I have been thinking, thinking, thinking all day about the Sabres and how much they suck. (What a great way to start off a post, eh?)
The only break in that came when I had to take a bio test at 11:00, which thankfully my prof made much easier than it needed it be.
All of last season, I sounded like a recording, because whenever someone brought up how terrible the Sabres were, I said that the problem was as simple as a lack of leadership combined with the fact that the Sabres were slightly the youngest team in the league last year. Most young players are inconsistent, and for all of their talk about how there was plenty of leadership to go around in the locker room, it was painfully obvious by their play on the ice that it was all a farce. This was reinforced in the minds of all when they elected Craig Rivet, someone who had yet to play one game with the team, as their captain. Suddenly I could no longer laugh at teams that name the newly acquired their leaders.
Before Craig Rivet was named captain but after he was acquired, I said that the Sabres would make the playoffs as the sixth seed and be eliminated in the second round. I still expected somebody to step up and take control of the locker room. I also expected the team to have grown out of some of their inconsistency. I still looked forward to a good deal of it, but not to the extent that was there last season. That did not change after Rivet was named captain.
I was wrong to expect either thing.
Their dramatically better play at the start of the season, for the first four games to be exact, proved to me that I was correct in my assessment of the team's problem this year. Where I erred was expecting more out of the same group of individuals, when their leader is taken away.
It is not wrong to say that the Sabres are a good team. In fact, it is accurate. They are. They can be deadly and exacting and punishing, when they see fit. It is, however, wrong to expect that of them. They do not have the work ethic or the sense of responsibility to play well on their own. Call the problem youth, call it immaturity, call it laziness. Give it any name you so desire; its label is pure semantics. I tend to label it youth.
With Rivet in the lineup, the team played as a cohesive unit. They blocked shots and kept shooters to the outside to help Miller; they kept opposing teams out of the crease to help themselves stay ahead; they were willing to drop the gloves to help each other. They played excellent team defense. They were physical. They were tireless. They played hockey. That is something they did not, for even one game, do last year. There were times when they were a little more physical, when they seemed to actually be able to see teammates out of the corners of their eyes out there on the ice, but the way they played out of the gate this year is something that I never once saw last season, even when they were at their best.
Since Rivet has been out, they have rapidly regressed to the same. exact. team as last year. They do not care about each other on the ice. They disregard what others are doing. They do not make an effort to backcheck. When their sticks break, they do not go out of their way to block shots, knowing that that is all they can do; instead, they stand idly and watch plays develop around them, skating perhaps three feet in each direction so that they can have the appearance of being involved. They take nothing seriously and become arrogant. They do not work.
This team, without a leader, has absolutely nothing of what it takes to win a single thing. They cannot make the playoffs. They are proud of nothing, enthusiastic without a reason, and confident before games are played.
It is this instability, this complete dependence on one player, that has me worried. I do not fault the team, exactly; I do fault in the sense that it is them out on the ice playing like complete and utter crap, but I do recognize that it is, more likely than not, their pure youth that causes it. That is by no means an excuse. Rather, it is a problem that needs to be acknowledged by the team so that they can work to overcome it. The problem is, they will never acknowledge it, because they are too busy partying on the weekends and reading about themselves in the media to look in the mirror. And that is what scares me. None of these things are problems on their own; they are simply symptoms of the real problem, and that is themselves.
Are other teams similar to the Sabres? Of course. Not all of them are as youthful, either. Ottawa, for example, has a terrible problem with playing absolutely horrendously whenever Alfredsson is injured. Are they still a good team? Of course they are (at least, they were before the All-Star break last season).
I am just uncomfortable with the complete vulnerability of this team. If they happen to make the playoffs, all a team has to do is make a knee-on-knee collision with Rivet look completely incidental... and they are finished.
It is nice to be proven right about the cause of the Sabres' ills, but I really am not enjoying it, this time. One player... One person... They cannot afford to be that dependent on Rivet.
I suppose it just does not make sense to me how one team can be incredibly consistent and excellent, but when one person is taken out of the lineup, they disintegrate and become this inconsistent, terrified, arrogant mess. I know why, and it makes perfect sense. But it just should not happen that way, to me. The frustration of knowing that the team plays incredibly well under a leader and watching that fall apart as soon as that leader is taken away is like having a perpetual fire in the heart. It's not fun when it's your team that has itself as its toughest opponent.
I am just going to sit back, relax, and forget about this game.
If I tried to analyze this game, it would only be a string of profanities, aimed at the players, particularly at the fact that they played zero team defense tonight, again.
I will only say this: with Craig Rivet, the team played incredibly well. Without him, they have, so far, absolutely failed. They have entirely reverted back to last year's way of playing, which got them where, exactly? Oh, yes, that's right. Out of the playoffs.
I want to be calm and rational enough to objectively analyze this game... I really, really do.
Unfortunately, that is impossible.
I'll leave it at this:
They sucked.
Tonight, in just about two hours, the Sabres will take on the Lightning at home.
The easy thing to do is to predict a 4-3 comeback win from the Sabres in which Drew Stafford gets the first goal of the game before they fall behind 3-1, leaving it all up to Thomas Vanek to score a natural hat trick beginning when there are three minutes left in the third period and ending twenty seconds into overtime.
But, no.
Instead I am going to make an entire preview. This won't happen before every game. I guarantee it. I am just procrastinating at the moment because I really do not feel like typing up the rest of this eight-page paper that is due at 8:00 tomorrow, or studying for the bio test I have at 11:00 tomorrow. See what a good student I am?! Seriously. So, I'll probably only make previews when I am attempting to procrastinate and really should not. I predict I'll get four and a half hours of sleep tonight. Go to bed at 2:00, fall asleep at 2:30, and have my alarm go off at 7:00. The sacrifices I make for this team...
Anyway, on with the preview!
Buffalo Sabres (14 pts) vs. Tampa Bay Lightning (7 pts)
-----Goaltending-----
Buffalo:
Ryan Miller
------------Save %: .940
------------GAA: 1.60
------------SA: 167
------------Record: 5-0-1
Tampa Bay:
Mike Smith------------Save %: .942
------------GAA: 2.11
------------SA: 212
------------Record: 2-2-2
Edge:
Tampa Bay
-----Defense-----
Buffalo:
SA per game: 28.4, eleventh in the NHL
Completely subjective quality SA per game: 8
Tampa Bay:
SA per game: 37.5, worst in the NHL
Completely subjective quality SA per game: 36
Edge:
Buffalo
-----Offense-----
Buffalo:
SF per game: 29.1, sixteenth in the NHL
Offensive leader:
Thomas VanekPoints: 11
Goals: 8
Assists: 3
Tampa Bay:
SF per game: 27.8, twenty-second in the NHL
Offensive leader:
Vincent Lecavalier
Goals: 5
Assists: 1
Edge:
Buffalo
-----Special Teams-----
Buffalo:
PP: 21.6%, seventh in the NHL
PK: 90.2%, fourth in the NHL
Tampa Bay:
PP: 10.8%, better only than the Panthers
PK: 84.3%, eleventh in the NHL
Edge:
Buffalo
I apologize for the overall suckiness and ineptitude of that preview. Basically, it's not even interesting. BUT since Buffalo has the edge in every category but goaltending, and even that is really, really minor, I'm gonna have to pick the Sabres to win this one. I mean, I'd pick them to win regardless of what team they're playing, but it's nice to have that validated by, you know, actual and real stats, and not just my heart.
I predict a 4-1 Buffalo win, only because predicting shutouts is just epic fail, and, well, SOMEONE other than Thomas Vanek has to score a goal against the Lightning someday. AM I RIGHT, SABRES?
Oh, and let us not forget!
The "EEEEEEEE!" factor that is the beautiful goodness of Paul Gaustad will be playing tonight. As in, he will actually be there, at the game, skating and playing on the PK. He just won't be able to fight, because the cast on his poor wittle thumb won't let him take his gloves off. =( So sad. But the team will fight through such a time as this, through having Paul Gaustad back while knowing that he can't stick up for anybody. It's like being a little kid and KNOWING that your parents have your Christmas presents in their closet and then peeking... in the middle of October. And then having to wait two more months before you can finally play your N64 for the first time. (That may or may not be a true story.)
I'm looking at you, Adam Mair. Be the best Paul Gaustad you can be while he is there, on the ice, in the lineup, but unable to get in the face of anybody who looks at Miller or Kaleta wrong.
Just win. That's all I care about. WIN.
If we lose to the Lightning, Buffalo goes into catastrophe mode. I hope all the Sabres realize this. Lyke, ZOMG, our football team loses and then our hockey team loses three games in a row!!! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO!?!?!?!?!? Basically, the fates of hundreds of thousands rests in the Sabres' hands tonight. Whether or not Derek Roy and Maxim Afinogenov want to wake up to bodies floating in the lake outside their condos is totally up to them.
So WIN.
So, I suppose that this is where I have to introduce myself.
I am an eighteen-year-old college freshman at a very tiny college in northern Indiana. I'd share the name of it if it were, say, Notre Dame, but it's not, so I won't. I'm currently studying biology with the intention of becoming a doctor but am thinking about changing my major next semester (what a shock!) to a double in sociology and psychology to get my master's in social work. I think it is hilarious that what I want to do with my life involves making either $160,000+ or $25,000+ as a starting salary. I am easily amused...
My family moved from Kinderhook, a town about twenty miles south of/a fifteen-minute drive across the Hudson from Albany that is the smallest town ever and is composed entirely of either millionaires, farmers, or illegal Mexicans with nothing inbetween, to Depew, the best suburb of Buffalo (OK, Lancaster is), when I was eleven. I always loved hockey and can remember deciding when I was eight and watching a Rangers game that I would hate the Rangers for the rest of my life. I didn't initially follow the Sabres, but at the beginning of the 02-03 season, which was just an awesomely horrendous year, I decided that, you know, since I loved hockey, and Buffalo actually had an NHL team, it would probably be a good idea to start paying attention to them. So, I did. Now, that was the year that everybody in Buffalo was like, "Screw this. I'm not buying tickets so I can support Rigas," so I never did get to a game that year, because my father refused to buy tickets.
My first game was, I believe, in the 03-04 season, against the LA Kings. The Sabres won, I think, 8-3, and I remember being so mad because at first they were losing 3-1, and then they tied the game after the first, I believe, sparked by a goal from Hank... and then I missed the next two or three goals because they happened right after intermission, and we were still in line to buy food. Since then, I've only been to two other games, one in 06-07 (the 'Canes game they won 5-4 instead of 5-3 because they gave up a goal when they had a 5-on-3 with about two minutes left to the game... yeah, I was pissed at them), and one last year... The one last year was the one against the Senaturds (juvenile, but I adore it) that they were winning 3-1 until the last five minutes, when they decided that losing 5-3 would be a better idea. So, all those with season tickets, even you minipack holders out there: I. Envy. You.
My favorite player ever is Curtis Brown. Don't even know why. Don't even ask.
My favorite player currently is Patrick Kaleta. Clearly I only ever fall in love with fourth-liners. Craig Rivet is beginning to challenge Kaleta's place, but if Kaleta starts to drop the gloves every once in a while to make what he's going to do a little more unpredictable so that he keeps drawing penalties, his spot will never be challenged ever again.
Now, I have heard a lot of people call Patrick Kaleta ugly. Just a warning: I take that personally, because I think that he is adorable. I am a serious hockey fan, sure, but, like almost everybody else in the blog world, I am also a female, and those are guys out there on the ice. I do take comfort in the fact that pretty much all of the people who have called him ugly are A) guys and B) straight, so they have no idea what they are talking about.
I guess that'll do it for my first entry... Oh, wait! My name! How could I forget?! lulz
My name is Jael, pronounced jay-EL. Just pretend that it's the letters JL together, like it's my initials or something, and you'll do fine. I also respond to Danielle in person, just because it sounds like my name. Janelle, though, doesn't. Um, yeah.
Now THIS will do my first entry. If I write any more, I will start writing about how much the Sabres currently, after the last game, suck, after being by far the best team in the NHL prior to that, and that's not fun, now, is it.
