Shutdown Pair

Tag: Buffalo

  • We Hate Boston, But WHY?

    We Hate Boston, But WHY?

    So, we know who we’re playing in the playoffs…

    Bring me the still-beating heart of the Boston Bruins, Sabres.

    — TheTickMS (@thetickms.bsky.social) 2026-04-15T03:54:18.728Z

    …and the day (Sunday!) at the time of me writing this we still didn’t know when it starts. Never change, NHL. Anyway, when you’ve been a fan as long as I have (even with a lapse in there), you have reason to dislike almost every team in your conference. And division rivals? FORGET ABOUT IT, we fucking hate those guys. If you’re new to your fandom (and we welcome you!), you might not know WHY we hate the Boston Bruins. So here’s a few reasons. Let me know in the comments/on Bsky which ones I forgot because I’m old.

    1. Milan Lucic runs Ryan Miller

    For those of us watching since the 05-06 season, this incident is widely considered a massive turning point in the Sabres franchise. The failure to stand up for Ryan Miller as a group got the team labeled soft (rightly or wrongly) and affected personnel decisions for years to come.

    If you’ve never seen this chart before (reddit source), it shows the cumulative games above .500 for Buffalo. As you can see, the high point, the spot where the Sabres had been the furthest over .500 in franchise history…was one day before that Bruins game.

    2. Boychuk slashes Vanek

    Johnny Boychuk delivers a slash to Vanek’s knees, causing him to fall and smash into the boards. Buffalo’s leading scorer missed several games, only able to return for the last in the series.

    3. Brad Marchand

    He’s in Florida now, but from 2010 to 2025, Boston employed this grimy little rat bastard. Nearly 30% of his colleagues voted him the dirtiest player in the league.

    I assure you, this is only the *first* Marchand hit compilation I found, there are many more. You’ll note that he loves to go for knees (and nut shots). Dirtbag.

    Listen, no matter what happens, the Buffalo Sabres are BACK in a real way. Let’s enjoy it (and loudly boo every Bruin who even LOOKS at UPL).

  • The Vibes are GOOD

    The Vibes are GOOD

    Okay, so last night’s game ended GREAT (5-0!) despite getting heavily outshot in the first two periods. Colten Ellis stood on his head, his back, his elbow, and every other part for his first career shutout while the Sabres offense woke up for 4 goals in the third period.

    But honestly? WHO CARES IT WAS SO MUCH FUCKING FUN! The crowd was rocking, singing along with songs, chanting at the terrible officiating (some things never change), and booing Columbus whenever possible.

    It wasn’t perfect as I felt like Buffalo wasn’t being physical, and had a little bit of their previous passing problem, but they figured it out in the third. Peyton Krebs opened the scoring in the first, and the lights-out play by Ellis kept that as the winner. Josh Doan scored twice, including an amazing individual effort where he stole the puck right off the stick of Charlie Coyle and fired it home. Jack Quinn scores the next one on a 4 on 2 breakaway, and Doan gets his second moments later on a beauty of a feed by Hobbit/Vampire Zach Benson (seriously, look at any picture of him). Dahlin finished things off with a 200 foot empty net goal.

    Buffalo now sits at 106 points, tops in the Eastern Conference. They play in Chicago Monday, and the final *regular season* game of the season if Wednesday at home against the Dallas Stars. What a ride the past few months have been.

  • Backing In Is Still In

    Backing In Is Still In

    This is the required vibe for the rest of the regular season:

    Tonight’s game may not have gone well (6-2 loss, Lyon yanked after 3 goals on 5 shots), but you know what? It doesn’t matter. The Buffalo Sabres will be back in the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time in 14 years. The pic at the top of the post is from a practice/scrimmage the first year of the drought. We had no idea what was coming. “Suffering“, the high expectations of Eichel, and his ultimate failure here, Lindy’s first firing, and so much more. This is what my kids looked like back then:

    Now my son’s an adult with a pickup truck, the middle one’s graduating high school, and the youngest is crushing dance competitions. I’d do the same comparison for me but no one wants to see this hairline.

    It’s okay to be grumpy with the performance on the day they clinched but things don’t always go the way they do in the movies. Take a deep breath and enjoy the thought of playoff hockey. The 05/06 team had a late season stretch of 6 straight losses before ending the season on a high note. Buffalo hadn’t lost back to back games in regulation since December. The ending hasn’t been written yet; let it happen. And if it doesn’t go our way, know that it doesn’t have to go back to the way it was. They can be good again next year!

    (maybe Lindy could bench Logan Stanley though. just a thought)

  • Sabres Survive Islanders

    Sabres Survive Islanders

    The Islanders score a late goal to pull within one after giving up an empty-netter, but don’t have enough to beat the Sabres in regulation. Buffalo gets goals from Jack Quinn, Tage Thompson, Peyton Krebs (pictured) and a 198 footer from Bowen Byram into the empty net. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made some dynamite saves, and one of the Islander goals came on a bad angle shot that went in off of Owen Power.

    One worrying injury as Sam Carrick left the game after a fight with Anders Lee. Carrick was thrown down to the ice and immediately clutched his arm/shoulder. He was stepping up to get some payback on Lee after the Islander knocked Norris into the boards, but may have paid the price. Hopefully he’s okay, and Buffalo does have the depth if he’s out for a bit.

    It wasn’t 100% back to form but I felt like this was a much better game from the Sabres. They were right on the Isles forwards in the defensive zone and were constant pests on the forecheck. They didn’t make a *ton* of mistakes playing the puck, which was the issue during the losses they had recently. Even when it was tied, I never thought they’d lose.

    One. Hundred. Points. Hell yeah. Buffalo’s back in action Thursday night in Ottawa taking on the Senators.

  • Handling Disappointment

    Handling Disappointment

    So, your favorite team lost. And just after you really got into them (or back in). How rude! It can be hugely frustrating to watch the Sabres make a bunch of mistakes and lose, so how do you put up with it for 80+ games? As someone who in part stepped away from fandom spaces because I couldn’t handle how mad it made me, I have some tips.

    1. Find the good – In even the worst-played game, some fun stuff happens. For example, UPL had some great saves. Maybe the sight of Zach Benson annoying the shit out of some Bruin twice his size makes you chuckle.
    2. Figure out why your coach loves a guy – “Man, why is this guy playing over X?” We’ve all had that thought about some player on our teams. See if you can figure out what Lindy sees in him. Maybe he wants a bigger guy to hit/absorb hits. Or he needs someone he can trust to get out of the zone (heaven knows the Sabres could’ve used better passing last night).
    3. Learn something new – Have you ever really watched line changes? Or faceoffs? What “job” does a certain player have on the power play or the kill? It can be interesting to pay attention to one specific area you don’t often think about.

    Years ago, watching a terrible loss or a lackluster effort would’ve driven me mad. I’ve managed to work on that part of myself, and have learned to enjoy the good parts of sports and shake my head and laugh. After all…

    Also, if you need a feel-good moment, here’s video of Sabres fans welcoming Rasmus Dahlin’s fiancée back to Buffalo. Carolina Matovac nearly died while on vacation last summer in France, and ended up having to get a heart transplant. She was finally able to return here this week.

    ESPN has the full story, but please note that it’s pretty harrowing, and does involve the loss of their unborn child.

    Buffalo returns to action tomorrow night against the Detroit Red Wings.

  • On Bandwagons

    On Bandwagons

    I know, I know. It’s been a minute since a blog with this name existed. How’s your family? A whole heck of a lot has happened around Buffalo sports since I last regularly updated the ol’ sports blog. The Bills are Super Bowl contenders with a generational talent at QB. It’s not all great (we’re still talking about questionable ownership decisions around coaches and GMs) but they are nationally relevant. Ask the version of me writing here back in 2013 whether I thought the Bills would be able to do that (well into a seventeen year playoff drought).

    The Buffalo Sabres have gone out of their way to try and match that level of suffering. After firing Lindy Ruff, there was a revolving door of odd choices and coaching retreads (Ted Nolan again, really? Dan Bylsma? Who the fuck is Ralph Krueger?) and somehow they landed back on Lindy. Their playoff drought sits at 14 seasons (18 since they won a round) and the beginning of this season seemed like more of the same. The Sabres were 11-14-4 after a December 8th loss in Calgary, and despite winning a few games at the end of that road trip, the vibes were still bad enough that the GM was canned.

    I ended up with tickets to the game (thanks Turkeys for Tickets!) after they got back and went with my daughter. We had an absolute blast and that experience got me paying attention to the Sabres again. Buffalo ended up going on a 10 game win streak, and have only lost back to back games twice in the months since.

    That brings us back around to the concept of a bandwagon. Both the Bills and now the Sabres are attracting attention and with that, massive numbers of new and returning fans. There’s an inclination with some people to try and gatekeep, to say “I’ve been here the whole time why haven’t you” but we have to try and push that down. Sports is supposed to be fun, and it’s more fun with more people! Remember parties in the plaza? Packing the building for an open practice? Meeting the team plane at 3am? Why would you want to keep people from that?? Greg Bauch says it well:

    Yes. Everyone is welcome. I don't care if the earth tips on its axis from the bandwagon overflow, everyone's welcome. I will haul you up by the cuffs of your jacket to make sure you're safely aboard. If someone makes you feel less than amazing for liking what the Sabres are doing, they're dumb.

    — Greg Bauch (@gregbauch.bsky.social) 2026-03-21T22:57:36.487Z

    We’re about to experience what the Bills and the Bills Mafia experienced back in 2017 – an end to a massive playoff drought. And hopefully like the Bills, the Sabres can carry this forward to many years of relevance. I’d like to end with a line in the post where I talked about bandwagon fans before: “We can’t control the team on the ice or field, or what the media writes, but we are in charge of ourselves.  Be happy.  Have fun.”

    Go Sabres.

  • Welcome to Pominville! Again!

    I know, I know, Marco Scandella is the important part of this deal.  The Sabres needed to upgrade their defense, and this is a solid step in that direction.  BUT don’t discount the positive emotions that seeing Pominville back in town will have.

    What a great time to be a fan, right?  I happened to go to one of Pommer’s first games in that magical 2005-2006 season, and ended up waiting in line behind Jason’s mom.  She had a huge bundle of Pominville sweaters, and she asked the cashier something like “the player’s family gets a discount, right?”.  It was fun being there at the beginning of it all.

    So yeah, he may no longer be a 30 goal guy, but for a little while, Buffalo sports fans were thinking about something cool.  I’m all for it.

  • Random Sabres Stats

    Thinking about Leafs/Sabres tonight, I decided to check on some statistics at random.  Here are the results.  This first section is for 5v5:

    • Nicolas Deslauriers is the worst CF% player in the NHL who has played more than 20 games.  Shawn Thornton is the only player worse than him who is at all close in time on ice.
    • Ryan O’Reilly is the best Sabre for CF% at 53.68%, which is 88th for players who have played more than 20 games.  That may not sound great, but that’s right were Evgeni Malkin is.  Main difference is Malkin has a few teammates (some guy named Crosby for one) a bit higher up the list.
    • Johan Larsson and Brian Gionta start in the D zone the most (both over 40%), while Jack Eichel leads the way for Buffalo with starts in the offensive zone, followed by Matt Moulson and Sam Reinhart.
    • 52 goalies have played at least 10 games so far, with both Anders Nilsson and Robin Lehner in the top 12 in save percentage.  However, the top 5 all have 2.00 GAA or lower, while both Sabres goalies are closer to 2.50.

    Now 5v4:

    • Kyle Okposo, Rasmus Ristolainen, Ryan O’Reilly, Matt Moulson, and Sam Reinhart are your Sabres with double digit power play points.
    • Moulson (7) and Okposo (6) lead Buffalo in PP goals, though Eichel is at 5 in half of Okposo’s power play time.
    • Ryan O’Reilly wins 63% of his power play faceoffs.  He’s won more power play faceoffs alone than the rest of the team combined (78 for ROR, 77 for everyone else).  It’s good to have a role.

    And 4v5:

    • Giving up the body – Josh Gorges has blocked 21 shots on the penalty kill, 5 more than the next Sabre.
    • Buffalo has a lone short-handed goal.  Two teams have none, and all the rest have more.  The Flames have 7.
    • This might have something to do with that last one – the Sabres have been short-handed 129 times, the Flames?  170.

    I’m not a stat-head, but these are things that jumped out at me as I clicked around at NHL.com and Puckalytics.  What else would you like to see?

  • Positive Forward Momentum

    The difficulty with being a Buffalo sports fan, is knowing when to be excited.  And then when you DO get excited, something happens at the worst time to dampen your enthusiasm (Eichel gets injured, or your favorite football player mows down a pedestrian, or the Bills get put in a position to have their destiny in their hands and then eff it up).  BUT, right now, it feels like a good time to flex those positive feelings about the Buffalo Sabres.

    Since Eichel has returned from his injury, Buffalo has been building some momentum.  They are 5-3-2 in the last 10, goals are actually being scored, and they are edging slowly up the standings.  Perhaps the best part is the fact that they’ve won some games at home, which is a nice change from last season.  That the Sabres can be 4 points away from a playoff spot while scoring the least number of goals in the Eastern conference is a great sign for their chances to actually make the playoffs.  If they can stay top 10 in the league in goals allowed and keep improving in goal scoring (and a healthy Jack/ROR/Ennis will help with this), we should be in the race at the end of the year and not wondering whether or not we tanked hard enough.

    Is there a chance things could still go wrong?  Sure, this is Buffalo.  There’s always another level of suck possible.  The Sabres, at least seem less likely to go there than in the past few years, and that’s worth celebrating.

  • My only thought for last night

    It sucks for Matt Moulson that because of the ending, nobody’s talking about him scoring twice.