***Official Buffalo Sabres 2006-07 Thread***

[cognito20]

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Record is a sham. The team that set the record did it without the aid of a shootout.

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Leaf fan?

Putting in asterisk on the record is retarded unless you are going to start doing it everywhere.

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Not to mention that using that criterion the '93-94 Leafs record is just as much of a sham, since their 7th win of that season was an overtime win, and overtime did not exist during the 8-game winning streaks of the '75-'76 Sabres or the '33-'34 Leafs. While we're at it, why don't we just take away the Hurricanes Stanley Cup from last season, since they never would have even made it to the Finals, much less won them, if they hadn't been handed the extremely fortuitous gift of going up against 75% of the Sabres and 25% of the Rochester Americans in the Eastern Conference final (and barely eking out the win even then), due to the Sabres' horrible run of injuries. What's that, you say? It's not the Canes' fault that the Sabres ran into a horrible streak of luck, they just accomplished the task that had been set in front of them, in the conditions that existed at the time? That's what I thought.

--Scott

[cdxx]

i don't see how anyone could hate a team like buffalo. a lot of young players, hard, gritty play.

that said, atlanta leads 2-1 after the 1st. i wish hockey was on tv.

[cdxx]

sweeeet. tied 2-2.

edit: back down to 3-2. damn.

[cdxx]

overtiiimmmeee. 4-4

SO loss. 5-4. streak ends. oh well, at least we got a point.

[Triumph36]

Buffalo's record would've been a sham had they got it - but it still would've been damned impressive. This team is better than I thought it would be - mostly because Afinogenov and Drury are on fire like they never have been before.

[cognito20]

This is probably the best I have ever felt after a Sabres loss. They outplayed Atlanta most of the game, as 3 of 4 Atlanta goals came on 2 dumb Buffalo giveaways (the type of thing I said in my last post that teams like the Islanders won't punish you for, but teams like Atlanta will) and a lucky bounce in front of the net off the boards. The Sabres showed lots of class in coming back from 4 one-goal deficits. These are 20 guys who do not know the meaning of the word "quit".

Getting the point was important, since Atlanta is probably the only Eastern Conference team that can seriously challenge Buffalo for the top seed. If we're gonna lose to the Thrashers, let's at least do it in overtime or a shootout so they can only make up 1 point on us per win, rather than 2. Not to mention that this year WE seem to have the advantage that Carolina had last year....being able to beat up on a weak division. Atlanta is going to have to go up against the last 2 Cup winners, a Florida team that's looked pretty good this year, and an improving, albeit still weak, Washington squad. We get the Bruins (not a good team), Leafs (whom we own), Canadiens (decent but nothing spectacular) and the Sens (who are nowhere near what they were last year, for whatever reason).

I liked Rob Ray's point in the postgame show when Mike Robitaille said that the Sabres were looking in a mirror at a copy of themselves in the Thrashers. Ray immediately said that the important difference between the Sabres and the Thrashers is that the Sabres can roll out 4 effective lines, and the Thrashers really can't. By the end of the game, Atlanta was only throwing 2 lines out there, and they were seriously sucking wind by the end of the overtime. In a playoff overtime scenario, Buffalo wins this game unless they let Kovalchuk or Hossa break away or do something else stupid like that Afinogenov "shovel pass", because Atlanta was dead on their feet by the end of the overtime. The Thrashers' front-line talent is better than Buffalo's, but they're nowhere near as deep, and I'm still not sold on their defense. There were a lot of Atlanta hooks and interferences that were not called tonight on good Buffalo scoring chances; the penalty discrepancy should have been even higher than it actually was. In a 7-game series, the Sabres might drop an early game or 2, but by Game 4 or 5 they will wear this team down and win, probably in 6. That's a long way off, though.

The Sabres could use the 4 days off, actually. They looked tired against the Islanders, had one day off, and although a lot of the myriad Buffalo scoring chances failed due to a number of the aforementioned uncalled penalties, they were also whiffing a lot on one-timers and their passing was sloppy. They need to rest up for a few days and come back strong at Boston on Thursday. Plus, a week from today we get the Leafs at HSBC, which if it's anything like last year should be a highly enjoyable massacre.

As an aside, Drury played by far his worst game of the year tonight. He was not a presence at all.

--Scott

[mmbt0ne]

Thrash it up. Bitches.

[cognito20]

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Thrash it up. Bitches.

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Ah, shades of Tampa 2004 and Raleigh 2006. I figure the closet, fair-weather Atlanta hockey fans are going to start coming out of the woodwork any day now.

[mmbt0ne]

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I figure the closet, fair-weather Atlanta hockey fans are going to start coming out of the woodwork any day now.

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LOL, please.

You want to see my Atlanta Knights jersey?

[stealthcow]

3 lines, yes, but 4 - not until connolly comes back. peters and mair get about 5-6 minutes on most nights, and no more then 10 during blowouts