Hey look! Other hockey!

by Anne

I don't like whining, I don't like bitching. Therefore, when the Sabres lost and that's all I could think to write, I opted to not write at all.

I won't pretend to have any solutions or suggestions for the Sabres moving forward but I'm just sick of nothing. ever. changing. We've been following the same system(barf) in management and on the ice for several years and the product isn't working.

I think Lindy Ruff is a nice guy but I question his effectiveness in this post-lockout, post-Chris Drury era.  Change for the sake of change isn't always grand but at least it will be something different. I'm fairly confident I've written something like this before, but doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the very definition of insanity.

***************

Moving on. Now that the first round is over, the Team USA roster for the World Championships will be expanded upon today. There was no one worth mentioning on the first list and I had sincerely hoped to be busy watching the Sabres or Kings in the 2nd round instead of the Worlds. Alas.

To my joy and delight, both Jack Johnson and Matt Greene will be playing for Team USA in Germany. Andy Greene will also be playing for Team USA. I'm not sure, but considering the creativity of most hockey players, I'm guessing they both go by "Greener." Hilarity will undoubtedly ensue, as they are also both defensemen. Perchance they will even be paired together. I also enjoy that Kevin Allen referred to them as "The Greenes" in his blog post. How presh.

Tim Kennedy will play as well, yay! Nick Foligno will allow me a brief respite to like him once again. I am utterly terrified by our goaltending situation. Right now it stands as Scott Clemmensen and Ben Bishop. Good ol' Bish. He'll definitely make things happen... right? Really? Was Robert Esche not available? Conkblock? Fine. World Championship teams in Olympic years are wicked lame.

Round 2 of the playoffs start today and the Worlds start in a week. 

Sigh. I think I'm going to check out of the second round and wait until the Conference finals to give a crap about the NHL this season. 

It's so much easier to like the playoffs without your team if your team was never in the playoffs to begin with.

Game night: Sens, gross.

by Anne

We should never take joy in the downfall of our opponents, however, I hate Jason Spezza so I'm ok with the happywarmfuzzies I feel hearing that he has a knee injury. If Spezza's injury was career or season threatening, I wouldn't feel such glee, but as it will sideline him for a few weeks, I feel the extra joy the holiday season brings.

Too bad the Senators and their fans don't give a crap about the Sabres. We don't have any really good rivals, and the bad blood from 2007 and 2006 has been mostly nullified by the fact that the Sabres and Senators combined for a total number of playoff wins of absolutely NADA in 2008 and 2009.

The Senators, no matter how bad they are, always have the Sabres figured out, and tonight will prove no exception, sadly. That article linked above shows that since 05-06 the Senators are 21-6-4 against the Sabres. WHAT? THAT IS COMPLETELY INSANE.

Alfie is all alone now that Dany Heatley is doing my fantasy team lots of favors in San Jose and Spezza will miss two months. Muahahaha.

I was about to write about how now that I said that, our big juggernaut-y offensive threat would get hurt but, we don't have one of those. Pat Kaleta? Ummm, maybe not.

Anyway, there isn't even any Chris Neil for Adam Mair to fight with in this, his 500th NHL game. Aw, Mairsy! How cute. I'm so proud.

Of course I want them to win but even last year when the Senators were flailing about in the bottom of the conference they managed to find ways to beat us. Now that they've graduated to "mediocre" and we're treading a very thin line between "bad-ass eliteness" and "what happened? things were going so well!" I don't forsee any change in the trends.

The last time we played the Sens I drunkenly ranted about how much I hated the Senators of days gone by, but with the exception of Neil, Spezza and Alfredsson, all of the Senators I hated SO. MUCH. back in 2006 and 2007 are gone. Heatley, Emery, Chara, Vermette, Redden, etc. All of those players have moved on to other teams, some I still hate (Emery, Redden) but some I'm ok with like Vermette and Heatley (because he's keeping my fantasy team afloat). At least the Sens did us a solid when they picked up Ruutu. Phew, I needed to fuel the hatred some more. I don't want to hate Nick Foligno, in fact, I can't hate Nick Foligno, I watched three interviews with him over the last few weeks and he mentioned the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in two of them. How can you hate that? Buffalo boy who looks like a weasel and loves the Ninja Turtles. I of course mean the cutest weasel around, ummm, right? Marcus may be worse at hockey but he's totally cuter.

I predict a Sens victory, 3-2. Goals by: Fisher, Alfredsson, Foligno, Kaleta and MacArthur.

USA Advances!

by Anne

For the first time since 2004, Team USA advances past the quarterfinals!!

Hooray!

I was doing my awesome Anne Happy Dance which I wish I could demonstrate on here so you could all do it. It involves a lot of hip shaking and and "raising the roof" style arm movements accompanied by a few well timed "aw yeah"s for good measure.

So I'm in my kitchen happy dancing away, scaring the cat and I have the following thought: "Woo! Semifinals! So who do we have to pl- oh. Damn." We have to play Russia. Friggin' A. Well it was nice to make it to the Semis.

During the game, Kyle Okposo missed on a wraparound attempt that he probably should've been able to stuff in and in the replay we were inadvertently treated to a super slo-mo version of Kyle saying "Eff me." It was pretty nice.

YO. What the hell. I'm looking for pictures while I'm typing this and the gallery is five pages long. Normally its three. Maybe its because it was Finland's final game? Whatevs.

Unlike the other games, I actually got to watch this one. Universalsports.com has a really nice high-quality streaming video of the games (its free). I thoroughly enjoy watching my team rather than just looking at a continually refreshing boxscore.

Because I was actually watching with my own to eyes, I got to see the Sabres fans in attendance:

They were moving way too much and so this picture quality is not so great.


Gerbe-Derby getting international love!

The game was definitely a seesaw. The first period was all Finland as the USA took a slew of penalties and played a lot of the 2nd half of the period short-handed. Finland fired 20 shots on Robert Esche in the first frame but Esche stood tall in net and kept his team in it. The Finns didn't solve Robbie until the first minute of the second at the end of a penalty that had been taken in the last minute of the first.

It looked like the Finns were ready to build on their lead until they took a penalty. Finally, Team USA got their heads together and managed to turn the game in their favor. The Finns took the next five penalties and even though they only scored on one of them, the rest of the game was all USA. All five goals were scored in the 2nd period and the USA won 3-2, mostly thanks to the play of Robert Esche.

Even the announcers were like "He's been in RUSSIA for the last two years. Can you BELIEVE it?" I mean he's not the greatest goaltender in the world but I think he'd be a good back-up. HINT. HINT. He's only 31. I'm not sayin'... I'm just sayin'.

Being in the Semifinals means if the USA wins (which they won't) they will play for Gold/Silver. If they lose, they will play for Bronze. Either way, they have a shot at a medal for the first time in many years. I honestly didn't expect this team to do better than last year's team but I was wrong, obviously.

Now for some photography:

Nick Foligno pushes Senator teammate Jarkko Ruutu to the ice
I like that Foligno kid, he's a good egg.
Too bad he's a Senator.
But HA, Ruutu


Dustin Brown scored the USA's first goal on a 5 on 3 after some beautifully crisp passing from his teammates
Hainsey shot it from the blue line, cross-ice to Suter just above the dot, to Brownie who was, well where he is in the picture.
It would seem this is a good way to score on Pekka Rinne, so TJ Oshie did the same thing on a 3-on-1 rush a bit later:


Nice.


Never fear, Little Foot's intense eyebrows showed up for the game


Let's discuss a few things.
1. How tiny is Jason Blake?
2. How tall are those boards?
3. Was Antti Miettinen hit by a sniper?
4. Why is he using his Minnesota Wild gloves? Is he just that particular? Would team Finland not foot the bill?
5. Could Team USA look less impressed by this game? Little Foot looks about ready to nod off, Nick Foligno looks like he's yawning and Joe Pavelski... well, he always looks like that.

Team USA takes on Russia Friday at 10:15 am EST.