An Effortless Wrap-Up for an Effortless Game

So...really great game last night, boys.


(This may or may not have been me)

- It was such a solid effort, that I fell asleep during the 3rd period. That’s right, ASLEEP! Which is pretty much the way you guys played last night. You know what? I don’t even blame Colorado trapping for a boring game (I’ll save that for this weekend when we play Minnesota and Jersey), even though it was pointed out on the telecast that it was an obvious trap.

- But maybe I shouldn’t complain. The AHL’ers played like AHL’ers (all of them), and Teppo played like he really is (old). This has probably been a few games coming.

- It wasn’t all bad though, the first ten minutes were solid, and then Jochen Hecht turned into the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man after he tried to defend Briere. After that, it was all downhill. The Sabres got scared once the Avalanche started playing them physically, and their game went south. They skated around wondering what this newfangled “trap” was, and mailed the game in.

- Vanek, Roy, and Stafford? That line played last night?? Completely honest, I did not even hear Vanek’s name until late in the second period. I hadn’t noticed that he was even dressed and playing before then.

- I couldn’t even be happy about Sakic scoring the game-winning goal…they took it away from him and gave it to Wolski!

- The Stastny family has been killing Buffalo for the last 25 years. The tradition continues…

- Two points wasted, plain and simple. I know a team can’t give 110% effort every night, but they can at least try, damnit! That being said, we still only lost by one goal. But now we have two weekend snoozefests, of which Ty Conklin will be playing one of them. Give Minnesota or Jersey the two points now and save me 2 ½ hours of boredom. I might live blog one of them just to keep me awake.

Gamenight: Avs @ Sabres 3/7/07

Colorado (33-29-5, 71 points, 4th NW, 9th West)
@
Buffalo (44-16-5, 93 points, 1st NE, 1st East)

Wednesday, March 7th, 2007
7:00pm
HSBC Arena

Season Series: Of course, there isn’t one. But the Sabres have won three straight meetings with the Avalanche, and six of the last eight games in the series. Their last meeting was Dec 4, 2005, a 6-4 Sabres victory. Marty Biron was the winning goalie that night.

The world famous Divealanche circus comes to town tonight. You know what that means???



That’s right. My favorite NHL player of all time is in the building tonight. I’ll probably spend more time watching him than my own team. Sakic is still the heart and soul of that franchise, which means he’ll probably be traded soon. Other than that, there’s not much to worry about on Colorado. They are on a 3 game winning streak, but still 8 points out of the final playoff spot in the West even after beating Boston last night on the strength of a Peter BOO-DIE shutout. Paul Stastny is on a 16-game point streak, tying the rookie franchise record set by his own father Peter, and has 63 points on the season.

More importantly for the Sabres, we get former Av Chris Drury back tonight after missing 4 games due to a concussion. Drury skated at practice Tuesday on a line with fellow New England native Mike Ryan and Dainius Zubrus. The streaking Amerks….sorry, Sabres….have been led recently by Drew Stafford, who has 12 points in the last 7 games. I’m quickly growing quite the affinity for this guy, and he may be next on the jersey list.

I’m praying that Ryan Miller will be between the pipes tonight, and after last night, I’d expect Budai in there too. I’m sure that Conklin (ugh) will get a start this weekend when the Sabres play the trap-a-licious Wild and Devils on consecutive nights. Looks like I’ll be able to catch up on some sleep.

The puck drops at 7:10pm.

Update 3:08pm - Fixed Stastny's streak. I had forgotten about last night for some silly reason.