Ottawa, oh how I loathe [love] thee...

So. Question of the day... Who will be in the lineup tonight against Ottawa?

Let me remind you of what happened the last time we played them [like you need any reminding].

Or the time before that.

Man do I love me an Ottawa game. Wait, what...? So back to the original question. Who do you dress? Do you want Peters in the lineup? If so, who are you going to sit? Paille was already out, so we'd need another body in the press box alongside Man Child [thanks MJ]. Patches? Not with the way he's been playing lately. MacArthur? Maybe. Despite the fact that he's 5th in goals and 7th in assists he's not been producing a whole lot as of late. Hecht? Perhaps. Who really missed him being out injured? [Hey, I was very supportive of Hecht when he was kicking ass, but what has been his issue this year? I feel bad for him cuz I really like him and want him to do well... but... just not happening]. My vote is for MacArthur. Last time Lindy benched him, he came back and played a thousand times better.

I guess we'll find out in another hour!!

Damn it, that self-centered little dink scored another game-winner

There has been a lot of talk about TimBits 'round these parts lately. Trade him, or no? Will he stay healthy? Is he worth $3.5mil/yr? Can or will we sign him for next year? Guess what... none of that matters right now, cuz our TimBits is on fire! I'm one who is always on the wall about him. I don't necessarily like him a whole lot... I think most can agree he kinda seems like a slimy jackass, and, well, we all know about all of the STD's he must have by now. But that is so beyond anything that matters right now. Can anyone argue that when he's healthy, he's a top forward in the league? I know I can be biased, but seriously. He has 9 goals and 3 assists in his last 9 games alone. It's like no on can stop him. But I feel very hesitant about feeling this way, because I just know that he's 1 trip over the blueline away from permanent paralysis. It's a very stressful situation, this Timmy Connolly one...

Moving on to last night's game. I can honestly say it was very enjoyable to watch. Even though we killed Toronto last game, it was boring at times. Not last night. The game really could have gone either way at any point in time. I love those games. I get pissed when we lose them, but so excited when we win 'em.

Some observations:

-I lost all my notes [very pissed about that], but tried to remember what I had written down.

-I was very happy to get out of the 1st tied 0-0. It's times like these when you need your goalie to steal it for you until you can get in the game.

-PATCHES!!! Man, have I said lately how much I love this guy? I'm not riding any bandwagon here, I've loved him from the moment I first saw him play [I tend to love the underachieving ones... check my post from a week ago]. He's so disappointing at times. But right now, he's playing his heart out. He knows he's playing for a spot every night, and he's basically daring Lindy to take him out of the lineup. Right now, he deserves a spot over Paille [and possibly others such as Hecht, MacArthur, and obvs Peters]. This dude wants to play hockey. And it seems he'll do anything he can to keep it that way.

-Montreal's power play is sicknasty. All the time. I feel like they're on the verge of scoring every time. It freaks me out.

-That hit Begin on Kotalik was BS. People can disagree with me on this [I'm sure many will]. The hit itself was fine- no elbow, didn't leave his feet, no knee-to-knee contact. But Al had already gotten rid of the puck. And the NHL nowadays is making this big to-do about players being in a vulnerable position and getting taken advantage of. Could Al have been any more vulnerable? His back was to Begin, he just got rid of the puck, and was totally not expecting to get hit. Total crap.

-However, that being said... if they called the penalty then TimBits wouldn't have scored that goal. Komisarek had possession of it before he screwed up and banked it off the boards to TimBits and he buried it. So the whistle would have blown before the goal. So I guess it evens out in the end- as long as Al isn't hurt.

Here's Price's "Oh Shit" face after TimBit's goal:

-Who else got that "feeling" after the 2nd Montreal goal? You know what I'm talking about. The we're-up-and-playing-awesome-but-we're-about-to-give-the-lead-away-and-screw-it-all-up feeling. Good thing Miller was on his game. But I was scared to watch cuz I really thought they were going to manage to find a way to F it up.

-How hilarious was Harry Neale when that guy [I can't for the life of me remember who it was] had a breakaway and couldn't get his footing? Neale slowed it down and showed it a billion times, each time saying, oh he almost has it, oh wait no, oh wait trying to get up, oh no, oh wait, one more time, oh no. Poor guy, I actually felt bad for him for a split second. Just a second though.

-Have I ever mentioned how much I love Spacho interviews? His accent and his low voice is wicked awesome. He's so funny to listen to. And I like when Rivet gets interviewed too. I told my dad that he doesn't seem like a hockey player when he talks. Not his accent [or lack thereof], but just the way he speaks and his mannerisms. I can't quite put my finger on it, but he's just different. Either way, I like it.

-As a sidenote, I hope you all got the chance to see Roby talking to Playfair about how he knew it was time to hang up the skates. If you didn't get the chance to see it, here it is. This is the whole interview, but go to the 5:50min mark and you'll hear it. Great story.

Anaheim recap

Holy cow do I miss out on a ton when I'm away with no internet!! I'll try to catch up with everything...

I guess I'll start off with the Anaheim game:

-Did anyone see the stat about Butler being the only + defenseman on the team?! How is this possible? [Although I'd like to add that Gragnani is as well]

-I know Miller needed the rest, but it would have been cool to see him vs. his brother.

-How is it possible that Petey had the only good scoring chance at one point in the game?

-Patty K's goal from his knees=pure amazement. How excited was he when he saw that it went in? Welcome back friend. We missed you.

-Lalime, you gave us quite the scare buddy. If that had been TimBits who got cut, he would have been dead before he even made it back to the bench to get stitched up.

-Did I hear correctly when they said that in TimBits' first 4 seasons, he only missed 3 games? What the hell happened since then? Was he exposed to some horrible disease we don't know about yet where if you look at him wrong he breaks his neck?

-Also, I found it really creepy when they interviewed Drew Miller... him and Ryan are like twins! If you cover up the top of his face, it looked and sounded like Ryan talking. Weird. Oh, and how cute is their dad? He must be so proud...

-HOLY CAP'N CRAIG!!! I guess deep down I always knew he was a scrapper, but really? 2 fighting majors? I think I fell in love. That's the passion we need in a captain. Granted, with all our children on defense, we didn't really need to lose him for that long to the penalty box, but hey whatever. He didn't even want to get in that second fight, but the guy kept asking for it. So, in return, he obliged and proceeded to kick Montador's ass.

-I wonder if all the madness we saw out of Rivet is stemming over from when he was on San Jose, and they were big rivals with Anaheim...

-And how funny was it when Lydman was about to get in a fight (when Rivet was in the box) Butler stepped in and did it instead. I think it's cuz he realized if Lydman went to the box too, we'd literally have all toddlers on the blueline.

-How crazy was the end of the 2nd period? "Old time hockey" as they called it. Goose was so pissed I swear he could have taken on the entire Duck's team. I loved how they all stayed out on the ice ready to brawl. Did you notice that all of the Sabres stayed on the bench and most of the Ducks left? I think it was cuz if the fight started, they all wanted in. And what was with Parros calling out Goose from the bench? You just know Goose wanted to grab that hairy smug face and slam it on the ice.

-So after all that, we end up loosing. The Ducks got 2 goals on 2 total BS penalty calls. The end. A well-fought [pun intended] game by the Sabres, but we just couldn't find a way to put them away when we had the chance.

At least it's the end of the way-to-long road trip. They're coming home!!

Sidenote: Here's an interesting short article from an Anaheim paper about all the fighting in the game.