#morgan i will hype you up on the doll blog ALWAYS

[dollofheart]

forever grateful to be in love with a nerdy butch who completely understands my love for dolls and helps me buy limited releases when I’m at work 🥹💗

[andrewuttaro]

New Look Sabres: GM 29 - TOR - 2.7 Seconds

I have been accused of hating the Toronto Maple Leafs more than I love the Buffalo Sabres. Really, I’m leading off with that? YES I AM; because once upon a time I thought this made up hatred with this team that hardly existed in my hockey lexicon (Yes, I only trace my Sabres fandom back to about 2011 so give me a break here) was all hype from a bygone era that never actually happened according to the actual history books. Then my hatred for the Leafs came alive in 2016. If you want that spiel go back to Preseason Game 4. No, today I want to meet that truly pretentious chirp with more relevant, contemporary thoughts. Although all the Leafs other rivals are either kicking their ass in the playoffs or in the dumpster (blink twice if you’re reading, Steve), Buffalo is now here to make life difficult for the lesser blue and white team in this division. All you Leafs fans up in your high tower have benefited from drafting on easy mode for a few years now The Sabres just caught up. Rasmus Dahlin and the New Look Sabres are coming to get you! Hell, we might even meet in the playoffs this year. Oh God have mercy upon this earth! Even I would drive up to your overpriced City for that series! AAAAAAGGGGGHHHH I AM SO READY! I came in person to this game to be at least one voice against the invasion of would-be NHL Hamilton Hockey fans at this game. It had been on my bucket list for five years and finally the day hath come! ITS TIME FOR THE TIM HORTONS RIVALRY MATCHUP!

Oh, I almost forgot: I turned on the roast but forgot to crack open the Burn Book! That’s right, forget reasonable word counts, it’s time for: Why do we hate this Atlantic Division team!? With no further ado: let’s crack open that burn book. Toronto: You pioneered cheating with the salary cap and everyone still lets you. Sure you basically pay for this junk league to exist but you’re not the center of the hockey universe no matter how many plush Auston Matthews dolls you sell! Toronto Fans seem to think we eat their trash here in Buffalo but your greatest player in decades is Made in America, baby! It’s easy to overshadow a city that is smaller in every metric but that just makes you assholes. We relish beating you and reminding you all how bad the traffic is on the bridge afterward. Original Six Stanley Cups don’t count and if you really think this is your year than maybe give Morgan Reilly some help back there. Speaking of the big dance: the only playoff battle between these two Tim Horton’s loving cities ended with the Sabres going to the Stanley Cup Final! It is almost with pity us here in Buffalo smile on this new Leafs squad: Buffalo may have no Cups yet but Toronto suffering is long having not seen a Cup Final since Gilbert Perrault was playing after-school shinny in Quebec you snooty assholes! I suppose I better stop there. I think we can agree the shit-talking has gone too far when French Canada is brought up. That said who in the US hates the Leafs more than Sabres fans? Boston? Sit down you drunkards; you can’t hate a team you beat every friggin year. Well anyway, onto the matchup.

In spite of having a positively brutal stretch of games recently (most of which the won fyi) the Sabres came out in this game with a vendetta. No penalties were called in the first while the boys in the darker blue peppered Fredrick Anderson with shots in the first. As the period dragged on there were some Leafs chances as well but Anderson really got peppered and according to the Leafs fan next to me when he’s warm he’s at his best. Linus Ullmark faced only the token efforts of what is supposedly the best offense in the Eastern Conference. There must have been a grand total of five maybe six Leafs shots that first period. It ended up really just being a great conversational period. That Leafs fan sitting next to me was actually a really nice man. He had enough kids that looked like him that they may have been the stunt doubles for the Weasley family in Harry Potter but hardly a chirp out of this dude. Apparently Kitchener, Ontario has some pretty wicked hockey.

The second period is when the temperature began to rise. 8:33 in Auston Matthews gets a charitable pass behind the net and bounces it in past Ullmark off the back of his leg. The thunderous applause of the Leafs invasion was surprised because if you watch that play it didn’t seem likely it was going in. You really can’t blame Linus on that one. It was long before I got to jump around: six minutes later that beautiful top line with Jack and Sam were on the ice and Samson Reinhart roofed it on an arch shot that probably doesn’t go in if the Leafs defenders weren’t screening Anderson. The biggest criticism of this Toronto team is always a bad D-Corps. I say the D-Corps is supposedly bad but the guy named Par Lindholm who screened Anderson is a forward evidently. He better be a decent golfer at least with a name like that. One of the other guys on the ice for that goal, Jake Gardiner, got the Leafs back on top 2-1 with a shade over ten seconds left in the second period. That goal stung a little going into the 2nd intermission but if there is any place the third period Sabres show up, it’s in third periods against the Leafs. Twitter predicted it and it came true the third period was fun.

Before that though can we talk about the officiating in this game? I am not going to go into how many times Eichel was slashed or Casey Mittelstadt being dragged down because that’s the low hanging fruit. At one point in the second period the Leafs net was off its moorings. I am no ref but I really thought it was officiating 101 that you blow the play dead when that happens. One use for the refs that was never needed weirdly enough was for a fight. Rasmus Ristolainen was tearing it up and getting shots like a frat brother in this game but he never fought which is surprising for him against the Leafs. I’ll take it. I’d rather have the Risto that shoots for the net than the Risto that shoots at Leafs faces although both are fun. 2:39 into the third frame and our sweet ginger boy Jack Eichel evened it up after a quick feed from Ristolainen. You won’t see his name on the score sheet but let me tell you Rasmus Dahlin was ludicrous in this game. He must have been responsible for half of the times the Leafs turned over the puck, especially in the second and third periods. He very nearly got a goal here in the third too. But no, it was Captain Jack again at 12:57 to put Buffalo on top. These games against the Leafs never feel totally like a home game with all Leafs fans that come into town but that goal sounded like it was just us and it was beautiful. The Sabres took the game back now, it was a rare Leafs setup in the Sabres zone that yielded the puck bouncing charitably off the boards to Patrick Marleau who evened it up. That guy is 38 now from what Leafs fans told me. If that’s true god bless the guy for still be this decent at hockey. This one went to OT where the Sabres dominated possession and once again outshot the Leafs. It was their last ditch effort with the shootout practically a formality when somehow, Auston Matthews got a pass from Kapanen and ended it. For those of us who were there it was probably the second most painful way this game could have ended right behind a regulation blowout: there were literally 2.7 seconds left in overtime. I have photographic proof of that. This game ended 4-3 Leafs and the Sabres really nearly got two points in this game but they’ll walk out with only one.

You don’t want the loser point in rivalry games like this, you want both winner points. Maybe I’m not as grumpy as I could be because all the Leafs fans around me were sober and personable. You tell me your experience of the rougher variety and I’ll be hard pressed to not see where you’re coming from. The Sabres played the better game. Nathan Beaulieu, remember the guy who fought Leafs Matt Martin and talked afterward about how much he hated the Leafs? Yea, he may be one of the most improved Sabres players this season, particularly in this game. Captain Jack played with the hate he professes for the Leafs and very nearly won the game with a hat trick a few times. He certainly played better than the other two-goal scorer in this game: his good American friend Auston Matthews but I won’t be throwing stones at a guy who’s scoring at a tad over a goal a game. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if he’s not wearing a Leafs jersey, Auston Matthews is probably my favorite non-Sabre in this league. I already talked about Rasmus Dahlin but it’s worth noting he passed Drew Doughty’s 2008 record for most time on ice for an 18 year old defenseman with 29:15 in this game. He’s still 18 and he is already dominating opponents. I really look forward to Rasmus Dahlin torturing Leafs for years to come.

Gee, this one is getting long in the teeth. The Sabres had a brutal stretch going into this game. They won most of those games and got so far ahead that if you’re going to go on a four game losing streak this is possibly the best way to do it… yea I just can’t say that with a straight face after losing with 2.7 seconds left in OT. Holy shit, I hate the Leafs. Anyway, if the team with these stats was not named the Leafs and we played this game against them this is probably the closest thing you can get to one of those non-existent moral victories considering injuries, schedule and… just how well you controlled play through this game. Linus Ullmark looked like a starter in this game and you will not change my mind! This matchup still has three games this season and maybe a playoff series. Tell me that series wouldn’t be absolutely bonkers. A series loss would sting an awful lot but if the Sabres could win in 7 and prevent this Leafs team from a series win for their third straight year… I wouldn’t know how to put that kind of pleasure into words. Like, comment and share this blog around, even if you’re Leafs fan. I get the feeling this rivalry is going to finally be the war we’ve been waiting for and if 2.7 seconds is the only thing that’s going to separate the two teams that oh holy hockey gods is it going to be fun.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. Credit to Steve Dangle for the “Tim Horton’s Rivalry” moniker. He’ll probably tell you he wasn’t the originator of that title but I heard from him first so there you go.