So far this season, the Buffalo Sabres have dominated the lackluster Washington Capitals, a trend they hope to continue tonight at the Verizon Center. Tonight will provide Buffalo with a chance to leapfrog the Caps and catch the Ottawa Senators to move the Sabres into a tie for 9th place in the Eastern Conference standings.

The woes of the season continued in the last game against the Devils, a performance that lacked everything.  The passing, shooting, back and fore checking, physicality… everything.  The Devils game was a polar opposite performance from the one the Sabres put forth against the Capitals, arguably one of their most complete performance of the season for the inconsistent Sabres.

The injury front for the battered visiting team is not looking bright by any stretch.  Tyler Ennis is questionable after aggravating his injured left ankle a few games ago, but he probably will be viewing the game from the press box.  Corey Tropp, Tyler Myers. Ville Leino. Colin Stuart and Nathan Gerbe are all keeping the injured reserve list warm with their various injuries.  Andrej Sekera was recently added to the ever growing list of injured Sabres with an upper body injury.  its looking like Myers might be the closest, but he isn’t faring as well as the team had hoped and still could be a week away from returning.

Stay tuned for the post game review!

This is something that the Buffalo Sabres have and still are, struggling mightily with.  Tonight’s game against New Jersey could not have been the same team that played just 2 days ago against Washington, its simply impossible.  The little pieces of the game I caught showed a disorganized team, that wasn’t skating or passing well.  Unfortunately, when my mother decided Water For Elephants was more important than allowing me to watch the game, I missed the second period penalty show.

Almost 50 minutes in penalties were assessed at the 7:12 mark of the second period.  Both Paul Gaustad and Patrick Kaleta received 10 minute misconducts for Buffalo and Cam Janssen and Bryce Salvador followed suit for the Devils.  Cody McCormick was given a 2 minute minor for roughing and Eric Boulton received 4 minutes total, 2 for roughing and 2 for boarding (the later being served by Tom Sestito).

Thomas Vanek scored the lone goal for Buffalo, a powerplay goal in the middle of the second period. Petr Sykora scored twice and Zach Parise added a beautiful tip in to round out the scoring for the Devils.

Well, if anything, at least the next meeting with the Devils will be an interesting one.  Onward and upward, Sabres fans…

Nathan Gerbe is the closest to returning to game action for the Buffalo Sabres.  On Tuesday, Gerbe passed his Neuropsych Test, allowing him to begin full practices with the team.  While he may not be in “game shape,” he’s closer to returning to the line-up than any of the other injured players on the team.

Gerbe has not played since December 7th after suffering a concussion in a game against Philadelphia.  On the play, Gerbe was slammed head first into the boards by Marc-Andre Bourdon of the Flyers.  Bourdon only received a minor penalty for boarding and was not fined or suspended by the league.  Many Sabres fans and others around the league believed it was a punishable hit.

Nathan Gerbe is, with out a doubt, one of the fiercest competitors on this team.  He may only be 5’5″ (which is a little exaggerated…), but he plays like he’s 6’5″.  To say he’s fearless is an understatement and there isn’t a single person in this city that would try to tell you otherwise.  I have been a Gerbe fan since his days at Boston College and to see him work his way up to the NHL and become such an integral part of this team has been awesome.  I’m so far beyond excited to see him come back I can hardly contain myself!!!  Can’t wait to see #42 back on the ice!!

A HOME WIN!!!!!! I know, you are probably just as shocked as I am, but holy wow what a game! Finally a complete effort from the Buffalo Sabresat the First Niagara Center, what a nice little treat after a few days off with family and cookies.

Jason Pominville opened the scoring 52 seconds into the game on a power play goal, another nice treat to see the power play not totally suck. Matt Ellis followed a few minutes later with a beauty off the face off. Not gonna lie here, I had no idea Matty Ellis had dangling skills… That was an impressive goal my friends. Christian Ehrhoff scored what would be the eventual game winner on a blast from the point and Brayden McNabb added his first NHL goal to the scoresheet again on the power play. Oh, and did I mention this all happened in the first period?

This was without a doubt the most complete game this team has out together at home all season. They scored when they needed to, they were physical when they needed to be (ask Ovechkin how he’s feeling after that wonderful body check from Regehr), and they played like they wanted to win. They were clearly the better team as washington spent the majority of the game looking disinterested and distracted.

More good news came out of this game with the return of both Brad Boyes and Jochen Hecht on injury. Boyes has missed significant time with his injury and Hecht has missed only a handful of games since returning from initial concussion earlier in the season. Both made an immediate impact as the top line of Vanek and Pominville got their center back and Brad Boyes logged time on the second power play unit.

Let’s keep this trend going boys… Home wins mean happy fans, happy fans means happy owner, happy owner means no one is on the chopping block.

The list of things that Buffalo Sabres fans want this Christmas is extensive, no doubt, with no two lists being the same.  My original idea was to do a 12 item list (get it 12 days of Christmas?), but I decided a top three was more appropriate for me, as I am trying to not be a greedy Sabres fans this season.  So here we go!!!

A healthy Tyler Ennis, so he can do more of this…

A win at home, so we can hear more of this…

And finally, for Rick Jeanneret to live forever so we can have 40 more years of this….

Merry Christmas Sabres fans!  Hopefully Santa was good to all of you and hopefully he was good to our team on this green christmas day!

Enjoy!!!!

watch?v=leuE6RG0A40

Happy holidays everyone!

Many of us Buffalo fans have spent weeks upon weeks complaining about the barrage of injuries that our team has suffered.  One thing many of us probably haven’t taken the time to consider is the affect the number of injuries the Buffalo Sabres have suffered has had on their farm club, the Rochester Americans.

As the injuries have piled up for the Sabres, the steady stream of players jumping on the I-90 to Buffalo hasn’t stopped.  This has meant bad news for the Amerks, who have played with an incomplete lineup 3 times this season.  As of today there are  four players of try-out contracts and three players up from the ECHL.  While the job of a farm club is to supply players to the NHL, no one anticipated so many would have an extended stay with the Sabres.

Zack Kassian and Corey Tropp are leading the charge of Amerks players playing in thirteen games each and accumulating six and two points, respectively.  Tropp is currently out with a concussion and has not started skating.  Brayden McNabb has been a quite the surprise for many of us, playing in eleven games and being arguably one of the best players on the ice night in and night out.  Paul Szczechura has suited up for nine games total over two separate call ups,  TJ Brennan and Joe Finley have played three games each, and Derek Whitmore, Colin Stuart and Drew McIntyre have appeared in 2 games apiece.  Marcus Foligno also made his NHL debut last week in Ottawa, playing his first game against his older brother and in front of several dozen family members.  Of these players, Kassian, Tropp, McNabb, Whitmore, McIntyre, and Brennan have all made their debuts.

Somehow , the Amerks are still winning, even with a super depleted lineup.  Their last win, a 4-1 decision over the Lake Erie Monsters, showed their competitiveness.   Through all the call-ups, 17 total over the season, they are still competing  and winning games.  They are also drawing larger crowds, averaging just over five thousand fans per game, up from last seasons average of just under four thousand fans.

Many attribute this to them being affiliated with Buffalo again, which makes perfect sense.  The drive from Rochester to Buffalo takes approximately an hour and a half (but really it only takes an hour if you drive like a real Buffalonian).  The tickets are cheap and it gives everyone a reason for a little road trip.  Many Sabres fans were excited about this partnership from the beginning because it gave us a chance to see future Sabres players.  It brought many back to when names like Pominville, Vanek, Roy, Miller, Gaustad, etc. were nothing more than names of prospects playing in Rochester.

While this has been a trying season for the Buffalo Sabres, it has been equally trying for their farm club.  Hopefully as regulars start returning, more players will head back to the farm to continue their growth and development, only to return when they are really ready.  While no one can argue the call-ups have played anything short of spectacular, imagine how good they will be in a year after they have dominated the AHL?

It almost seems as though we are never going to win another game ever again.  How can a team play as well as the Buffalo Sabres did against their rivals to the north and still lose?  Oh, and just to make matter a little (lot) worse, Thomas Vanek left the game in the third with an upper body injury and did not return… awesome.

Anyways… This was probably the best effort the Sabres have mustered against any team in about 15 games.  They forechecked brilliantly, they took meaningful shots that actually gave them legitimate chances to score, they were smart, they were physical, Ryan Miller played true to form, do I need to keep going?  I just do not understand how this is even possible right now.

Its extremely evident now that someone needs a change of scenery ASAP, in my opinion that somebody is Derek Roy.  He has played his entire career here and has never panned out as the number one center the Sabres want him to be.  I’m sorry, but he is just not good enough to be playing in the middle of Thomas Vanek.  Imagine how good Vanek would be if he had Jason Spezza as his center, nice thought huh?  Derek Roy is a consistent point scorer (except now for some reason) and he would have a pretty decent value on the open market, especially if he is packaged with a top prospect (of which we apparently have thousands…) and/or another player and/or a draft pick.  Something has to shake this team up and if its a major trade, DO IT NOW!

But back to the game.  There was a momentary one minute and twenty second lapse in play at the end of the second period in which the Leafs capitalized and scored two goals.  Before that however, it was Sabres domination from the get go.  Zack Kassian went after Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf at least three times to avenge Phaneuf’s brutal boarding in the last game in Buffalo.  Phaneuf hid and refused to fight.  Brayden McNabb also went after Phaneuf after he slashed Vanek after the play.  Again, Phaneuf said no.  Later in the game, Robyn Regehr tried to fight his former teammate, again to no avail.  Needless to say, I used to be a Phaneuf fan, now not so much.

Jason Pominville and Derek Roy provided the Buffalo scoring, but tonight it just wasn’t enough.  Hopefully, with a nice little holiday break coming up, some more bodies will be ready to return, most specifically Tyler 1, Tyler 2 and Thomas Vanek.  Maybe this break will also snap the team back into shape and they can remember what they did tonight and start stringing together some wins.

The Buffalo Sabres have returned forward Marcus Foligno to Rochester with the hopes that Patrick Kaleta will return to the lineup tomorrow against Toronto. Good news? Well, maybe…

While its great news to be getting a starter back into the lineup, it is just Patrick Kaleta. If anything his role has been more and more diminished with the emergence of Corey Tropp, Zack Kassian and eventually Foligno. Kaleta has now become an injury prone forward and has suffered some very dangerous injuries over the past few seasons, including a severe neck injury.

Will Kaleta have an impact? Hopefully, but realistically, probably nothing major.

Well it was a happy moment for Mike Foligno, seeing both of his sons playing in the National Hockey League, but you have to imagine it was also a sad moment. Mike’s wife, Janis, passed away in July of 2009, just a month after the Buffalo Sabres drafted Marcus, so she missed this very special moment. On a happy note, Marcus believed his mother worked her magic to make sure his whole family was there to see his first NHL game.

So how did the battle of the brothers end? Well Nick’s Ottawa Senators came out on top by a score of 4-1. Marcus played over 13 minutes of ice time and registered one shot on goal. He played a pretty decent overall game, but I think there were some nerves as he wasn’t as physical as he usually was.

The team as a whole, however, played a pretty good game, but it wasn’t good enough to squeak out the win. The first period was not so great, the second period was better and the third period was great until the last 4 minutes. The game was tied going into the third, until Eric Condra scored to break the tie at 7:59.

After that goal, the Sabres seemed to step it up, but an untimely penalty by Paul Gaustad allowed the Senators to take control of the game. Karlsson scored on the ensuing power play and Condra added an empty net goal, sinking the Sabres for good.

Eric smith scord Ottawa’s first goal and Jordan Leopoldo added the only goal for the Sabres. Miller took yet another loss and again we are all left wondering, what the hell is going on with this team….