In and Out

by Anne

The Sabres shipped Paetsch to Columbus for Torres and Grizz to Atlanta. There are picks involved but who the eff cares about picks unless it's the Toronto/ Boston Kessel trade. I'm not losing sleep over a 2nd round pick, no one should. We don't know who those picks will turn into or if we will even keep those picks.

The Kings shipped out Teddy Purcell (WOO!) and brought in Jeff Halpern and Fredrik Modin(errr...) well, regardless, Halpern will definitely improve the bottom six for the Kings and Modin can sit in the press box chair Teddy had previously been keeping warm.

For Sabres fans, here's everything you will need to know about Raffi Torres:

I figured out why embedding won't work and fixed it. Sweet.

For the record, this was the first video I watched featuring Greener and it cracked me up, thus leading to my deep running love for that maniac.

I didn't watch the subsequent Washington game because I was in class but I can see I missed out on quite a defensive outpouring being outshot almost 2-1.

In other news, Torres skated today with Pommer and Royzie and will wear #17. The "Should" line skated together today as well. If Torres wants to win over Buffalonians (which we might not, who cares really, he's likely a rental) he will do well to score tomorrow night against the Flyers.

Huzzah!

by Anne

The first 2:11 of last night's game was sa-weeeet. It's like the Sabres were apologizing for all their slow starts lately. However in those four slow starts we were 4-0-0 so as one of the writers on Puck Daddy wrote, I don't really know what we were complaining about.

The rest of that game was a tad sloppy but at least 2/3 of our top six scored! Thomas Vanek and Derek Roy will be shoveling more driveways, it seems...

Myers got his fourth on a nifty shot after a very clean offensive zone faceoff win, then MacArthur, Stafford, Hecht, and Pominville scored the other four. It was an exciting game, however there were many downsides and extremely little hitting.

Speaking of hitting, I got my answer as to why Matt Greene didn't register any hits the other night against San Jose. It appears Greener has been nursing a sore back for the last few days that pulled him out at the beginning of practice on Wednesday :( No word on whether or not he'll play against Detroit tonight. My fantasy team needs hits. That is not a category I'm accustomed to trailing in.

I didn't get to watch the gold medal game the other night as it happened but I watched it today and WOOOOOOO!!!! That was such an exciting game. SO excited for next year. Defending on home soil! It made me sad to see so many of Team USA's top prospects belonged to such yucky teams as Toronto (D'Amigo) and the Rangers (Stepan). Hey, Jack Campbell's still draftable! Eh?! Eh?! Ok FINE we don't really need another behbeh goalie, but it can't hurt to stockpile, right? RIGHT?!

Nathan Paetsch cleared waivers. Whoopdedoo.

I tweeted this last night, but after Kevin Bieksa went down with a nasty leg laceration and will miss up to three months, I picked up Steve Downie on my fantasy team because Bieksa's biggest contribution to my team was PIM. However, Steve has not been delivering. He has three points since I picked him up but zero PIM. So: STEVE! Make with the puchy-punchy. We all know you like it. Thanks, Anne.

Paeatscheshch on Waivers

by Anne

Nathan Paetsch was placed on waivers today.

I mostly don't really care. He's played like three games this season and has had flashes of relevance but mostly not.

I wasn't expecting this move but Patches is definitely a spare part that the Sabres don't need around. I mean, it's always nice to have that extra back-up player lying around but we have a lot of those. Andrej Sekera for example. We discovered recently that he, like Paetsch is a magical wizard and can play winger in addition to center. Magic I tells ya.

Not sure why he's being moved now but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.  I get the feeling that Darcy is trying to free up a little salary cap space to make a trade or something because no one that's a UFA or an RFA next summer appears to be ready for any kind of huge salary increase. I'm no good at speculating about what I think will happen, but I know what I'd like to see happen.

I'm always on board any time any one suggests a good trade that involves Derek Roy. Get him outta here. He's not a bad player but he's a pain in the ass and we could probably get someone better if we packaged it right. I'd be down with trading pretty much any of our top six right now, provided we got a better caliber top 6 player in return. Are we going to get Ilya Kovalchuk? No, of course not. But there are several teams that will be sellers at the deadline, and if the Sabres stay where they are or even if they slip a few spots (which they won't because the rest of our division is weak) they'll be buyers.

It's too early to declare which teams are going to be sellers right now, with three months until the deadline, well except Carolina, they're clearly out of the race. Muahahaha Butter Snaps.

Whatevs, I LOVE the trade deadline and I CAN'T WAIT.

Kings play San Jose tonight at 10:30! Woo!

Whoa New Formatting

by Anne

Blogger has gone all crazy and updated their post editor. Maybe that's why Blogger was down for part of this afternoon? Regardless, I'm taking advantage of this new editor right now whilst I blog.

• I need to stop obsessing over my fantasy team. Ok, obsessing is a bit strong, but I need to stop making minor, unimportant roster moves that will ultimately make only a minimal amount of difference for my team in the long run
  

• I can add background color to my text Oooooooooo. Ahhhhhhhh. See that? blue and gold. I'm so. damn. clever.
  

• Waive Nathan Paetsch, please? I understand he can play forward AND defense like a crazy magician and whatnot but what we really need are seven strong defensemen and even though Tyler Myers has only played in one NHL game, he's making a strong case for staying put. I would dump Paetsch to keep Myers up here in a heartbeat.
  

• As far as the forwards go: as much as it saddens me, I can accept that Danny Paille has been deadweight this pre-season and, if anyone should go, it should probably be him. :(
  

• Bucky Gleason tossed out the idea of waiving Matt Ellis but that's a terrible idea and I think he just said it to spark discussion. Why would they waive the hardest working guy on the team? A fourth line of Mair - Ellis - Kaleta sounds good to me. They have the grind and the drive and have even been known to contribute 5-10 goals each. I'll take that as a fourth line any day.
  

• Dominic Moore has landed himself in Florida. He apparently had a broken wrist last season which he broke just after joining the Sabres. Great, take up that roster spot and play only to partial effectiveness when Kennedy could've been given a better shot at the NHL, good, great, thanks Dom.
  

• The NHL should participate in the Olympics after 2010. Gary Bettman is doing a lot of damage by saying they won't. The kinds of problems this will cause in the 2013-2014 season aren't 100% clear but rest assured that there will be plenty of them.
  

• Hopefully the Canucks will start winning tonight, now that they're playing at home.
  

• Dustin Brown strained a gluteal muscle and sat out of practice on Sunday. I don't have anything to comment about it, I just wanted to say that Dustin Brown strained his butt. My name is Anne and I am extremely immature.
  

• Another good thing about this Blogger editor update is that it now lists the publishing time as the time you hit "Publish Post" as opposed to when you started writing the blog. Sweeeeet.
  

Maybe a Ray of Hope for the Defense?

by Anne

If the Marc-Andre Gragnani experiment falls through, there may be hope. Looks like Mike Weber is back to practicing at full after his knee surgery a few weeks ago.

Gragnani has been fine (its only been two games). He's a +2 with two shots on goal while logging some short handed time and just over 12 minutes one game and just over 11 in the next. His stats have been roughly the same as Paetsch's over those two games and the two have mostly been paired together. They've been decent, and I'm not blaming either of them for the losses as neither of them have been on the ice when goals were scored. However, Gragnani was in the box when Mike Cammalleri scored in the third to make it 4-2 Flames. But if we're talking penalty minutes, M-A G wins that battle with Mike Weber. Gragnani 34 PIM in 44 games, Weber 80 PIM in 35.

Its just good to see that we don't necessarily have to push the panic button as Weber gets healthier.

Any word on when we'll be getting back Teppo or Hank or Reggie?!

Remember when we had too many defensemen? That was nice.

Butler Sits

by Anne

Noooooo. No. NO.

Chris Butler will not be playing tonight. This is not a good thing. Butler isn't sitting because he's been playing badly, he's sitting because we have 8 defensemen. Butler is good enough to be in the NHL, he's definitely proven it this call-up, so him sitting while Tallinder, who hasn't been on his best behavior is playing, is very frustrating. If Butler wasn't ready, they would send him back to Portland.  I suppose they could be getting ready to send him back but they've been hesitant because of a rash of the common cold aka "flu" moving through the defensive corps recently, striking Toni and Teppo. Therefore, one wonders, if we're keeping Butler because of potential injuries, why is Nathan Paetsch still here? I like Paetsch and sometimes he makes smart moves. Sometimes. Not often, but sometimes. This is the second year in a row he's been looked over in favor of a rookie or rookies. The only reason he saw so much ice time at the end of last season is because after Soupy left, Spacek and Kalinin were hurt and we needed warm bodies on the blue line. That's why Mike Funk was up here, had like 3 good shifts and then went back to Rochester.

So what do the Sabres do? They can't put Paetsch on waivers because someone will snatch him up and we'll get nothing in return. Therefore, where do we all think Patches will be traded to? 

Ooooooooooooooooookay

by Anne


Miraculously there are still four Buffalo Sabres that have not been declared legally deceased in my world:

These 4 players saw a grand total of 14:48 of ice time, and all of those minutes belonged to Ryan Miller

In WCB news, Rick Nash scored a goal! I'm not really sure who his team was playing against, but they must be TERRIBLE. He had a breakaway during the game, but didn't score. Gee, I wonder if that other team realizes that he's in the Top 10 list of players in the NHL you DON'T WANT TO ALLOW TO BE SET UP ON A BREAK AWAY. I mean I wonder WHAT'S WRONG with that other team that they were UNABLE to control him. It's really FORTUNATE for them that their goaltender was able to make a save.

On an unrelated note, Adam Mair, who I've heard might have recently ceased to exist because of events I am not privy to, apparently loves live theatre. Thereby adding even more confusion to the ongoing conflict within me between "Adam Mair is kind of Scary" and "Adam Mair is Kind of Totally Badass."

Here's hoping this "Team from Buffalo" I've heard rumored can get their act together to at least not be TOTALLY HUMILIATED tomorrow in Pittsburgh.

And the Winner Is...

by Anne

It started out as a landslide, but tapered off into a neck and neck battle for 2nd and 3rd place.

Jason Pominville is the gentleman most of you would call to be your knight in shining armor to rescue you from the drunken losers with too much gel in their hair and too many buttons undone on their shirts at SoHo on a Saturday night.

Your knight in shining armor

Oh No! Pommer didn't answer his phone! Who do you call?

An even number flipped a coin between Pat Kaleta and Steve Bernier. My #1 choice would be Big Bear, but Kaleta would've been #2.

In a surprise to me, Nathan Paetsch came in 4th with only 1 vote fewer than Patty and Big Bear.

Because all but a couple of you know that Mikey-poo's heart body soul and eyebrows belong exclusively to M.J., he came in 5th.

I'm not sure what our next poll will be but I'll wait for a good one to come to me rather than just toss up a lame one. This one might actually be HOCKEY related. I know, crazy, right?

Moving on:

As I was walking into my building this morning, I got a Sabres text asking me to submit questions to Nathan Gerbe by 7:00 p.m. My first instinct was to ask him "DEAR NATHAN WHY WON'T YOU BE MY FACEBOOK FRIEND?!?!" but decided that probabaly would not make it through the screeners to dear Gerb-Doggy-Dogg's questionnaire. I'm not sure what I'll ask but I'm 3 for 3 on random questions asked of Sabres via blogs and/or Sabres.com. I'm going to try to avoid any questions about size. SIZE DOESN'T MATTER.....UNLESS YOU'RE TYLER MYERS.... THEN I'M ALL ABOUT IT.

So the camp is open to the public from 3-5 everyday (I think) I'm ALL ABOUT heading up to Dwyer on Saturday, Sunday or Monday if there is going to be availability for wacko Buffalo fans.

OH YEAH! Channel 4 told me last night that Senator Clinton has submitted a letter throwing Buffalo's hat into the ring of host cities for the 2011 World Juniors (AKA IIHF World Under 20 Championships) I don' t think we'll get the nod, as there aren't really enough facilities (WE CAN TOTALLY BUILD SOME!!!)but the fact that its a possibilty is REALLY exciting to me, because I LOVE international competition, especially living in Canada's front yard (or is Canada our BACK YARD?!?!) and it's pretty cool that Hillary has offered up her constiuent city for it. Thanks, Hill! We appreciate it! Sorry about the whole "not getting the Democratic Presidential Nomination" thing.

I have my camera again! You all missed out on the EXCITING photos of my HOUR spent at the Genius Bar as they ERASED but ultimately repaired my laptop.

WOO!

And the Winner is..../Weekly Poll

by Anne

So when I set up that last poll, I didn't anticipate the LANDSLIDE victory that it was, hahaha. I try to make it possible for it to be more even. This was not a good example of that, lol.

The question was:

Quick! The babysitter canceled! Which of these players do you call?

Your choices were:

Danny Pie-YAY
Alexander Ovechkin
Marty Biron
Jaroslav Spacek
Jordan Staal

So, tied for 4th were:

Alexander Ovechkin and Jordan Staal

If you don't want your children to do this, don't call either of these boys. I have a sneaking suspicion that all your children would learn from these guys would be the perfect spitball making technique, honed over years of practice.

In 3rd place:

Jaroslav Spacek

I don't exactly understand why more people don't want a cubic Czech man screaming at their children. I voted for him, as did my sister. Come on! Who doesn't want their children to live their lives with the patented Jaro "SHOOT PUCK SCORE GOAL WIN GAME" mentality?

In 2nd place:

Only a few people wanted Danny Paille to bring his ice cream man into your home. I'm sure he would teach LOTS to your kids about Perry's... and... uhhh how to put your shoes on the correct feet? I'm not 100% sure that Pie-YAY has managed to figure that out completely, so while I'm sure he's an excellent role-model for your children, he may not be able to keep track of them if "Bob the Builder" suddenly comes on TV.

The winner by a LANDSLIDE, and perhaps because he seems to have the same attention span of most children, perhaps because he has his own children, the winner:

Marty Biron

I'd want Marty to take care of my children as well, I'm sure. He'd probably talk non-stop about whatever comes into his stream of consciousness brain which is something they could probably relate to. Children are probably the only human beings that possess the verbal fortitude to rival Marty. It would seem that the parents and future parents of America value Marty's sweet nature more than the iron-fist rule of Jaroslav Spacek.


Ok so this week's poll isn't exactly "racy" but it's a little bit more PG-13 than last week.

The question is:

You're drunk and stranded in downtown Buffalo and your friends have deserted you. You only have enough battery to call one of these people. Whom do you trust to not take advantage of you in your drunken state, but secretly hope that they will?

Jason Pominville
Steve Bernier
Pat Kaleta
Mike Ryan
Nathan Paetsch

EDIT: Ok, so, no, Goose isn't on the list. The reason being that I knew everyone would pick him. So for the purposes of this post let's say Goose is off in Europe with Millsey, which he actually is as of this writing. Woo! They're meeting up with Jaro and Kotalik in Prague! HOW CUTE! CAN I BE THERE?!?!

FYI: Sidney Crosby is Not an Alien

by Anne

Maxime Talbot is taking the words right out of my mouth:

According to Maxime Talbot, Sidney Crosby’s faint attempt at growing a playoff beard makes him look “greasy.” As for the mustache he has going right now, Talbot said that makes him look “like Zorro.”

I prefer "like a hillbilly with a rusted out pickup truck", but "Zorro" works too.


Marc-Andre Fleury weighs in on the "let's show people Sid isn't a robot" campaign:

Fleury said when he and Crosby were both out with high ankle sprains earlier this year, they spent a lot of time at the goalie’s house playing Call of Duty 4 on Xbox 360. The game is so popular the Penguins take it on the road with them.

Oh, NHL, you're trying so hard to promote him as: THIS GUY WILL CHANGE HOCKEY FOREVER. SIDNEY CROSBY IS OUR MESSIAH....uhhhh but he plays Xbox too! Haha! He can't grow a playoff beard! Look how NORMAL he is! Yup, he's tooooootallly normal. Except for, ya know, that we treat him like he can turn water ino wine and all that and he's probably the best hockey player in the past decade stuff, but LOOK! He drinks gatorade! He eats food! He sleeps! He's a person too! Did we mention he's YOUNG? Look how YOUNG he is! He can't even buy alcohol in this country yet!

I love Sid the Kid, but, unlike my love for most hockey players, I have little desire to have "relations" with him. I'm sure he calls them "relations" because calling it anything else makes him blush under his peach fuzz. I think my lack of desire for Sid the Kid is his freakishly squeaky clean image. He's probably not really afraid of girls, but he just has such a "good guy" image that it turns me off. It's probably why I mostly like guys and players that look like they would have no problem with beating the living tar out of someone (Goose, Big Bear, Staffy) notable exception: Pommerdoodle. Eh, well, I still loves him and I bet he's more intimidating in person....no probably not, but that's ok, I think I could beat Derek Roy in a fistfight..again, that's probably not true, because I couldn't bring myself to punch Roysie and hopefully he feels the same way about hitting girls.

Oh yeah AND THEN THEY LOST 3-0 TO THE RANGERS. That is NOT COOL. Avery is LITERALLY in INTENSIVE CARE. I did say, however, that I thought the Rangers would win this won. But, they should be GONE after the next one. Is that CLEAR, Ry-ry? Sid? Geno? Gronk? Heh? Good, now let's take care of this.


Soooooo, I checked NHL.com for a score of the Wings/Avs game and it was 7-1 at the intermission. Last I had checked it was 1-1. WOW. Um, who was the MORON who picked the Avs? That would be this girl. What the hell was I thinking? I hope the Red Wings don't win the cup, but mostly because I just flat out won't care. I won't be excited or mad, it'll be an overall feeling of "eh, Datsyuk's ugly". And, because the Douche Canoe (TM Interchangeable Parts) has declared that the Red Wings are going to take my Millsey away, I just want to pretend they don't exist. Millsey can't play for them if they aren't REAL! That's what I'm going to tell him and his agent.


T-Minus like an hour until the World Championships start in Halifax. I hope Team USA is finished playing lasertag and making macramés hockey sticks in time to show up to play Latvia tonight night.


Team USA is ranked 7th in the world, Canada is 3rd behind Finland and Sweden. I know we have some BANGIN' Finnish (Toni, Selanne, the Koivu brothers) and Swedish (Hank the Tank, Zetterberg, Backstrom) talent in the NHL, but if the teams are that good, wouldn't you assume we'd have more NHL players from those countries? Maybe they just like playing at home and don't want to come to North America where I will begin stalking them.

---

Private to Paul Gaustad:

I managed to not run into you tonight. But so HELP ME if you had been at my sister's concert, I would've KNOWN that my life just became the Truman Show or a really long and uninteresting episode of Punk'd.

Love and I told you I'd stay aways,
Anne

---

This post needs one of those billions of pictures I save but haven't posted. This one started my "save this picture for later" craze:

In my head the conversation goes something like this:

Millsey (in fake uber gay man lisp): Hey SPAAAA-AAAC. As our new Captain, you should know that its your job to tell me how good my booty looks in these pants. It's in the fine print, under the C. Soooo how's the boooty? Good enough for NBC?

Sissy: Ya, whatever you say, goalie man. I go play de hockeys now. Where my helmet? Is ok, I no need it.

Millsey: Hey equipment man, how's the view from down there? Huh? Huh? Nice, right?

Soupy: What's this? He's asking SISSY? My defensive partner? How could he?! Fuckin' stupid Ryan over there trying to act like he doesn't need me. I tell him his booty looks good all the time, even when he doesn't ask me to. I bet JARO doesn't take the time mid-game when he's holding the puck behind the net to tell him either. Psh, fuckin' stupid jerkface.

Patches: I miss the press box. These guys are fuckin' weird.

Crowd: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! YAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!! LET'S GO BUFF-A-LO!!

Mommy is too distraught to write

by Oscar

Hello, dearest friends, it is I, Oscar Preston Maloy, fearless mascot of this fine house, here to recap the latest news from our dear Buffalo Sabres.

My mommy, Anne, is far too distraught to write her thoughts on last night's debacle game. So I'll choose to point things out from my very low to the ground perspective.

1. Danny Pie-YAY scored 2 whole goals and one was short handed too.

2. Ryan Miller is apparently also a doctor in addition to being a goaltender, because when Paetsch went down, he went right over to him to administer life saving CPR. Fortunately it was not necessary, but it was good to know he was there just in case. Mommy and I love when teammates show real concern for each other.

3. I pooed in Georges Laraque's skates.

4. Even though we lost to them, Mommy still likes the Penguins, and I kind of look like a penguin.

5. Now Pommerdoodle will probably play defense which only makes me giggle and mew with glee.

6. Big Bear came back, earned a point and stood up for Toni Lydman when a Penguin was roughing him up. Yay Big Bear!

7. Mommy and Aunt MK continue their quest for Breakaway Berry-er to eat while we cheer the Pens to victory in the playoffs. I mean, while we cheer the Sabres into the playoffs.

8. It really is quite remarkable that after all this shoddy play and all these injuries to our defense that we're still in 9th place. That is truly mind boggling.

9. Lindy Meow has once again called out his top players for not stepping up. Things that have worked in the past:

• Benching Danny Pie-YAY, result before: Goal scoring bonanza, result now: Goal scoring bonanza (maybe its a bit premature to call this streak a bonanza, but it has been quite a while since he scored and he got 2 tonight and he's my favorite so don't fight me or I'll scratch you).

• Yelling at top players, before: Offensive BONANZA, result now: We'll see.

• Pulling Millsey, before: Let's not go there.

10. We got all 3 goals from 2 guys who are not top goal scorers, but we did not get any from the likes of Pommerdoodle, Roysie, Britney or Staffy.

11. Goose plays well with Yo-yo and Pommer.

12. Mommy bought me new foods that is tasty and I enjoys it.

13. I'm also going to poo in Eric Staal's skates.

14. Here's the Sabres' next choice from the prospects to play defense:

Meet your newest Sabre

His name is Templeton Banks and he's the leading shot blocker for the Mammalian Marauder's. Last week, they dominated the Buffalo Zoo Inter-Species Cup Championship against their top rival, the Reptile House Avengers in a 6-0 victory to take the series in 6 games.

He was my roommate in Prep School, nice guy, but don't ever forget to take a message when his girlfriend calls, he gets really mad and throws poo. I've now mentioned poo 3 times in this post.

There ya have my thoughts on the game. I'm going to go snooze on the back of the chair in the living room now. Good night!

Silver Lining, Ahoy!

by Anne

Ok, true to form, I will find the positives about tonight's game against the Penguins.

From the Pens' side of things:
(I don't ever think of an injury as being a good thing, they're just not a bad thing for the Sabres)

1. Marian Hossa is not playing tonight, hopes to return Sunday

2. Petr Sykora is out of the line up with a back injury, Maxime Talbot aggravated an ankle injury in their last game.

3. A recent deodorant shortage has left quite the funky odor around the City of Pittsburgh. The Sabres have taken precautions against this odoriferous outrage and are prepared. This unwelcome stink, however, should negatively impact the Penguins' on-ice performance tonight.

4. UPDATE: Sid the Kid is not playing tonight. Article.

From the Sabres' side of things:

1. Hank the Tank will be back tonight...is he really ready to play? Who cares.

2. Doof* and Sekera were the top pair in Rochester all season, steadily improving with each game they played together, they'll probably be back in tandem tonight.

3. Paetsch is young and foolish and thinks he can overcome whiplash to play tonight. Why is this a positive? Because Patches knows he's infinitely better on defense than Pommerdoodle and the team needs him.

4. Doof is from Pittsburgh, or, rather "Cranberry, PA" which is roughly the same distance from Pittsburgh as Angola is from Buffalo (woo, Patty) and clearly has some secretive plans to help the team psych out the opposition. He hasn't lived there since he was 15? Eh, I'm sure he and Staffy can come up with a wacky series of events to lock Sidney Crosby out of Mellon Arena and get Geno stuck in the drive-thru line at MickeyD's for 3 days.

5. Even though it hasn't helped all season, the Sabres have way more AnneLove than the Penguins ever could dream of having.

6. Spacek is healthy enough to leave his house and purchase over-priced (but undeniably tasty) panini at Panera.

A left leg award is to be given out.

I would give my left leg to take Jaroslav Spacek's food order. If for no other reason than to hear him try to say the word "panini".

I should make it clear that even if he comes through and blocks 87 shots tonight, there is no way Mike Weber is cracking the list of memorable call-ups. Sorry, Doof, I'm just not feeling as vulnerable these days.

*After reviewing his interview yesterday, Mike "Doof" Weber is actually an attractive young gent in a "I think you might try to kill me, but that's kind of hot." way. He, like many before him, appears to suffer from "Roster Photo Panic." More commonly known as "RPP." A disease in which, once seated in front of the camera, you instantly regret every photo that's ever been taken of you. That, coupled with the pressure of the fact that this will be the most widely viewed and reproduced photo of you for the next year, overcomes you and instead of making any facial expression, you simply stare, blind panic at full-tilt, at the camera, hoping some semblance of a smile is on your face, but ultimately fail (see: Stafford, Drew). Although, some still manage to take a humorous photo (see: Pominville, Jason and Campbell, Brian).

OMG THINGS ARE WORSE THAN I THOUGHT

by Anne

I love my Sabres insider text messages. They give me such gems as:

BREAKING NEWS:

Nathan Paetsch questionable; Jason Pominville would play defense in his absence.

and

BREAKING NEWS:

Mike Weber recalled from the Rochester Americans.

Looks like Doof gets the nod.

POMMERDOODLE on DEFENSE? Are Funky and Card that bad? WOW.

Yo, this shiz is CRAZY.

Our All-Star picks

By S(h)ara and Anne

(but typed by Anne)

Sabretooth's House is pleased to bring you the result of hours of debate and investigation on our own All-Star roster. We've scoured the Eastern Conference, plodded our way through the West. Examining roster photo after roster photo, delving deeper into our investigation so ascertain the most important questions of them all:

Which players would be selected on teams of All-Star Hottness?

S(h)ara and Anne began their tireless search to answer this question that has plagued both woman and man kind since the beginning of the 2007-2008 season. After hours of pouring over photos and searching out evidence to make our case, we feel we have put together 2 rosters that exude a level of sexiness and lovability that surpasses the rest of the players in the NHL.

Stats and skills? Psh, we disregard those here. True, some of these men have both stolen our hearts and some scoring titles along the way, but that is serendipity and nothing more. We've been forced to look away from favorites who are, shall we say, less than aesthetically pleasing in favor of the pure raw, animal sexiness of their teammates.

Here we are pleased to bring you the Starting Line-ups in the East and West teams of Hottness:


The Honor of Hottest Left Winger in the East goes to:

Mr. Chrisopher Higgins of the Montreal Canadiens

Chris Higgins teaches children about computers

Then shows off his badass tattoo and killer quads in the weight room

The honor of sexiest Center in the Eastern Conference goes to:

One Mr. Vincent Lecavalier of the Tampa Bay Lighting:

Enjoy your time on the Throne, King Vinny

Close your eyes, open your arms, and I'll give you biiiiiig hug

Filling out the line as Hottest Right Winger in the Eastern Conference is:

Patrick Eaves of the Ottawa Senators

Yes Patrick, you made the right choice in turning pro, that way you could be on this All-Star Roster

The quirky cuteness of this photo went a long way toward your selection

On to the blue liners.

We are VERY excited to announce that one of our own:

Mr. Nathan "Ol' Blue Eyes" Paestch was selected as one of our Defensemen:

Oh Patches, you're just so darn cute!

I mean, come on! Can you resist?

Boy even has a cute roster photo

Finally, covering the blue line with Mr. Paetsch is:

Mr. Ivan Baranka

What's that you say? He plays for Hartford? He's not in the NHL?"

That's right. 1 game still counts.

Don't fight it, just enjoy

Finally, the sexiest netminder in the East (and, in Anne's opinion, the entire NHL, nay the entire world) is:

Mr. Ricky DiPietro

Even this crappy cell phone style photo can't hide the sexy

You sign that long term contract, Ricky

Here's Ricky composing a handwritten sonnet for Anne, how sweet

Phew. That was quite the endeavor. We have to do some honorable mentions. Those who came this close, but one of those boys just beat them out.

We have:

Zach "Staffy's BFFL" Parise


Buffalo's favorite bird: Paul "Goose" Gaustad

There were others, but there is a plethora of hot forwards in the Eastern Conference.

Onto the West

The hottest Left Winger in the West was a contested battle, but in the end the winner is:

Former Buffalo Sabre: Taylor Pyatt, now of the Vancouver Canucks

Admire the sexy badassedness as TayPie beats the snot out of a Blackhawk

TayPie is economical and gives his teammates a ride home

I didn't crop this photo because I want everyone to see that that is TimmyHo with hair in the passenger seat.

Moving down the line. Hottest Center in the West is:

Mr. Joseph Thornton of the San Jose Sharks

This selection was heavily debated as it was finally established that just because Anne loves Ryan Getzlaf an inordinate amount and he's funny does not make him hotter than Joey and she was forced to concede.

Smile pretty, Thorns!

Thorns doesn't just listen, he LISTENS.

Can many men wear a possibly baby blue grey sweatshirt? Thorns can

Covering the Right Wing for the West is:

Martin Havlat of the Chicago Blackhawks
(One must look past his roster photo to fully appreciate)

Marty really likes the team's new jerseys

Even in the off-season, Marty sexes it up with his athleticism

And, one of our beloved Easterners is now a Westerner and makes this roster as a hot D-man:

Sheldon Souray of the Edmonton Oilers


The pink shirt, the bedroom eyes... le swoon


Supermodel? Soap Star? Sheldon Souray

His partner in defensive sexiness is:

Ryan Caldwell of the Phoenix Coyotes

(Ok, much like Ivan Baranka, Caldy actually plays in the AHL with Syracuse, but he's played 2 NHL games, twice as many as Baranka)


Hee! Look at the smile. He looks like Anne's friend Jack. That's probably why we think he's cute

Here's little Ryan when he was in college, giving a jersey to the commander in chief

And finally, between the pipes we have:

Thomas Greiss of the San Jose Sharks

He was even a shark in Germany! Fate
(Kölner Haie means Cologne Sharks)

German, Canadian, American - all that matters is if yous is hot

Honorable Mentions:

(Anne's personal favorite)
Ryan Getzlaf


Getzy carries the cup through London


Eric "Yes I used to be an Islander" Godard of the Calgary Flames

That's all folks. This took way too long. But Anne would give her left leg to see these teams play each other. S(h)ara would give a limb as well. Sigh.