Tyler Myers makes my heart happy

by Anne

I was having kind of a blah day in this yucky weather in Buffalo. I had two shows today so I couldn't watch the Sabres game. :( Periodically checking the score on my phone isn't quite the same as watching it. I was mostly OK with how the game was going until the shootout when my heart burst into song. JBG scored the game winning goal in the shootout!! Stafford and Grier scored in regulation.

:) :) :) :)

Absolutely no freaking way he gets sent back to Kelowna now. Only watch this if you think your heart can take the bursting:

Elsewhere because EVERYONE PLAYED ON SATURDAY:

• Pens lost :(

This picture sums up the game: KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE PUCK

• Kings won! 5-3 over the Coyotes. This game proved that Ilya Bryzgalov is fallible, but still awesome.

Scott Parse was called up to play in his first NHL game

he registered an assist!

Good job, Parse!

• Canucks won and the Maple Leafs remain win-less. Yeesh. It's really no longer funny. Now it's just sad sad sad.

Normally I frown upon Schenner being beaten up but Glasser has some crazyface goin' on here

• The Maple Leafs are so sad that I decided to drop Phil Kessel from my fantasy team. I got Kevin Bieksa in exchange. I think that's fair considering I need PIM and the other team needs goal scoring
  

• Pie got an assist again and the Bruins won :)

 Yay!

Opening Night Didn't Go So Well

by Anne

Well, in brief, here is how all four of last night's games went from my perspective:

• Toronto v. Montreal: Ok, guys, we get it, you like to hit. Two fights, Mike Komisarek nearly sending himself through the glass to make a point to his former team. Habs won 4-3 in OT.

Schenner!
Look out!
Sneaky little Scott Gomez is right behind you!

• Brooks Laich(!) and Alexander Ovechkin each had two goals and the Caps defeated the Bruins 4-1. I guess that was my preferred outcome, now that we think divisionally, at least for the next few months

Oh Sissy.

• The Avalanche beat the Sharks 5-2 and Joe Sakic's number was retired. Joe Sakic, what a dude.

Darcy Tucker is REALLY excited about scoring a goal

• Also, to celebrate his hero, Matt Duchene earned himself his first NHL point, an assist on JM Liles' goal (the 5th).

• The Canucks were losing 3-0 at one point and had a nice rally, but fell victim to an empty-net goal and bad penalty killing.

Big Bear had three shots on goal and four hits
He had an assist but they took it away :(

• Steve Montador has a personality: He talks about our youngest defensemen on Saturday's Roster. He makes fun of the JBG and I'm a-ok with that, keep things loose around the kid:
  

"I've seen [Sekera] do some pretty special things," Montador said. "He's strong on his feet, has good vision and for a European guy who has English as a second language, he talks quite a bit, which is great for a partner.

"Butler plays so confident, knows he can skate and does the little things well. Then you look at a guy like Myers who's 10 years younger than me. For a guy pulling moves and skating like that when he probably hasn't shaved a day in his life is impressive to me."

• Brent Seabrook and Patrick Sharp of the Chicago Blackhawks appear to be having a European affair. Just don't tell Adam Burish who's stuck back home in Chicago with a knee injury.

Ain't they sweet?

• I love game photography:

Beauchemin: No, Luke, really, let's go left
Schenn: No, Francois, the play says move the puck up the ice
Beauchemin: I really don't think that's it
Schenn: Totally man, it is
Lapierre: If you two are finished chatting, I'll just come and take that puck...

Good Game

by Anne

A nice solid win by the Sabres 4-1 over the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Staffy with two goals, PIE with 2 points (1+1) and +2, Ellis with a goal, Timmy with two assists and Millsy with 27 saves, many of them of the sprawling "Milerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!! Stops 'em cold!" variety.

Not exactly a win for the record books but a solid dominant road win, save for the first few minutes.

Drew Stafford continues to have Justin Pogge's number. If Pogge were in net against us all the time, I feel confident Drew would be a 40 goal scorer. He scored a goal of the year candidate for the Sabres against Pogge as they dominated the Leafs 5-0 two weeks ago and scored another two tonight to match and beat last years goal total. Also, both of his goals came on the power play, an area where Lindy is asking a lot of Staffy and he's answering the challenge. He's on pace for a respectable 24 goals and for that we thank him.

I would be remiss if I didn't take some time to breathe a sigh of relief.

Danny Paille finally FINALLY scores a goal. After Pie scored 19 goals last season I had really hoped he'd be able to kick things up a notch. He's definitely been struggling this season and is only on pace for about nine goals. :/ But yay!!!! for tonight. He showed excellent hustle and was the only +2 player tonight. Yay!

Ewwww Jamal
Get your finger out of Adam's mouth
That's disgusting
Are you trying to make him into Jarkko Ruutu?
(click to enlarge)

Fortunately Carolina lost tonight and unfortunately the Panthers won. We are now currently in a four way tie for 5th place with Montreal, Florida, and the Rangers.

Also, Brian Burke said Luke Schenn could be bought for ten first round picks. I'm ok with that. Your move, Darcy. I bet you could toss in Max and knock it down to eight first round picks.

RAWR.



Pie: I did good?

Yes, Pie, you did good.

Winning out West!

by Anne

Other people have said it, and I've said it as well, but I really have enjoyed watching the other teams' broadcasts. They offer a new perspective on the team, and unlike the ass hats on Versus, they are allowed to be biased towards the other team. It was nice to be treated to a brief Kevin Sylvester pre-game interview though.

That being said: "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Shut out! Timmy! Pie!

We're all going to be talking about it for a while I'm sure, but my GOD Derek Roy, who ARE you? I so enjoy the "Royzie has the puck, its ok" feeling. That pass for Pie's goal was amazing. It was reminiscent of the falling down, stick behind the head goal Ovie scored in Phoenix. If you don't know what goal I'm talking about you need to turn in your credentials as a hockey fan post haste. Even though Danny got the goal, that was all effort by Royzie. However, Pie easily could've had the puck jump over his stick, or have been off stride and it would've been all for naught. Regardless, as far a the Sabres are concerned, definitely play of the season for Derek Roy. thusfar. Woooooooooo!

Please do yourselves a favor and click to enlarge this picture and check out Adam Mair

Jaro can you hear me? Is he hurt? Badly? Anyone know?! :( Weber is healthy! :)

What the heck was with the officials stepping in and breaking up that fight between Carcillo and Paetsch before it even started? That was lame, at least Paetsch got to redeem himself later in the game against another opponent.

There were four shut outs out of twelve games tonight. Ouch. Getting shut out is the worst. Its so disheartening. You can't even score ONE goal on this team? Wow. Atlanta, Philly and the Rangers were the other teams shut out tonight. Philly should be the most embarrassed, they lost 4-0 to St. Louis with Chris Mason in net.

Pittsburgh and Florida lost tonight and Carolina won, but our victory keeps us two points ahead of Carolina and four back of 6th place. Hooray!

Elsewhere:

Luke Schenn just keeps getting better. Tomas Kaberle is going to be out with a hand injury, so Luke's going to be one of the many defensemen that will be seeing more ice time. With greater ice time comes greater responsibility, and tonight was a great game for him. I only watched a little bit of that game before turning over to the Sabres game, so I got to see him lay out a huge hit on Malkin and then fight Tyler Kennedy.

Here's what went down: Malkin gets the puck, Schenn scoots over to him, and hits him along the Pens bench, Malkin is fine, gets up, stays in the play, passes to Orpik who takes a shot on net, Toskala gloves it, play stops. Whatevs, everything's fine. During the stoppage, Tyler Kennedy who was on the bench when Malkin was hit, goes up to Schenn and an altercation happens, Max Talbot tries to keep Schenn back, but no dice, they fight, Schenner beats the crap out of the much smaller Tyler Kennedy.

Tyler, don't pick a fight with a rookie just because he's a rookie and you don't like that he was "tugging on Superman's cape", to quote the HNiC announcers. He's 6'2" 216 lbs, you are 5'11 183 lbs. Bad idea. Love, Anne.

I missed Schenn's sweeeeeeeeeet moves to set up Matt Stajan for his goal at the beginning of the third. He got the puck at the blue line and stick handled his way to behind the net and Matt Stajan scored on the rebound when Schenn tried to stuff the puck in. Schenn's pretty much a stay at home defenseman so this was far more of an offensive move than people are used to from him. So, yay!

Together, we will score a goal tonight


I AM LUKE SCHENN, HEAR ME ROAR
what a badass
haha


Oh Lord
Someone tell Grapes he doesn't have a microphone

After five of the six games of this road trip, the Sabres are 3-2-0. They have already RUINED my prediction, but ruined it in a great way. I don't know how things will shake down on Monday, seeing as I gave up on following the Ducks closely over a year ago.

Super Bowl tomorrow! Screw you all who are probably cheering for Arizona because they're the feel-good story of the millennium. I'm sure if the Steelers weren't in the Super Bowl I'd be cheering for them too. BUT, Big Ben and Troy Polamalu ARE in the Super Bowl so I cannot cheer for Kurt "Jesus is my Homeboy" Warner. Let's Go Steelers!

I Like You a Lot Lot

by Anne

I watched the Skills Competition last night with a vodka tonic in hand. Sadly, the drinking game was not as successful this year, but the event was more entertaining.

I wish Vanek had done some more events, his goal in the Elimination Shootout was one of the highlights of the entire night. Being a Sabres fans, it seems logical I'd say that, but it was definitely one of the more creative attempts. Although, TV, I could really live without the fauxhawk. I love ya, but you deserve better than "The Royzie Special".

Marc Savard actually displayed a personality as he was mic'd up for the entire evening for Versus. I was shocked and awed, but plesantly surprised that he was actually more interesting than watching paint dry. I had anticipated he would not be a stimulating conversationalist. Zach Parise apparently decided to abandon ship on the mic and we were left with only Savvy. There was a moment after the fastest skater challenge when one of his teammates clearly thought Zach was talking to him and he had to gesture to his ear to be like "No, I'm talking to the voices in my head, er, ear, er, Doc." I wonder what Versus would have done if Savvy hadn't made it to the final round of shooters? Would he have had to hang out there until it was over? Most likely.

The Young Stars game was a hot mess. They kept showing replays while the game was going on and goals were being scored. I normally enjoy the Young Stars game so this was fairly disappointing.

The above title refers to one of those Young Stars, Luke Schenn. I know he's an icky Maple Leaf but I really think he's awesome. He's a great player, he seems to be a genuinely nice person and he's not too hard on the eyes. I cheered when he scored in the game and then laughed because he has yet to score in the NHL. Its ok, Luke! Give it time!

Schenn and Doughty
My new favorite defensemen.
(ETA: Except Matt Greene, of course.)
Why?
This is the first season I've given a hoot about defensemen and they're young and talented.



Work that -20 degree weather, boy


20?? Who's wearing #26?
psh! Marty St. Louis?!?!
That's BALONEY.
Thomas Kaberle won the "15"battle with Dany Heatley (#51)
Jay Boumeester (#3) lost the "4" battle with Vinny
Jeff Carter (#7) lost the "17" battle with Ilya Kovalchuk
Patrick Marleau (#10) lost the "12" battle with Iggy
Shane Doan lost the "19" battle with Jonathan Toews because Tazer is a starter
Joe Thornton also lost the "19" battle and went with "97"? Doan is wearing "18"


Soupy looks... really good.

These men have hockey sticks in their hands everyday, yet some of them look catastrophically awkward holding them while not in skates. I thought the stick was there to ease the awkwardness of the photo-takng experience?

Nasher, the only dual "Hottie" and "Skill" representative.



Yay!!


I love it.


Jeff: We gotta get that Stamkos kid to join. Then we'll get to Berglund.
Eric: Totally, we need all the blonde, nearly albino forwards together. We have to combat the Russian forwards some how. Kovalev can't join us.
Jeff: He's just not blonde enough.
Eric: I was talking to Vanek before. I think he's in.
Jeff: He's more strawberry than pure blonde like you and me.
Eric: I know, but we need to save him before the Europeans get him.
Jeff: Word. After this, want to go sit in dark corners and not get any sun?
Eric: Sure! Hey, what color was Keith Tkachuk's hair before he lost it all...

I will probably not watch the actual All-Star Game as I have class Monday morning. What's up with that? Anyway, if you watch the game, enjoy!

YIKES, What a Busy Saturday

by Anne

THAT AVS GOAL WAS TOTAL BS AND MY LOVE FOR DANNY PAILLE CONTINUES TO GROW EXPONENTIALLY. WE WERE TREATED TO AN ADORABLE INTERVIEW FEATURING JM LILES' MILLION DOLLAR SMILE SO THANK YOU FOR THAT AND I COULDN'T HEAR DANNY PAILLE'S INTERVIEW BUT HE LOOKED CUDDLY AND SWEET FACED. OTHERWISE, BLAH.

That is all I have to say about that, except that I hope Hank is ok after getting sliced up in the first period. I thought something was off about our defense but I incorrectly thought Spacek was MIA, it was, in fact, Hank the Tank.

BLAH.

So the curse is gone in Philly, the Flyers won their second game in a row against the Devils, giving the team and Marty Biron two MUCH needed wins and killing us all because now we have to wait even longer to crown Martin Brodeur the King of All, and we will continue to be reminded EVERY DAY about his QUEST. Boooooooo.

Someone screwed up the ice surface at TD Banknorth Garden and as a result the goalies changed ends half way through the third period, Winter Classic style. Awesome. I mean the Bruins have only been around LIKE 80 YEARS, you can't expect them to have this whole "accurate measurement" thing down JUST YET.

WCB Watch

Ducks at Habs

Getzy scored a goal in the Ducks win and ONCE AGAIN, a team (the Canadiens) had 51 shots on goal and LOST. Thomas Plekanec had 13!!

ETA: Apparently the Hurricanes had 60 shots on goal Saturday night. WHAT IS GOING ON!?!

ETA2: My BAD, the Islanders had 60 shots, the Hurricanes FACED 60 shots and Cam Ward made 57 saves. WOWZAS.

No impacted tooth can hold him down!

Sharks at Lightning

Can someone please explain to me how Barry Melrose still has a job? Hell, Ted Nolan's got nothing to do these days, hire him!

Once again the Sharks had a crazy number of shots, 45, but this time, they actually WON 3-0, Pickles lead the team in ice time by more than 5 minutes, but managed to still only end with an even +/-.

Kings at Predators

JP scored for the Preds toward a 5-4 win!!! Greener still managed to be +1 with 2 shots. The Kings' PK was finally broken :(

You can barely see JP on the right, but I wanted to point out 2 other things:
The pink butt end of Martin Erat's stick
And that tool shed in the stands who actually purchased one of those vomit/mustard yellow third jerseys

Blue Jackets at Wild

OWEN NOLAN CAME OFF OF IR, GOT AN ASSIST AND THEN SCORED THE GAME WINNING GOAL!!!!!!! YAY!!!!! LOVE LOVE LOVE!

Oh yeah, and both we and the Wild are STILL unbeaten in regulation. This is getting feisty.

RAWWWWWR!!

Caps at Stars

Uhhh, this one wasn't pretty for Marty Turco, so let's move on..

Red Wings at Blackhawks

Sharpie got an assist and Brett Lebda had 9 minutes of ice time.... and the game went into OT... ouch.... maybe I need to re-evaluate my Red Wings WCB.

I really still love Britney Spears new music. I cannot pretend I don't. I really like Womanizer. Its really fun. I don't love the video, but she's look FIERCE these days. TEAM BRITNEY. What, hockey blog? Oh right!

Panthers at Blues

Jay McKee was +1. woo.

Keith Ballard must've been really upset to learn he would've been my 'Yotes WCB because he took 18 minutes in penalties including a game misconduct (10 mins) and 2 unsportsmanlike conducts. NOT COOL, KEITH, NOT COOL.

JKee's keeping an eye on things


I know this isn't JKee but the look on that Blues' face cracked me up

Flames at 'Yotes

The love of my life (Iggy) had a 3 point night (1+2) in a 4-1 Flames win!!!!!

Oilers at Canucks

Big Bear had an assist but was -2. Ethan Moreau (Oilers WCB) had 4 PIM and somehow managed to stay at even +/- in the 6-3 loss to Vancouver. Interesting (but really only interesting to me) fact: both my WCBs in this game wear #18.


Unrelated: Luke Schenn (Toronto 2008 draft pick) fought Chris Neil (we all know who he is) about 1 minute into the game. I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE YOUTUBE CLIPS!!!! I hope Schenn won!!

Pirates won tonight, 5-4. Gerbe netted another 2 goals, and TK got an assist, further extending his point streak. Yay!!!

Nathan Gerbe hearts the ta-tas

Baby Millsy was the second star of the night for the AHL on Friday. He had a 3 point night (1+2). Awww, yay! A dude named Wacey Rabbit was #1, and really how much harder can your life rock if you're kicking things off by being named Wacey Rabbit?

Tomorrow can be completely dedicated to football, woooo!!