Too Soon

Well, it's clearly too soon to be throwing the M-word around with these guys, but it was worth a shot. Still, if this is what the new Sabres look like while playing down to their competition, I'll have a hard time complaining about it. They may have looked sloppy, timid, and flustered for most of the game, but they did also manage to score twice as many goals as their opponent. It wasn't pretty or particularly satisfying, but it got the job done.

With that said, let's move on to the really important part of last night's game: Clearly it was all about Jochen Hecht. He scored his first goal of the season (and only missed about 11 other golden chances), showed off the new red (hot pink?!) mouth guard that replaced his neon green standby (pictured above), and gave his first interview. After the long radio silence of the offseason and who knows how many months before that, that lispy German voice was like music to my ears. All in all he did his part to ensure that, even though the hockey was ugly as sin, there was still a lot of love happening in my heart.

I won't be able to watch tonight, but here's hoping the Sabres prove they actually can dominate a bad team. The Thrashers are still bad, right?