Struggling
3/17/2010 | Posted by
Devin
As you can see by the lack of content lately, the Sabres aren't the only ones struggling. I have to admit, I never thought I would suffer from this much writer's block when it came to writing about my two favorite teams. I partially blame the NFL offseason and I partially blame the Sabres for their lackluster effort lately.
However, the Bills actually decided to jump into the free agency mix yesterday. Both Andra Davis and Dwan Edwards made a visit to One Bills Drive and both came to an agreement with Buffalo yesterday. I'm rather excited for both signings because both players should play a significant role on defense. Plus it showed me that Buddy Nix wasn't sleeping in his office and actually has a plan in place to make the Bills better…I hope. For now, it's a start. We'll have more on the Bills as draft time comes closer, including our second annual mock draft.
Now, let's discuss the Sabres, who dropped yet another game against an inferior Atlanta team on the road. Let me just say this about the Thrashers, I hate them. I hate that my local OHL team draws more of a crowd. I hate their blue uniforms. I hate the entire idea of hockey in Atlanta. I hate the fact that they always give Buffalo fits at the worst possible times.
Knowing all of this in advance, you would think I expected a road loss, but no, I didn't. I expected a win, 2-0 to be exact. Of course this means Ryan Miller lets up three goals in the first six minutes and gets chased from the net. Patrick Lalime came in and played well, holding it at three goals until it was tied with six minutes remaining and then he promptly let up the game winning goal. But I'm not going to bash Lalime for this; he played well under less than ideal circumstances. I still don't like him as a backup and I'm still angry that I paid hundreds of dollars to watch him last Friday night against Minnesota, but I won't hang this game on him. The entire Sabres team hasn't been playing well lately, minus Miller, who seems to be the only consistent one of the bunch. They regularly sleepwalk through at least half of the first period and often times find themselves trailing by multiple goals at the end of the first period. Then they decide to start playing, try to make a furious comeback, and often times come up just short (like last night, last Saturday night, last Friday night, etc…)
It is beyond frustrating. And yet somehow they still hold a three point lead over Ottawa in the Northeast with two games in hand. Amazing. I'd like to be happy about this but I'm not. Ottawa has fallen back down to Earth since the Olympic break losing their last three and going 3-6-1 in their last 10. If Buffalo were actually able to take advantage of this situation, they could have at least an eight point lead right now. Instead they have lost to three straight teams that might not even make the playoffs.
I was going to make a little chart to keep track of their magic number for the division, but I'm too irritated right now with the team. I often times find myself thinking that they don't even deserve to win the division playing like this. However, I haven't lost all hope. They have 14 games remaining in the regular season to figure it out or they will be facing an early exit for sure.
(Just for the record, Ottawa can finish with a maximum of 103 points if they go 12-0-0 in their remaining games, which would put Buffalo's magic number at 22 points.)
Just so this blog post isn't entirely all doom and gloom, according to SportsClubStats.com, the Sabres currently have a 99.9% chance of making the playoffs.
Here's to hoping that I lose my writer's block by Thursday and that the Sabres left their struggling ways in Atlanta.
Cheers.
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