Road Trip Ruminations
Thursday, January 28th, 2010 2:02 pm by mrenninger
Okay, so staying up until one or one-thirty in the morning to watch hockey with work the next morning is not as fun as I had anticipated. Granted, the games- or at least their conclusions- were at times so maddening that it was difficult to fall asleep, so maybe had the team played better it would have actually been enjoyable. What it does is make you appreciate is the cool down time we get when the games actually occur at a reasonable hour, whether that consists of slugging down adult beverages and bitching about the game’s goat with friends (cough, Pominville, cough), going to a movie or just flipping on South Park, there are usually enough distractions to put a loss in perspective. Unforunately this road trip there were no disractions for me, at least on the weeknights.
Quick note about last night’s game: great start to showing us that the four game skid at the end of the road trip was a fluke. Strong defensive effort, lights-out game from Miller, and a frankly shocking GWG in the shootout from Pominville, who’s been responsible for the uptick in foul language use among adults ages 18-34.
Just wanted an excuse to throw this picture in...
If you didn’t stay up late for these games you missed such broadcasting gems as the Anaheim Ducks “Del Taco Penalty Kill” logo which seemed to take up the entire bottom right corner of the screen, actually obscuring play at times, or the Los Angeles Kings juxtaposing The Rock in a tutu skating on the ice while the actual game was going on (by the way, if you go see “The Tooth Fairy,” and it isn’t with your child, feel free to count yourselves out of adult society). With the lone exception of the Vancouver announcers, the broadcasting crews we were subjected to were generally atrocious, with a slanted tone that made watching the games that much more maddening, and made me very thankful that we aren’t doing that again this season.
As for the team’s play, 2-3-2 was far from what I had expected or cheered for, yet the team holds a seven point lead in the division- although Ottawa’s emerge is chilling- and following last night’s big win over New jersey, trailing the two seed by a point with a game in hand. At the same time we should all be aware that if the team puts together a performance like those final four road games in the playoffs, that’s exactly how long the Sabres playoff run will last: four games.
- As I tweeted from my bed during the Ducks game, I’d like to thank whoever had donned the Lalime jersey for the prior month and a half, because the guy between the pipes for the first 10 minutes against Anaheim was not the same guy who went 3-0-2 in his previous five starts. Simply no excuse for an NHL goalie to perform like that, I don’t care if one of the goals wasn’t his fault. One more outing like that and it’ll be time to refer to November and December as a fluke, and reignite that Marty talk.
One of the few shots Lalime saw on the road trip that didn't go in...
- When Adam Mair is your best player at the end of the road trip, the team has badly devolved. The strong forechecking had practically disappeared (second period at Anaheim excluded) by the end, and the defensemen weren’t doing their jobs either. No you can’t do much about Sedin’s through-his-legs pass, but the team consistently let open men get to Miller, or at least to the slot for a scoring chance. Lydman, Montador, Tallinder, Butler and to a lesser degree Myers (who, while lovable is still accountable) were at times embarrassing. Maybe it was fatigue, hopefully it was fatigue, but if we find ourselves in a game seven at Washington this spring, fatigue won’t be an excuse.
- Speaking of devolving, while scoring chances and shots were coming by the bunches at times, some forwards reverted back into the habit of looking for the extra pass, or of panicking and making a stupid pass at an inopportune time- sorry Pominville, but I will remember you giving away the Anaheim game for months. In the games where we racked up a lot of shots, how many were weak wristers from the top of the circle? While I LOVE quoting LMFAO’s “Shots” song when watching a game out with friends, it isn’t as fun if those shots are 30mph wristers from Hecht or Butler. (Seriously though, quoting “Shots,” is possibly my new favorite thing. There is no line as fun, adaptable, and guaranteed to piss off at least one of your friends in recent memory. An absolute gem.)
- Power Play? Yeesh, it’s gotten to the point where the only real thing you can have confidence in is that the opposition won’t score for two minutes. I don’t know if the 1-on-4 strategy to bring it into the zone is planned, but it never ceases to amaze me when I see it. Even if the forward carries the zone, it seems to always be followed by a weak wrister from a bad angle, which is quickly gathered up and cleared from the zone. While most professional teams seem to make this look easy, the Sabres carry the zone about as well as my floor hockey team did last season. At least my team had the excuse of having an average age seven years older than our opponents every game and being a bunch of chain-smoking, out-of-shape grad students.
I was going to lay into our shootout ability, but when you beat questionably the best goalie of all-time in a shootout, you get a reprieve. I will say I miss Kotalik, if only for shootouts, and I miss the days of knowing a shootout was a given win for the Sabres. Maybe the non-Olympians can gather one day and just practice their shootouts on Lalime. If anything that will certainly give them confidence following the Olympic break.
Also lest me forget the good. We piled it on against Phoenix and chased one of the best goalies in the league and we beat Atlanta in Atlanta for the first time since the Middle Ages. Also we got to laugh at Atlanta, Phoenix and to a lesser degree Anaheim for having some of the worst fan bases in the NHL. How Bettman believes the Coyotes are viable in Phoenix escapes me, but then again anything the commish does seems to to fall outside of the world you and me live in. I’ll probably rant about the failure of the sun belt as
Atlanta Thrashers hockey: feel the apathy!!
hockey territory in a later blog but contraction or relocation needs to happen to the following teams before this league can be back in the upper echelon of sports conversation: Atlanta, Phoenix, Tampa, Carolina, Florida, and maybe Nashville. I don’t care if two of those teams have cups, and Columbus can consider itself warned, after a friend of mine showed a gimmick which gave away a pair of tickets to a Blue Jackets game for buying four 12-pack’s of Pepsi. Come on Columbus, you can do better than that.
A tough couple games ahead with the slipping Bruins and the surging Senators, who we haven’t played since the shootout loss a month ago, when I was still fairly convinced the Senators season was going to be more like Dany Heatley’s car accident than a possible deep playoff run. We’ve conquered the Thrashers, the Pens, the Caps and the Devils at times this season, but Ottawa still remains the white whale to our Captain Ahab. With the road trip behind us and the Olympic Break closing fast, it’s time for a strong statement to the fans, the rest of the league, and most importantly the Sabres themselves that they are here to stay.