Gameday Prediction: Sabres vs. Bruins

Okay, I know what you're thinking.

Wasn't the last hockey game you saw over a month ago?
*Sigh* Yes.

Haven't you been posting non-stop nonsense about the Sabres since then, including the transcript of an imaginary phone conversation with a fishy incarnation of Jochen Hecht?
Ye---wait, imaginary?

Wasn't your last post made up entirely of movie quotes, with no hockey content whatsoever?
Oh, why don't you stop annoying people?

Could you be any more out of touch with the Sabres?
Well, I could be Bucky Gleason, but yes, I get your point.

And you're making a prediction for tonight's game? Do you expect us to believe this?
Yes.

Because I have something you don't:

Wewease the secwet weapon!

(Sorry about the blurry quality of the photos. Apparently my camera doesn't do timer and focus at the same time.) There's magic in this fabric. I can feel it. I'm not quite sure yet how strong the powers are, but maybe, just maybe, it's full of--dare I say it?--turnaround juice. Whatever it is, I just can't help thinking that something wonderful is about to unfold.

Prediction: Captain (!!!) Hecht gets a hat trick and balloons, confetti, and yo-yos rain from the ceiling as he reaches the 20 goal mark for the first time in his career. They do that kind of thing, right? Of course, optimism has recently proven to be the enemy of a Sabres win, so I'm also predicting a 6-3 Bruins final. I hope everyone enjoys their free yo-yos, at least! Also? Chara will be large. Roy will be tiny. People will laugh about it.

Bucky Misses Me

Hey all! Sorry about all the silence lately, but I'm currently up to my eyeballs in rehearsal for the single most painful show I've ever been involved with. And that's not even considering the fact that it's making me miss out on hockey and blogging. Seriously, don't get me started on all of the things I hate about it, or I'll be here forever. Instead, let me get started (again) on all the things I hate about Bucky Gleason! Yay! (I know I've spent a lot of time complaining about this show if complaining about Bucky Gleason feels like a refreshing change of pace.)

Apparently Bucky misses me, because he wrote an absolute gem for the paper this weekend that he just knew I wouldn't be able to resist. Well, Bucky, what can I say? You got me. You know just what I hate! I'll be brief:

The article starts off okay enough, in that Bucky recognizes that a 5-5 record isn't the end of the world, and he actually manages to use the word "talent" in conjunction with something that rhymes with neither "Schmury" nor "Schmiere." But then there's this: "For all the ESPN plays of the day that fans stored in their memory banks, it was the Sabres' supreme confidence on foreign turf that often gave them a 1-0 lead before the opening faceoff." I'm... kind of handcuffed by how little sense that makes. I think I'll just let it (mis)speak for itself.

Bucky's point about how the Sabres don't scare anyone anymore, particularly on the road, is valid, but he fails to mention how last season started with an October spent scaring the opposition and ended with a post-season spent scaring their fans. Coincidence? The fear probably hurt them more in the end than it helped them last year, and I'd much rather have them playing scared now than in May.

By saying that there's "no need to rehash Chris Drury and Daniel Briere for the umpteenth time," Bucky rehashes Chris Drury and Daniel Briere for the umpteenth time. Well played, sir. He goes on to say that "the first 10 games have shown Buffalo's flaws run deeper than the departures of the former co-captains." I'd argue that they've shown Buffalo's flaws are almost completely unrelated to the departures of the former co-captains, but you know. Six of one...

I find myself agreeing with his "six pack" bullet points, comments about Kalinin and Hecht notwithstanding. Still, it's not exactly groundbreaking stuff. Vanek's not scoring? Our defense is sucking? I sure hope this guy is getting paid for this!

Bucky then "treats" us to his thoughts on some non-Sabres issues, starting with the Rangers:

"Snicker while you can at the New York Rangers, who had just 15 goals in nine games going into the weekend and suffered back-to-back 1-0 losses last week. Unlike the Sabres, their first 10 games were not indicative of trouble. Drury, Jaromir Jagr and Brendan Shanahan had just one goal apiece while newcomer Scott Gomez had two."

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up. What was the number one problem the Sabres are having, again? Oh, that's right. "1. Underachieving stars." So for the Sabres, who have been getting secondary scoring from such non-stars as Pominville, Roy, and Hecht, not to mention a healthy dose of defensive scoring, the disappearance of Vanek and Afinogenov spells disaster. But for the Rangers, who have been shut out three times already this season--once by the Bruins, might I add--the expensive scoring drought is just growing pains? A speed bump? Get outta town, Bucky! (No really.) You can't have your cake and eat it, too; either underachieving stars is a problem, or it isn't. Also, I didn't hear you saying "they're veterans who will come around," when discussing Tallinder and Lydman's recent defensive problems. What, exactly, is the difference?

He goes on for a while about things I don't really care about, but I'm "rewarded" for sticking with him until the end with his take on the Oilers' recent video tribute to the once-captain-now-returning-as-an-Av Ryan Smyth. And if you don't know where this is headed, you're drunk. Sure enough: "Just wondering if the Sabres have anything similar planned for Drury and Briere." Seriously? Seriously? Look, setting aside the fact that I think it was ridiculous that the Oilers did that in the first place, Smyth had at least played eleven seasons with them before fucking off. Drury and Briere didn't play that many seasons as Sabres put together. I get that they did great things here, and everyone loved them, and there are a lot of great memories (I mean, think of all those Cups they brought us! Wait...), but Bucky. Get over it. They just weren't that into us. There's no need to go embarrassing ourselves trying to tell them how much we "miss" them. It's (been) time to move on. Furthermore, Sabres management: just, no. If this happens I may have to fly home just so I can puke ceremoniously right in the middle of it. Because I'm going to puke either way, and I'd rather have you clean up the mess.

Whew! I know I said I'd be brief, but that felt way too good. Too much pent-up aggression, I guess. Less than three weeks until this cursed play is over! (And then I'll get back to actually writing about the Sabres, and not just Bucky Gleason, I promise.)

In The News: SI.com

The idiocy is spreading. Since I'm fed up with what the Buffalo News has to, uh, "offer," I've been cruising the internets periodically looking for hockey tidbits. (Hey, I'm ridding myself of addiction one step at a time. If hockey news were nicotine, I would be in the second-patch stage right now.) Yesterday I landed on this, and I remembered why I vowed to quit in the first place. That's right, some genius is trying to say that the Rangers and the Flyers et al. stockpiling players is something to rejoice, no matter who you are. Apparently I've been thinking about the free agent situation all wrong, because this is a win for everyone involved: big market fans get to watch their teams succeed, small market fans get to continue hating the big markets with renewed passion, and the NHL gets more popular because "It's the presence of teams that are as rich in tradition as they are in talent that makes a sport compelling." And, honestly, who's not happy with that? Um, maybe fans who would rather watch their own "traditionless" teams do well than hate on other teams? Listen, I love a good rivalry. I'll admit hating the Senators made the playoffs more fun. But that's about hockey. This is about business, and "You have more money than me! That's not fair!" That kind of bitterness isn't fun for anyone. As for the whole popularity angle, it's no coincidence that I found my inner monologue screaming "I DON'T CARE!" after every paragraph. I don't care if Toronto is a more "marketable" team than Buffalo. I don't care if the Stanley Cup Final was beaten in the ratings by televised snail races. I literally could not care less if people like hockey or not. Especially if Cup after Cup for the Rangers and Red Wings is the only way to win them over. Yuck. By the by, this guy (I almost feel bad for not taking the time to jump tabs and look up his name, but I really don't care) cements his douchebag status by linking to a Bucky Gleason article. I'm not surprised to find they run in packs.

In other news:


David Beckham knows nothing says "I'm a slag-faced whore who left all my fans behind and turned my back on everything they believe in for boatloads of money" like the number 23.

In other, other news, today is my kid brother's eighteenth birthday. I feel old.

In the News: Bucky Gleason Needs to be Slapped

Okay, there's been overwhelming amounts of Sabres news out there lately, but nothing I particularly wanted to touch on. Can you blame me? Most of it revolves around what's quickly becoming a he-said, she-said blame game over the loss of the two co-captains, and all roads lead back to Darcy Regier. Drury and Briere are gone? Blame Darcy. Zubrus signs with the Devils? Blame Darcy. Numminen re-signs for the same money he did last off-season? Blame Darcy. We didn't win the Cup last year? All Darcy's doing. Your garbage disposal is clogged? That damn Darcy stuck his spoon down there again!

Somewhere, the forgotten Tom Donahoe is going, all Jan Brady: "Darcy, Darcy, Darcy!"

The only thing close to positive press that the Sabres have been getting in Buffalo (aside from the coverage of the Numminen signing--which I view as good news, even if the pricetag's a little high, and it means Paetsch staying in the 7th spot) was an editorial yesterday by Allen Wilson, which boiled down to little more than "Buffalonians, you may talk tough with all your promises of rallies and boycotts, but at heart, you're all just gluttons for punishment. So you'll gladly dig into whatever shit Regier ends up serving you next season, whether you like it or not." Not exactly heartwarming stuff.

And then came this morning, when Bucky Gleason decided to plumb new depths of putridity in journalism. He took a perfectly lovely story about Todd Marchant bringing the Cup he won in Anaheim back to WNY to celebrate, and twisted it to fit his latest favorite game of taking a dump on Sabres management. If you read the front page of the story, you'd hardly know it was written by Gleason at all, since it's a relatively unbiased and sentimental recount of all the various ways players have used the Cup in their alloted 24 hours, and a recap of the journey Marchant took to get his day with Stanley.

But turn to the second page, and you'll find Bucky picks up on his own cues, and takes it upon himself to gripe irrationally about Darcy Regier. Because, you know, no one else in Buffalo is doing that job adequately enough already. Apparently Bucky's strategy is just to throw every bit of blame he can think of at management and see what sticks. It's true that they let Drury and Briere slip through their fingers, but we have yet to see whether that's as big of a mistake as everyone is claiming. My prediction: No. The rest of the accusations Bucky flings at Darcy range from the merely uncorroborated (losing McKee, Dumont, and Grier was such a huge blow that we had to suffer through a 113-point, President's Trophy season) to the absurd (Darcy should have forgone signing Numminen in favor of bringing up Sekera--a kid from Rochester whose name I've never even heard before).

The fact that all of this criticism is framed around Marchant's Cup-winning tale just serves Bucky's greater purpose of showing how Anaheim does everything right and Buffalo does everything wrong. I don't want to take anything away from the Ducks, because they certainly deserved their championship, but they win one Cup and all of the sudden they're the be-all, end-all of organizations? Give me a break. Obviously Burke is a very capable GM, but just because Regier has a different style doesn't make him incompetent. If the recipe for a Stanley Cup were as simple as taking a proactive approach to player signings, I think people smarter than Bucky Gleason would have figured it out a long time ago. Some might say that more important than putting the right players together is making sure those players show up to play every night. But, then, such people would be claiming that Drury and Briere are capable of doing wrong, wouldn't they? And we can't have that. They're on the fast track to canonization.

So who is the authority Bucky uses to prove a free-agent-happy GM is the key to winning? Todd Marchant's dad. That's right, a player's father. Now, I'm sure he knows more than a thing or two about hockey, and he may even get to experience the business side of it a little through his son, but I'm willing to bet even he opened the paper this morning, saw Bucky's declaration of "Peter Marchant For General Manager," and said, "What a headcase."

Bucky, no matter what you say, Darcy deserves his job. It's the fact that you remain employed that never ceases to amaze me.