#thank god the draft went pretty well for them because this offseason has been fucking rough

[dressedlikeadaydream13]

The way I would kill to see killatrav’s group chat with his circle about the fucking speech Butker made. Like mr. “kneeled during the national anthem” and “became the face of vax commercials” would’ve been pissed and annoyed anyway but bringing Taylor into it? using her lyrics to say that being a “homemaker” should be every woman’s top priority and only referring to her as “my teammate’s girlfriend?”

Andy Reid is somewhere fucking exhausted

[andrewuttaro]

New Look Sabres: GM 51 - CHI - Cruel Comedy

What the fuck! I hope you saw the explicit tag before you clicked on this one because this is not going to be safe for all readers. My Sabres fandom starts somewhere around 2011 so I am intimately acquainted with shitty hockey. There is a time and place for shitty hockey. When you’re tanking for example: that is the time for shitty hockey. If you’re in subtle protest of Dan Blysma: that’s the time for shitty hockey. If you’re on a mad winning streak and tearing up the league I guess you’re kind of entitled to lay an egg of shitty hockey in one game. None of those scenarios I just described are currently occurring with this team unless there is a locker room plot I missed against Phil Housley. Hell, there is an open rebellion amongst fans against Phil and at this point is that not justified? The point is this shit is completely uncalled for! Did Drake Caggiula insult everyone’s wives and girlfriends? The only answers the Sabres had at the end of the 1st period and for most of the 2nd period was fight. Not the symbolic sense of the word where their play improves as they try to fight back into the game; no the old time hockey garbage where they make a statement with their fists! Andrew Peters would be proud you fucking disappointment wagon! You know what: every stat, advanced and otherwise, would point you to the Sabres being ready to fuck this Hawks team sideways. Hawks goals allowed, Hawks goal for, second and third period goals, defensive play, shots, and scoring chances: every fucking category! I don’t even know where to start with this shit!

For real this time: Fire Phil Housley. Several games back against Tampa Bay I said this club has probably given us the outline, the criteria if you will, to Fire Housley. I waited so long to jump on this ugly self-hating bandwagon but here I am on this bad fucking bandwagon. If he gets fired that will be five Sabres coaches in six years. I’m sure that doesn’t matter to Jason Botterill but holy hell it should matter to us at some point. Fuck it: he’s insane. I don’t need to even talk about Lawrence Pilut: he got into this game even if it’s with City punching bag Marco Scandella. It’s all the shit Housley doesn’t do: like make big changes when the Sabres need consistency or making no changes when the Sabres need them. Its ten minutes into the second and the Sabres are down 3-0 on the back of three fucking snipes from the two old dudes and Caggiula’s first. What does Housley do? Not a damn thing. Starting Hutton in the first place probably wasn’t wise but fuck, dude: when you’re getting your shit pushed in by the Chicago Blackhawks, not the 2013 Chicago Blackhawks, the 2019 CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS, then you’re doing something wrong. Not only am I not sure Housley put his best roster forward for this game, I’m not sure he had any motivational or tactical moves in mind to fire up the comeback machine once the sky started falling. It’s the beginning of a seven game home stand, your club needs points in the standings and Patrick Kane is back in town and you’re allowing this shit!? This game made me stare into the fucking abyss with this team!

You want a play by play? Huh, shit. The first period sounded like the Sabres we’re playing their game against what is objectively a weak Blackhawks team. They got more shots all period and even got two opportunities on the powerplay. Then Drake Caggiula scored. I’ve already mentioned this poor kid’s name three times this blog but his first career goal is a turning point. It was so massive it put fucking laxatives in all the Sabres water bottles because they came out in the second to SHIT ALL OVER THE ICE! Here’s the thing: the Sabres somehow outshoot the Hawks this second period as well but they could not be worse at advancing the puck. All their passes were intercepted and all their turnovers turned into D-zone time. They must have been turned on from when the Stars pushed them around in Dallas because they got pushed around by the fourth worst team in the league last night! Kane, Keith and later Saad to make sure we’re sad! Remember when Brendan Saad’s name was a stupid meme in 2014? That meme rose from the dead to end the second. All the Blackhawks jerseys in the crowd only made it worse. Who are Buffalo Blackhawks fans? The answer is Patrick Kane’s family and his teenage drinking buddies. I have a feeling all those Hawks jerseys couldn’t have been one of those two groups all though Buffalonians do tell me he was always a prolific drinker. Jack Eichel did score a Rasmus Ristolainen shot deflection to provide a little ray of hope but that was promptly expunged. Oh, I don’t even want to put up with you punks wanting a trade for Kane. The whole second period was just a list of grievances about this team!

The Sabres won in Columbus and they were in it for 85% of the game in Dallas. They have been bad for weeks and months now but they were looking better out of the bye-week. That false flag just shit in all our mouths! I was celebrating an anniversary with my wife so the two of us watched a comedy during this third period. I’ll tell you if I wasn’t so emotionally involved I would say this third period is quite funny! Jason Pominville maneuvers right in front of that demon goalie Cam Ward 3:30 into the third and puts one over him. This goal demonstrated how fucking soft the Hawks defense was this game letting Pommer in there to score one-on-one with Ward. Oh boy is the comeback machine firing up again!? Next it’s Kyle Okposo who gets credit for a puck passing Ward in a net crashing play where everyone was just pounding their sticks like they were begging the God of Irony to not let this game end in a stinker. Kyle Okposo who was punished with the fourth line but what’s that Coach Housley: You’re going to put a veteran first and try and change the game by putting Okposo on the second line? Well look at that, you got the Sabres within one. You put Linus Ullmark in net? Wow maybe you don’t need the Veterans but I’m not giving you credit for that one because you started Hutton to begin with. You ready: it’s time to stare into the abyss with me. Connor Murphy wrist shot equals goal. Patrick Kane with an empty netter to surpass 900 NHL points and become one of the fucking top seven Americans in points! And then Brendan Saad with an empty netter because irony lives in a mansion down on Delaware avenue and he loves going to Buffalo Sports events! Game over: YOU STINK!

To Housley’s credit apparently he tore into them afterward. Remi Elie going on waivers today could be Jason Botterill beginning to make some moves to fix this mess. In the meantime I’ve mentioned this abyss we stared into with this game a couple times. Let’s shine a light into this abyss to see what it holds: for one the Sabres being one of the worst teams in the league in terms of points gathered and record since the win streak steers us into this abyss. It holds the misery of at one point being first in the NHL and then missing the playoffs in March. It’s another offseason starting in April where we get engrossed in the Draft and wonder what offseason moves happen and how they affect the team next season. It’s another fucking season with no playoffs. I was in High School last time they made it and I wasn’t even really into sports then! Oh my God, it’s talking about an 84 point finish as an improvement when we finished LAST a season ago! THIS SHIT IS CYCLICAL! IT’S LIKE WE’RE NOT ALLOWED ANY FUN! Is it because the Bills went to the Superbowl four straight times and lost? I’d sell that fucking team to Nazem Kadri himself if it gets the SABRES ONE FUCKING PLAYOFF BERTH! Here we are losing to the Blackhawks! We all knew 1st place in November was a fluke but this: THIS IS JUST CRUEL! Holy shit I need to relax! I have to prepare to host a Superbowl party and watch the most hated man in Football win another Superbowl this weekend. There is just no rest! I cannot believe this whole fucking mess!

Drop a like. Each like goes toward maintaining my sanity like all those thumbs up on Facebook go toward bringing clean water to sub-Saharan Africa. Comment if you’re wondering what my solution to this mess is. I was going to include some replacements for Housley and some tactical ideas but I didn’t have the patience with this team if they can’t even win games that are laid out on a silver platter for them to win. Share this blog: I was party inspired to do this based on Steve Dangle’s Leafs Fan reaction. The early years of that were enjoyable for me as a Sabres fan because the Leafs sucked ass. It was pretty masochist in retrospect but if you’re the Leafs fan in the opposite position reading my shit in a masochistic way I really want to learn your story. Hell, just share this blog if you think we can commiserate together. Enjoy your Superbowl weekend and get ready for either further depression on Tuesday or more hope that the worst may not be happening. At this point either outcome would be an uproarious comedy.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. The Florida Panthers are totally going for Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky. Perhaps next season we’ll have the matchups we expected to have with them this season.

[andrewuttaro]

New Look Sabres: GM 13 - OTT - Pommer 1000

This game was Jason Pominville’s 1000th game in the NHL. It was pure happenstance that it occurred in Ottawa who just so happen to be the recipients of what is, by his own admission, Pominville’s favorite goal. It was the 2006 Stanley Cup Playoffs and the Buffalo Sabres, reborn after the lockout by way of a bevy of great players, matched up against the heavily favored Ottawa Senators in the second round. In the same Canadian Tire Centre the two teams faced off in tonight, (then called the Coral Centre) in a tight game five overtime Jason Pominville streaked in along the boards and scored the series-clinching goal. Pommer was 23 then. That Sabres team eliminated the Senators before losing in the Eastern Conference Final to the Carolina Hurricanes. The following year, after the Sabres put together their best season in franchise history (Yes, the 1975 team went the Final after another 113 point season but let’s not pretend the year doesn’t matter here) and won the President’s Trophy they made it all the way to an Eastern Conference Final matchup against a reinforced Sens team that, coupled with a few other variables, beat the Sabres in the same number of games they were beaten in the playoffs prior. This is all to say that not only was this a significant game because of Jason Pominville or even where the Sabres are in the standings at the moment, this is a significant game because it’s the Ottawa Senators and fuck the Sens! Yea, the Sens went onto lose in that Stanley Cup Final to the Anaheim Ducks but the damage was done and although it wasn’t the end of that Sabres golden age it was the last time Buffalo looked poised to win a championship.

This kind of history is what makes up real rivalries. This is arguably the only rivalry in recent history that means anything to Sabres fans. I for one always get into these Sens matchups, perhaps more than I get into the Leafs matchups. So without further ado, I give you the Burn Book, why to hate division rival Ottawa Senators: 2007 and its fights, the way it ended and the aftermath: that is the reason to hate the Ottawa Senators. You guys are the Buffalo of Canada in so many ways but that just means one of us needs to do it better. Beating you is routine and expected. Those third jerseys with the O gives anyone who can see color a migraine, I can’t imagine wearing it. Going into the shite management you have now seems like overkill but I think I speak for many hockey fans when I say I hope you get a new arena if it means staying in Ottawa. All kind feelings aside: Buffalo doesn’t import Canadian tires, you are actually the city that eats Toronto’s trash and nowadays your serving up your trash team roasted over a hot tire fire that is only getting stronger. Oh, you got Thachuk on your team now? I can’t wait to see how he ends his ELC asking for a fair amount of money and gets shipped out of town. Fuck the Sens! Now, onto the matchup tonight.

Having watched the game… or even read the boxscore you can tell all this talk was for nothing. Almost seven minutes into this game Ryan Dzingel cut through the Sabres defense like hot butter and threaded one past Carter Hutton. There were a few token chances for the Sabres in the opening frame but they played sloppy and got penalized twice to the Senators once. Dzingel scored on that powerplay, the Sabres didn’t on either of theirs. Defenseman on the Senators are producing better than any other D-Core in the league right now which, barring their four game losing streak going into this game, maybe why the Sens are starting hot: secondary scoring. Remember three games ago when we were talking about our defenseman doing that? Ok, so a one goal deficit going into the second isn’t all that bad. One minute into the second Dylan DeMelo, part of your return for Erik Karlsson… sigh… scored a wild bouncer that went off the bar then bounced off Hutton’s back and in. OH GOD, THE SABS ARE BACK! You know I was so frustrated at this point I had to hold back swearing at the TV. Not only were the Sabres getting buzzed like a cloud of bees was attacking them but every bounce that could have gone wrong went wrong. Then Kyle Okposo got penalized for DELAY OF GAME (puck over the glass) and I said you know: FUCK IT. My wife wanted to watch Coco (2017) today on the Day of the Dead so I said why not! Turns out that was a fantastic choice: not only because Coco is watershed film for both representation in children’s cinema and a tour de force in the animation department enough to win an Oscar, but BECAUSE THE SABRES WERE GIVING US NOTHING!

Colin White scored after I left to put the Sens up 3-0 through forty minutes. It was only 59 seconds into the final frame however when the man of the hour Jason Pominville sauced in a Jack Eichel shot to get Buffalo on the board. I respect the hell out of Pommer but I was deep in Coco at this point. The Land of the Dead is really an animation marvel: even for Pixar. Well three or so minutes later Jeff Skinner similarly guided in a shot from the line by Ristolainen and the Sabres were within one. Again, I was deep into unraveling the complicated family drama of Coco at this point, getting into third act but I won’t spoil any of it for you. I will spoil this game if it hasn’t already been for you: the Sabres didn’t complete the comeback. With twenty seconds left in regulation Bobby Ryan sunk an empty netter to wrap this game at 4-2 Ottawa. I talked a lot of trash to start this game because I sincerely hate the Ottawa Senators but damn, the way Sens fans honored Pominville, the guy who ruined their 2006, that’s pretty awesome.

You would hope the Sabs had moved into the Land of the Dead. Unfortunately the one bad period against Columbus and the bad 30 minutes in the Calgary game were omens that on the third game the Sabs would return and consume a whole game! All awesome Pixar imagery aside, the Senators rocked the Sabres harder than Pommer’s 2001 Draft haircut. Look it up, he looks like he was a dancer for the Backstreet Boys. Rasmus Dahlin looked good in this game but Marco Scandella fucked him up at every turn. Rasmus Ristolainen didn’t do Buffalo any favors in their own zone. Even Jake McCabe, the man driving the defense this season, looked poor, at one point just about taking his own goaltender out of a play. Since the d-men didn’t go through where was the secondary scoring to come? Insert It’s Nothing gif here. No secondary scoring and the sad part is that supposedly that’s what Jason Botterill (one of Pominville’s teammates in Rochester back in the day) got with all his offseason moves! I don’t even know what to do with these Sabs after this game: this club was 8-1-3 in their last twelve games against the Sens; that last regulation loss was the last matchup they had in the garbage pile that was last season! I just don’t know what to say outside of congratulations Pominville about this game… I guess… I recommend Coco; it’s a fantastic movie pretty much all the way around.

The show goes on for a Saturday matinee back in Buffalo against the Sens. I’ll be seeing a movie with family but lord knows if I come out of that theater and the Sabres don’t have a W there will be hell to pay. I shouldn’t have to repeat the absolute necessity of winning these next four games before the schedule gets harder. I hope this helped you cope. Writing these isn’t always fun, especially when the Sabs show up, but if Coco taught me anything it’s all about not being forgotten. Don’t forget about New Look Sabres! Share it, comment and hit that little heart for remembrance. Congratulations Jason, you’re the only player on this team who knows what golden age Sabres hockey looks like: hopefully we all see some more of that soon.  

Thanks for reading.

P.S. Fun fact: Jason Pominville has worn the most different Sabres uniforms in his career. On top of the current ones and the old red butter knives in the post image here, he wore all of the goat-heads, Buffaslug, 40th anniversary, retro jersey and Winter Classic jersey last season. I’m sure I missed a few but this is already my longest P.S. yet.