It's hit the fan

So, uh. Yeah.

I don't even know anymore. I just don't even know.

Did some nice little stat look-ups last night, when I was bored and pissed at the Sabres (and procrastinating on a paperthatIfinishedat4:00inthemorning). Turns out that... Essentially, the boys are headed for last place in the NHL. Last place. In the NHL. Not last place in the division. Not twelfth place and four points out of the playoffs. Dead last.

See, since that little 6-0-2 start of theirs, they've managed to go a glorious 5-11-1. And they're a hockey team. Not a football team. That 5-11-1 record would have them on pace for... fifty-three points. The average number of points reached by last-place teams in the league over the past seven seasons is sixty. And this isn't just a little slump... This is serious. It's not just a three-game losing streak. It's a quarter of the season. This is who the Sabres are... Isn't it frightening? The extra points they got during that cute run to start the season would perhaps prevent them from finishing in last place; they'd probably buoy the team up to second-to-last.

First to worst in two seasons? Really? ...Really.

At this point, I am not sure that I want any changes. Drastically shaking up such a terrible team would accomplish making them better, sure... But making them better would still only leave them in eleventh or twelfth place, both out of the playoffs and with a mediocre draft position. Keeping the team the way it is would, more likely than not, lead to Tavares or Hedman, and I would be down with either, to say the least.

...What is there to do? I can't even bring myself to theorize any potential moves.

In other news, Lindy Ruff has perhaps not gone off the deep end. At first, I thought that maybe he desperately wants to be fired and not quit, so he's resorted to making stupid comments that blame the goaltender in a 2-1 loss (lulz). But then... No. No, no, no. This is Lindy Ruff we are talking about here. The man loves mind games. He adores psychologically messing with his players. Now, we've all seen how Miller plays when he is angry. He plays out of his mind, to put it simply. If he's got a shutout going, and some horrible call pisses him off, you know he's going to finish the game with 0 GA. When he lets in a goal at a terrible time and does that trademark freak out of his, it's a foregone conclusion that he won't be allowing any more for the rest of the night. The man is a maniac in net when he is angry.

Of course, Lindy Ruff would know this. He would also know that with the way his team is playing lately, it would take either a shutout or only one GA every night for them to win a single game. And, he'd know that Ryan Miller is simply not capable of that. His solution? Make a stupid comment to the media purely to piss Miller off and set him on a rampage of doom for the opposition.

All speculation, of course... But I rather like my little theory. It makes perfect sense, albeit it would indeed give more credibility to the fears that Ruff has lost all control. What think ye? Am I crazy?

All I know is, right now the only good thing about being a Buffalo sports fan is that Ted Rogers is no longer with us. (And, oh, how much having my fears of the Bills' being moved be taken away makes up for this crap we all have to put up with from our teams.)

I am so much more... calm... than how my mind really is right now. I perpetually want to flip out at the Sabres and strangle them all. Realizing that the season is all but lost is not a fun thing to do...