possibly make this up.) Tens of thousands of civilians were killed. Christian values, indeed. It's no secret that Donald Trump is a Putin toady and that evangelicals believe Trump to be heaven sent to save America from gays, heathens and Democrats. So what if Putin has to kill tens of thousands of innocents to save European Christendom. And please don't ask, what would Jesus do? That wouldn't be fair.

PROTECTING POLICE — CITIZENS, NOT SO MUCH

Utah's law and order lawmakers recently passed legislation that would deny public  access to some police records and that, no doubt, would impede accountability. Meanwhile, Republican legislators refuse to budge on the standard for use of deadly force: When an officer feels threatened or believes others are threatened he may use deadly force. This despite pleas from Salt Lake County D.A. Sim Gill that the law be overhauled. “We are at a point where a legitimately dangerous profession has protections in a disproportionate way to the expectations of our communities.” But hey, here in Utah, cops are trained to shoot first and ask questions later. Case in point: Dillon Taylor, 20, was shot dead outside a convenience store when a cop thought Taylor was about to shoot him. Taylor was not armed but according to Utah law the D.A. had no choice but to find the shooting justified. The civil suit brought by Taylor's family was tossed out of court. The list of tragedies goes on and on. D.A. Gill said the public needs accountability. The trend, however, is in the opposite direction. Republican state Rep. Paul Ray said if people want different outcomes they should lose the attitude. “We're making excuses for people, and I'm done making excuses for people.”

Post script — That's a wrap for another week here at Smart Bomb, where we're done making excuses for the Republican-dominated Utah Legislature and their pledge to take us back to the 1950s. Well, you do make a good point, Wilson, the 1950s are starting to look pretty good (except for civil rights). But remember, Chuck Berry didn't come around until 1955  — one of the first practitioners of rock 'n roll. He released “Maybellene” in 1955, “Roll Over Beethoven in '56, “Rock Roll Music” in '57 and “Johnny B. Goode in '58. And get this: “Johnny B. Goode” was launched into space in 1977 on NASA's Voyager 1 probe along with Mozart and Louis Armstrong — to give extraterrestrials a hint of who we are. You can image how Little Green Men might react when they hear: “Go go/Go Johnny go!/Go, go/Johnny B. Goode!” Of course, we can't ignore Elvis, who rode to fame in 1954 with his cover of Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup's rhythm & blues ballad, “That's All Right.” He backed that up with “Hound Dog” in 1956, Big Mama Thornton's 1952 blues hit. The blues is the foundation for rhythm & blues, which, in turn, led to rock 'n roll and changed the world. Outer space? Maybe, if the Green Men dig “Rock Roll Music with a backbeat you can't lose it.”

Well Wilson, you might be driving a garbage truck today if it weren't for Chuck Berry, Elvis, Buddy Holly and the others. We've come along way and the music has been amazing and a magic balm for our troubled world. So why don't you and the guys in the band give our marvelous Attorney General Sean Reyes some balm for his troubles:

Moonlight over the alley Baby, where I come from There's a poison girl, poison girl

Sister do medicine business Three dollar down for the gun She's a poison girl, poison girl I be waiting uptown While she gone underground for a ride I be waiting uptown While she passes some trick on the side Well, I'm sitting here burning my money It worth nothing if only to score With that poison girl, poison girl There's a place and I know Anybody can go for their price There's a place and I know You be putting your soul up on ice Well, well, mama said, "Son, what is your hurry?" Mama did not even know what I have done For that poison girl, poison girl

(Poison Girl — Chris Whitley)