Some ramblings on an off day....

Some general NHL ramblings while both our teams are enjoying some needed time off to rest injuries….and well, I’m bored.

- The Pittsburgh situation sucks, and there’s no other way to describe it. There is no other city in the US or Canada that will be able to support a team the way Pittsburgh has. Period. Not Kansas City, not Las Vegas (God help us if they go there), not Winnipeg, not Houston, not Portland. Although if they have to go SOMEWHERE, put the team in Canada where the fans will actually give a crap about them. It will be a sad day if and when the Penguins leave Pittsburgh, that much is certain. Even if they get the “Cleveland Browns deal” and are promised an expansion franchise with the Penguins name if the NHL ever decides to expand again, it still wouldn’t be right.

- Rick DiPietro earned 80,000 and change per save (all 56 of them) last night. Too bad he couldn’t stop one more. But he did play an excellent game in a playoff-like atmosphere. I bet it makes the Islanders wish they signed him long term. Oh wait…….

- I watched the Ryan Smyth farewell conference yesterday. By God, he’s the ugliest man in the NHL. A lot of other (read: more important) people have said this too, but things need to be done to curb this rent-a-player deal at the deadline. It’s a joke for a team to give up multiple players and picks for 2 months of a guy, and then see them sign long-term with their original team. See Doug Weight last year….

- Speaking of Weight, I wonder if he still doesn’t know who Jason Pominville is.

You know, the guy with 26 goals and 53 points (40 in even strength situations) and a +25 rating (that's 10th in the NHL) for the top team in the league.

Some playoff race-related notes….

- Is anyone scared that the Rangers or Boston will take the 8th spot in the East with all their games in hand on Montreal and Carolina? (Okay, other than CG…) The Sabres have owned New York and Boston since the lockout, and I believe the Sabres are 4-0-0 against NYR and 4-1-2 against Boston this year after going 7-1 last year. Yeah, I’m not worried.

- Has anyone noticed Florida suddenly is 7-1-2 in their last 10 games and are only SIX points out of a spot themselves?? In the immortal words of Vince Lombardi, “What the hell is going on out there??”

- According to James Mirtle, the Sabres have already clinched a playoff spot…. http://mirtle.blogspot.com/2007/02/playoff-push-95-points-or-bust.html#comments

Sheldon Souray is an idiot....

And here's photographic proof. No Sheldon, it's not okay to two-hand someone while he's on an empty-net breakaway. I'm so glad I found this picture.

Habs at Sabres Postgame

Okay, normally I'm going to plan on writing more than this, but with the live blog, I think that's pretty much sufficient. The Cliff Notes version....

-The Sabres won 8-5. 7 goals on 29 shots against David Aebischer.
-Michael Ryan scored his first two NHL goals, and Thomas Vanek has two as well. Derek Roy had 4 points (1+3), and Broken Jochen had 0+3.
-Tomas Plekanec had 2+1 for the Habs.
-Montreal had three power play goals, and Buffalo scored their first power play goal of the season against Montreal (they were 0 for 33 beforehand)
-Wild bounces, bad giveaways, momentum shifts abound, but Montreal never tied the game, the closest they came was one goal.
-Sheldon Souray is a douchebag for slashing Thomas Vanek on that breakaway. Completely uncalled for.

Sabres back at it tomorrow at the ACC in Toronto, and I'll be back at it too. (No live blog though, sorry.)

Habs at Sabres Live Blog Extravaganza!!!

So, this will be my first attempt at a live blog. I'll be posting updates for a while, and then I'll be ready to go at 8pm.

7:08pm - Hank Tallinder will play tonight, and it looks like Abby in net for the Habs. And look at this beauty of a man.....thank you, Chris Neil.


7:27pm - Apparently Georges Laraque just took out Brind'Amour.....CG12 not pleased.

7:38pm - from Kovalev Warrior @ HF: Officially Abby in the nets, Perezhogin will also not play.

7:58pm - I turn on my TV and Versus is on. They're showing fishing. *shakes head*

8:01pm - Zubaz laces 'em up. I've wanted a good Sabre to wear #15 for a long time. Hopefully he fits the bill.

8:03pm - Zubaz interview with Rob Ray......he doesn't look very intelligent on camera. And next to Ray, that's pretty hard to do. He'll be starting the game between Mair and Mike Ryan.

8:08pm - Puck drop. Aebischer and Miller.

1st Period

19:33 - Vanek robbed by Aebischer after a bad turnover, Habs come right back and Miller makes a big save.

19:00 - Miller makes a couple HUGE saves!!! Breakaway pass to Hecht misses....wow.

18:36 - SCORE! Pominville with an OUTSTANDING play and gets it to Big Tree Kalinin's stick for the goal! 1-0 Buffalo!

18:20 - SCORE AGAIN!! Michael Ryan with his first NHL goal!! Aebischer caught hanging outside the net, Mair passes to Ryan who has the open net! 2-0!

17:23 - Stafford!!! But no goal....he whacks it in with his hand.

17:03 - Vanek with a 2 on 0 break, and no goal. What does this guy have to do to score a goal? Canadiens take a timeout.....

16:28 - Kovalev to the box for holding up Roy.

15:05 - Paestch has a real cannon from the point on the power play. It's a nice hard, low shot. That's why we keep him around.

12:51 - Bonk takes a shot and goes and roughs up Miller. If we ever have a fish, we're naming it Bonk. CG used to have one named Bonk because all it did was run into the glass and float. Much like the real Bonk.

11:08 - Holy crap, Kaleta. Please don't ever change your shit disturbing ways.

8:51 - Vanek with a nice dipsy-doodle move, draws the call on Dandenault. Briere still seems a little.....disoriented out there. He's not being Briere... But it's still good enough for me.

- The clock's not working. I'll do my best to update with time, but the PP is over. Pretty uneventful.

5:30 - Sabres take a penalty in what seems to be the first sustained Montreal pressure in the Buffalo zone. Still no clock, but RJ says 5 and a half to play, so that's what I'm going with.

4:45ish - .......and Aebischer tries to catch Buffalo in a change and ices the puck.

- Sabres kill the power play, but not before a few solid chances, especially by Kovalev.

1:12 (clock working again)- A bit of end to end action the last couple of minutes, Bouillon should have had a penalty in the Montreal zone. Roysie a little upset.

Intermission - Solid first period for Buffalo. This could have been 4-0 or 5-0 though, if Vanek would have finished and/or Stafford getting the unlucky bounce off his glove and into the net. Drury interview with Sylvester. He doesn't look half as bad as he does in that picture. 9 shots for each team in the first, Sabres 0/31 on the power play this season against the Habs.

2nd Period

19:31 - Markov to the box for tripping, Sabres on the power play.

17:18 - Thomas Vanek on the tip in on the Teppo shot!!! Maybe....we'll wait for the annoucement. Teppo gets it!

13:56 - Kaleta doing his job again, mixing it up with Ryder in the corner. Kaleta ends up in the box.

12:54 - 5 on 3 Habs........nevermind. Ryder scores, Kaleta out of the box, Lydman in. 3-1 Sabres.

12:26 - MICHAEL RYAN SHORTHANDED!!!! 4-1 Buffalo!! With a great pass from Broken Jochen!!!

10:57 - Kostitsyn to Bonk......4-2 Sabres. Another power play goal.

10:34 - What the hell??? Streit..... 4-3 Habs.

9:36 - Kovalev with an excellent chance, puck behind Miller, but it doesn't go in.

5:57 - (sorry for the lack of updates, nothing really of note) Kaleta gets major-league slashed in front of the net, no call. Hey refs, great of you to put away the whistles. Maybe not, Kaleta and Lapierre to the box.

4:47 - Wow. Vanek and Roy robbed on a 2-on-1. Roy gets grabbed and pulled down by Dandenault and the Sabres have a 4 on 3 power play.

3:22 - Aebischer robs Hecht (actually more like the goalpost), after making a bone-headed play behind the net.

2:45 - DEREK ROY with the cannon wrist shot!! That's a power play goal!!!!! 5-3 Buffalo!!!

2:35 - ...........and 5-4 Buffalo. Plekanec on a 2-on-1. What the hell is going on out there???

1:28 - Power play Buffalo. Some Canadien for holding, I missed it.

End of 2. Bartender, Jobu needs a refill!

Intermission - Wow. Just saw the Janssen/Kaberle hit. Enjoy your upcoming vacation, Cam.

3rd Period

Jim Lorentz just said it was 2-0 Buffalo. Wrong period, buddy.

18:41 - Lydman with an obvious tripping call. PP Habs. They're 2 for 3 so far tonight.

16:03 - Kalinin tripped up by Johnson in the Buffalo zone after a successful PK. Penalty, Sabres still 0 for the season against Montreal on the PP.

13:33 - THOMAS VANEK ON THE WRAPAROUND!!!! 6-4 BUFFALO ON THE DELAYED CALL!!!!

12:22 - Campbell for interference right off the faceoff.

11:04 - Plekanec again off the lucky bounce off the boards behind the net. 3 power play goals for Montreal tonight....... 6-5 Buffalo.

10:24 - DREW STAFFORD!!! On the great play by Campbell!! 7-5 BUFFALO!!! Will someone stop a shot????? Please??

7:45 - I hate Jim Kelly.

3:20 - Montreal applying good pressure. Probably the desperation setting in.

1:15 - I bet Montreal will use their timeout here..........oh wait.

:25 - Vanek with the empty netter while Sheldon "Oh crap, I didn't score on the power play tonight" Souray gives him two-handed slashes on the arms. What a douchebag.

8-5 Sabres final. I have new respect for all live-bloggers out there. This was tiring trying to keep up AND watch the game. I'll have a post-game report later.

Game Day Preview: Habs at Sabres 3/2/07

Montreal (33-27-6, 72 points, 3rd NE, 8th East)
@
Buffalo (42-16-5, 89 points, 1st NE, 1st East)

Friday, March 2, 2007
8:00pm
HSBC Arena in Buffalo

This is the 7th meeting in the season series, with Buffalo leading, 3-2-1.

Last meeting: January 20th, Montreal won 4-3.



Ahhhh. The Sabres lineup finally gets a reinforcement for tonight's game with the recently acquired Dainius Zubrus from Washington. We'll definitely need him to rejoin the forward ranks, as it is not known as of this posting if Danny Briere will return from the flu bug that kept him in the hotel room in Toronto Tuesday night. There's even worse news on the flu front, as apparently Hank the Tank Tallinder also caught wind of the ailment. It's not known yet whether he'll be able to go. One player who still will not be able to go is Chris Drury. While he is now skating on his own, he has been ruled out of this weekend's games while he recovers from a concussion resulting from a Chris Neil cheap shot last week.

Other than that, the injury report remains the same. No Drury, Afinogenov, Paille, Kotalik, Spacek, Gaustad, and Connolly.

That means three things:
1) More ice time for the kids. Drew Stafford will hopefully never go back to Rochester, because he's quickly realizing his NHL potential. Pat Kaleta will keep being the shit disturber that he is, Clarke "The General" MacArthur will keep providing quality ice time, and Michael Ryan will hopefully just not get in the way. Mark Mancari was sent back to the Amerks yesterday with the acquisition of Zubrus.
2) Lots and lots of ice time for Zubrus. He's used to it, playing 19 minutes a game with Alex Ovechkin, and Lindy Ruff's already stated that he's going to be playing in all game situations. So expect him to accrue about that much ice time in a Sabres jersey. He'll be wearing #15.
3) Praying that the flu bug doesn't hit Ryan Miller.


Montreal has taken a harpooning in the media (big surprise) because of their lack of trade deadline activity. Mainly, not trading away their biggest assets, including Sheldon "One Trick Pony" Souray. They've been hampered by the loss of CG's favorite goalie, Cristobal HU-ET (really, she's got a Huet t-shirt), and have dropped to 8th place in the East, one point ahead of Carolina. If Montreal does not make the playoffs, I would not want to be in that city while it happens. Sorry guys.

Montreal has also been hit with the flu bug, with Chris Higgins, Saku Koivu and Sergei Samsonov the biggest casualties. They're one team that I can actually feel bad for between the injuries and the illnesses. Okay, maybe not....

I'd fully expect Ryan Miller and Jaroslav Halak between the pipes tonight, although it's a possibility that David Aebischer will be in net for Montreal. I'll try to provide updates as they happen, and I'll be around to possibly live-blog this game. I've always wanted to try that.

So we'll have about a 8:10 start at HSBC tomorrow night. Should be a good game.

(Update 3/2, 10:22am: Switched Halak and Aebischer)