Not only that but all three offseason additions were signed for the type of big money longterm deals that the Sabres had been so unwilling to give to the likes of Daniel Briere, Chris Drury and Brian Campbell.

As for the NHL, it has a new person in charge of discipline, former Detroit Red Wings and New Jersey Devils great Brendan Shanahan and recently saw its first franchise relocation since 1997. Out with the Atlanta Thrashers, in with the Winnipeg Jets so expect at least some changes in conference structure next season. Also, the NBA’s locked out, something the NHL may benefit from in terms of attracting fans.

Finally, this past summer saw the deaths of Derek Boogaard, Rick Rypien and Wade Belak, three players known for their toughness but who also turned out to have serious issues with depression. Discouraging stuff, to say the least and that was even before all but one of the layers, coaches and personnel from the Russian team Locomotiv Yaroslavl and the flight crew carrying them to their KHL season opener in Belarus died in a horrific plane crash. The victims included such NHL alums as Pavol Demitra, Karlis Skrastins, Ruslan Salei and Josef Vasicek but even if none of the victims had ever played a game in North America, the sheer devastation of the crash would still be tragic.

It’s now been over a week since the Sabres actually started their season in Finland against the Anaheim Ducks and the results actually look promising. Ryan Miller and Thomas Vanek dominated the 4-1 win over the Ducks in Helsinki, no small feat since the Ducks were a playoff team last year and haven’t lost many of their key players.

The Sabres’ 4-2 win over the Los Angeles Kings in Berlin the following day was a little more close, thanks to two goals by the Kings’ high-scoring center, Anze Kopitar but the Blue and Gold were able to hold on, in large part because of two early goals by rookie phenom Luke Adam. Adam seems to have really developed a rapport with Vanek, with the Sabres’ star left wing providing assists on all three of the goals Adam has scored this season so keep an eye on him.

Of course the Sabres weren’t going to go 82-0 and the first loss happened last Friday in Buffalo’s true home opener. 2006 nemesis Carolina triumphed 4-3 at what’s now called the First Niagara Center, with reigning Calder Trophy winner Jeff Skinner scoring the game winning goal minutes after Drew Stafford had seemingly sent the game to overtime with his tying goal.

To their credit, the Sabres rebounded the following night with a 3-2 win over Pittsburgh featuring a stellar performance from Jonas Enroth. I don’t think Enroth’s likely to supplant Miller as starting goalie but it is nice to know that Lindy Ruff no longer feels like he has to play his star goalie on back to back nights. Whatever you think of Miller’s talents, wearing out a goalie by having him play all but a couple games rarely ends well, unless that goalie is named Martin Brodeur and the year is 2003.

Moving on to the rest of the month, the Sabres finally play their first division game on Tuesday in Montreal, making for a potentially interesting goalie duel between the Canadiens’ Carey Price and Miller. That’s followed by a road game on Thursday at another team that upgraded in the offseason, Florida, and a game at Tampa Bay on Saturday. The Lightning have only won one game so far but they do have a lot of talent.

A week from Tuesday, the Sabres finally return home to face the currently winless Columbus Blue Jackets, two days before it’s their turn to host Florida. Happy watching.

It’s been way too long since I last posted but even if I had kept up with this blog more over the past two months, I doubt I could have kept up with everything that’s happened to the Buffalo Sabres. Ironically enough, the team whose first half of the season was marked by predictability and mediocrity has whizzed through the last two months of the season as one of the league’s best teams. Moreover, they’ve dominated in games where no one expected it and found ways to come back in games where they’d normally be out of the game before the second period intermission. It’s been surprises all the way.

Yeah, we all suspected that Jonas Enroth was a better goalie than Patrick Lalime but good enough to win all of his first three games in shootouts? Good enough to post a key shutout of the Rangers, hold his own long enough to secure the team a point against Washington AND beat Carolina in OT in a must-win game? Good enough to have his very mask ripped off in the middle of play and still make an amazing save? I don’t think so.

Likewise, as a standout at Boston College, where he led his team to the national title, was named Most Outstanding Player of the Frozen Four and was a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award, Nathan Gerbe was expected to be a pretty good player and had certainly played well in Portland. But 16 goals, including a spectacular spin-o-rama shot that sent the Sabres’ home finale against Philly into overtime, clinching the Sabres’ playoff spot and paving the way for Thomas Vanek’s game winner? I don’t know.

We all knew how talented a goalie Ryan Miller is but with everyone talking about how much better he was last year than this year, did we really expect him to just waltz right back in and replace Enroth before the third period against Philly after missing five games?

We knew Drew Stafford had talent. After all, he was a first round pick and he’d had some occasional stretches of good play, notably leading up to and during the 2007 playoffs. But after the horrible season he had last year, did anybody really expect him to score 30 goals and become the type of player who could beat you down the ice and score on you single-handedly almost at will?

We knew Terry Pegula had a reputation as a committed hockey fan and that Darcy Regier probably was hampered by the restrictions of being the team’s GM under three cost-conscious owners in the Rigas Family, the NHL and Tom Golisano. But that Pegula was willing to accompany the team on extended road trips or that Regier would pull off as savy a move as trading for Brad Boyes without even giving up any actual players, prospects or first round picks? That probably caught some people off guard as well.

I don’t know how far the Sabres can go in the playoffs this year. Philadelphia’s a really good team, so is Washington, so is Boston and so are the other five teams who made or will make the postseason besides Buffalo. But with the new players and old players in new roles the Sabres have added this year as well as Pegula’s full commitment to spending whatever’s necessary to bring a Stanley Cup to Buffalo, the one thing we CAN expect for sure is that it’s going to be good.

Thomas Vanek simply walking into Mordor

A funny thing has happened to the Buffalo Sabres since Terry Pegula purchased them from Tom Golisano towards the end of February: slowly but surely, they’ve actually managed to morph into contenders.  They’re probably no one’s idea of the next Eastern Conference Champions, not with 76 points and tied with the slumping New York Rangers for seventh in the conference. But the position the Sabres are currently finding themselves in was certainly all but unthinkable to a lot of people just two months ago. And not all of the team’s sudden revival is a direct result of their new owner.

If you want to see where Pegula Power has and hasn’t boosted the Sabres’ season this spring, the best example is probably found in their roster and who they’ve added to it. To be honest, they haven’t really added too many players. Sure, there’ve been plenty of call-ups from Portland this year, notably backup goalie Jonas Enroth, who’s succeeded where Ty Conklin, Jocelyn Thibault, Mikael Tellqvist and Patrick Lalime failed in giving Ryan Miller a complementary backup netminder Lindy Ruff can trust. But other than Portland, very few Sabres players have joined the team whether by trade, the waiver wire or even out of free agency.

In other words, Darcy Regier hasn’t really been that much more busy in the weeks leading up to, through and after the trade deadline than usual. Where Pegula has made a difference is that instead of being forced to waste the team’s one big trade on a role player like Dominic Moore or Steve Bernier, Regier was able this year to use Pegula’s money to trade for Brad Boyes, who’s actually a talented goal scorer. Granted, Boyes can be streaky himself and his point production had dropped off in recent years but part of that can be attributed to St Louis’ lack of offensive weapons and so Boyes has been able to rediscover his scoring touch in Buffalo, with five goals since becoming a Sabre so far.

Outside of Boyes, it’s mainly already established players leading the charge for Buffalo. Thomas Vanek has continued to play excellently, Drew Stafford has had the biggest breakthrough season for a Sabres player since Vanek himself two years ago and Paul Gaustad has managed to supplement his faceoff prowess with some actual goal scoring.Hey, even Rob Niedermayer’s scored a couple goals lately.

As for the team’s younger players, Tyler Myers has recovered from a so-so first half and the pressure that comes with trying to “top” his extraordinary rookie year, Andrej Sekera, Mike Weber and Chris Butler have all also shown promise on defense and Tyler Ennis and Nathan Gerbe have developed real knacks for slipping through impossibly narrow amounts of traffic to get just the right shot. All of this has made Ryan Miller’s job much easier.

Even when the Sabres lose these days, they don’t seem to do it as bad as they used to. Both of the Sabres’ regulation losses since Pegula took over, recorded against Pittsburgh and Toronto, actually started with the Sabres scoring the first goal and ended with the winning team only ahead by two goals at most.

During their current run, the Sabres have

• come from behind (Philadelphia and Boston)
• scored first and pulled out the win (Ottawa and Minnesota)
• at least earned a point against other contenders for the last few playoff spots (Atlanta, Carolina, the New York Rangers)
• won on the road (most of their recent road trip)
• won at home (Ottawa)
• beaten the best team in the East (Philadelphia)
• beaten the worst team in the East (Ottawa)
• won in regulation
• won in overtime (Minnesota, Boston)

This season is far from over but I think it’s safe to say that Buffalo deserves at least as much postseason attention as most pundits wouldn’t think twice of giving the Rangers, Carolina, Toronto and New Jersey. Here’s to Sunday’s 6-4 win over Ottawa, here’s to the prospect of many more wins, here’s to Terry Pegula and most of all, here’s to the memory of Rick Martin.

NHL Games of the week

Rather than focus on the brutal hit by Zdeno Chara of Boston on Max Pacioretty of Montreal, a hit which probably deserved more punishment than it got but certainly not an entire police investigation, or the Phoenix relocation crisis, which hasn’t really changed in the past week, here are the games for this week worth watching around the league.

Monday-all of them. Seriously, Tampa Bay vs Toronto pits a team trying to chase down Washington for the Southeast against a team desperate to get into the postseason at all, San Jose and Chicago are two of the best teams in the West right now and Vancouver and Minnesota are division rivals at opposite ends of the top nine teams in the West right now. You literally can’t go wrong here.

Tuesday-Washington vs Montreal or Phoenix vs Calgary-in the East, a rematch of last year’s seven game upset of Presidents Trophy-winning Washington by lowly Montreal. In the West, Calgary’s a surprise playoff contender this year and even all the insanity surrounding its lack of a permanent owner hasn’t stopped Phoenix from climbing as high as the No. 4 seed in the conference.

Wednesday-Toronto vs Carolina-a battle between two teams trying to catch Buffalo in the standings and make the playoffs. Toronto winning here might not be that bad for the Sabres, though the fan in me hopes they take care of business against Carolina the night before anyhow.

Thursday-Chicago vs Dallas-this game could play a major role in deciding who gets the No. 4 seed in the West and home advantage in the first round. Though given how crowded and competitive the West is, the game could just as easily determine who gets the Nos. 7 and 8 seeds.

Friday-Montreal vs. the New York Rangers-no true duds tonight but of the teams playing on Friday, these two are closest together in the standings and the closer together teams are in the standings come March, the better your chances of an exciting game.

Saturday-Anaheim vs Los Angeles-regional rivals, both battling for playoff spots…face it, this game will be way more competitive than any Lakers-Clippers game has been in the past five years and way more competitive than any non-World Series Angels-Dodgers game will ever be.

Sunday-Chicago-Phoenix-one week before the game, these two teams are only one point apart. Don’t look for that to change much during the week.

Next Monday-Pittsburgh-Detroit or Calgary-Los Angeles-only two games but they’re both worth watching.

Obviously, I became a Sabres fan well after the heyday of Martin and his French Connection cohorts, Gilbert Perreault and Rene Robert. Martin and Robert both retired in 1982, a full eight years before I was born and Perreault joined them in retirement in 1987. By contrast, I was born three years after Perreault retired and didn’t become the diehard Sabres fan I am now until the 2005-2006 season. I never saw the French Connection play and so all I have are the recollections of those Sabres fans I know who were actually lucky enough to see them in action, the same as I do with Bob McAdoo, Randy Smith and the Buffalo Braves or the AFL champion Buffalo Bills of the mid 1960′s.

But what those memories from the veteran fans I know and what the all-too-small amounts of video footage of the Sabres in the 70′s reveal is that while Perreault might be the only member of the French Connection to have been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, all three players were nothing short of amazing, including Martin.

At a time when the Sabres were a brand-new team in a rapidly declining market and could very easily have been out of town within its first decade, as was the case with the Braves, the Atlanta Flames, the California Golden Seals and the Kansas City Scouts, Martin and his cohorts were dynamic, exciting players. Martin was just as responsible for Perreault for saving the team.

They enabled what was basically an expansion team to not only make the playoffs for the first time in just their third year but to make the Stanley Cup Finals only five years after being founded and to come within two games of knocking off the mighty Philadelphia Flyers for the Stanley Cup itself. Martin scored a respectable 382 goals during his 11-season career, including 52 goals in one season two years in a row at the Sabres’ peak in 1974 and 1975.

Those goal totals, if I’m not mistaken, are still tied for the fourth most in a season in Sabres history, with only Danny Gare, Pat Lafontaine and of course, Alexander “76 goals in one season” Mogilny ever having topped them. That’s right, even the great Perreault couldn’t top his winger in that department.

Martin also suffered several injuries, including one induced by Dave Farish of the New York Rangers which is credited with helping to increase the use of helmets among the Sabres, as well as a 1980 knee injury which eventually led to his being traded to the Los Angeles Kings in 1981 and retiring shortly thereafter.

One of the most exciting aspects of the Pegula era so far has been the Sabres’ new owner’s eagerness to reach out to the team’s former greats, including estranged legends like Robert, who had criticized ex-owner Tom Golisano’s ownership style and been ostracized for it, and Dominik Hasek, who didn’t exactly leave Buffalo on the best terms way back in 2002.

Pegula calls it the “French Reconnection” and even never having seen the French Connection play on TV or in person, I couldn’t help but be inspired by the sight of the team’s three original franchise players at the press conference introducing Pegula to the Buffalo public. They were a living reminder of just how much greatness the Sabres have achieved in their 40 years so far and of the potential to reach that greatness once more. So even though I never saw him play a game, I can honestly say I’ll miss Rick Martin and all that he represented.

Then Terry Pegula took over as owner and now the Blue and Gold are on a three game point streak which would have been a three game winning streak if not for a dumb penalty by Jochen Hecht against Detroit on Saturday. They’re two points out of the last playoff spot in the East but they’ve waived their captain and are looking to unload at least two or three more players at the trading deadline before they next take to the ice Tuesday against the New York Rangers.

All this in a league where two of the ugliest fight and penalty filled games in recent memory unfolded during the same week, more pre-Deadline Day trades have been made than in any other post-Lockout season, the Atlanta Thashers are in serious danger of becoming the first NHL team to move to another city since the Hartford Whalers and the gap in the Western Conference between home ice in the first round and “winning” a lottery pick in this summer’s draft is ridiculously close to two points. Talk about a hell of a month.

The Buffalo Sabres may be about to gain a new owner but if their first two games after the All-Star Break are any indication, they’ve still got many of the same issues as before to work on. Holding on after grabbing an early lead, minimizing turnovers, getting offensive production from their star players instead of just hoping that the third and fourth-liners get lucky…all of these were issues for the Sabres on Friday night after the Blue and Gold wasted early goals by Mike Grier and Paul Gaustad and let the Pittsburgh Penguins go off for three goals in the second period for a 3-2 win.

Much to the bemusement of Buffalo fans, the Sabs seemed to have a fairly good handle on all of these problems the following night at home against the Toronto Maple Leafs in a 6-2 victory. The power play scored two goals one night after it was practically nonexistent. The team got on the board early with a beautiful play by Thomas Vanek wherein he stole the puck from a Toronto player just as it was about to clear the Leafs’ end of the ice then made a perfectly executed pass to Jason Pominville for the team’s first goal.

The Sabres actually technically had four more giveaways against Toronto than they did against Pittsburgh but were seemingly less crippled by turnovers. They committed less penalties and were able to benefit from the other team losing its composure for a change.

Gaustad did keep up his recent strong play but thanks to goals by Stafford, Pominville, Vanek and even Tim Connolly, he wasn’t the only player standing between the Sabres and wasting another strong effort by Ryan Miller as they did the night before.

The next few weeks are going to be crucial for the Sabres. They’d have to tank pretty spectacularly to be able to draft a guaranteed NHL-ready player in the Draft this spring but they’re still five points out of the last playoff spot in the East right now. They next play one of the best teams in the East in Tampa Bay and a fellow fringe playoff contender with a recent history of dominating them in Florida.

Between Darcy Regier publicly admitting that he’ll try to trade some of the team’s veterans and give their younger players more playing time and Terry Pegula taking over as owner in time to help decide which players to trade before the deadline at the end of the month, this team will not enter March looking the same as it does now. But it’s up to those players who ARE here now to prove that this team deserves to be a buyer at the trade deadline and not just a seller.

Meanwhile, the NHL’s certainly done quite the job of keeping itself in the spotlight after the All-Star Game. Pittsburgh’s Jordan Staal wasn’t suspended this week after officials determined that Brandon Prust of the New York Rangers over-embellished a hit on him on Tuesday. Normally, that would be the talk of the week but Boston and Dallas just had to get into three different fights in the opening two minutes of their game on Friday. And former Sabre Daniel Paille just had to unload an open-ice hit to the head on Dallas’ Raymond Sawada in that same game. Paille was subsequently suspended for four games, which means his +/- for the week will look….probably just as bad as it always does.

And because that just wasn’t enough drama for one week, Pittsburgh center Evgeni Malkin tore his MCL and his ACL in his first game back when a clean hit on Malkin by Buffalo’s own Tyler Myers went horribly wrong and resulted in Malkin’s foot being buried by an impromptu Tyler Myers sandwich. Strangely enough, human knees were not designed to bear the weight of a six-foot-eight, 227-lb defenseman. Anyhow, it’s a serious, but not season-killing blow for a playoff contender still waiting for Sidney Crosby to return to the ice.

Finally, Rick DiPietro further cemented his status as the NHL’s most snakebit player on Wednesday when he squared off against Penguins backup netminder Brent Johnson in a goalie fight in the waning seconds of the Penguins-Islanders game. DiPietro did manage to get in a few blows but Johnson’s first punch knocked DiPietro to the ice and sidelining him for the next four to six weeks with facial fractures and knee swelling. At this point, DiPietro is so snakebit that I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if a snake actually bit him (Oh yeah, Peter Forsberg’s coming out of retirement to play with Colorado. So many foot jokes, so little time).

So now that we’ve reviewed what a crazy week this has been for the NHL, it’s time to move on to guessing which games will provide the next watercooler fodder.

Games of the week

Tuesday-San Jose vs Washington-two very good teams who dominated their conferences last year (in the regular season anyhow) but have actually had to struggle a bit to keep up in the race for the postseason this year.

Wednesday-Boston at Montreal or Colorado at Minnesota-two games pitting teams who’ve seen each other in the postseason in recent years. Not exactly Chicago-Philadelphia or Pittsburgh-Washington as postseason rematches go but still promising.

Thursday-Los Angeles at Pittsburgh-LA’s just barely hanging on in the West right now while Pittsburgh is currently without its two biggest stars. Somehow, those two facts actually make this game more intriguing for me.

Friday-New York Rangers at Atlanta-speaking of postseason rematches, here’s one 2007 playoffs reunion that promises to be more compelling than the original four game sweep by the Rangers.

Saturday-Carolina at Tampa Bay-I still can’t believe the Southeast Division’s so good this year.

Sunday-Pittsburgh at the New York Rangers-these two teams just don’t do “boring” very well when they play each other.

Monday-three games tonight: Vancouver at St Louis, Washington at Phoenix and Calgary at Colorado. If you have a girlfriend or boyfriend, go out for Valentine’s Day. If you’re single, go out for Valentine’s Day anyway.

Crosby-it’s been almost a month since Sidney Crosby was sidelined with a concussion and he still hasn’t been cleared to resume practicing and will miss the All-Star Game. It’s actually kind of a shame, as much as NHL fans like me complain about the guy, he’d been having a terrific season up to that point, the type where a player’s just plain fun to watch. For all his accomplishments, Crosby’s rarely been associated with that quality as much as Alexander Ovechkin and it would have made the All-Star Game a lot more interesting to watch. Pittsburgh’s also currently playing without Evgeni Malkin who’s staying home from Raleigh because of a knee injury and sinus infection but has managed to stay near the top of the standings behind white-hot Philadelphia.

Snow vs. Nabokov-meanwhile, the New York Islanders have drawn themselves some attention by claiming Evgeni Nabokov off waivers while he was trying to sign with Detroit. More to the point, they’ve garnered attention because when Nabokov refused to play for a lottery bound team like the Islanders instead of a contender like the Red Wings, who currently sit in the top three in the Western Conference, they suspended him.

All-Star game-the center of attention for the NHL right now is the All-Star Game on Sunday and the rosters aren’t all that bad even without Crosby and Malkin. Daniel Briere, Ovechkin, Zdeno Chara, Nicklas Lidstrom, Eric Staal, Patrick Kane, the Sedin Twins….all great players, no matter what team they’re on.

I have to admit to mixed feelings about abandoning the conference vs. conference format every other major league uses for their all-star games in favor of the captains picking players but it still involves the fans and Brendan Shanahan, who helped come up with the idea, has generally been pretty on target when it comes to promoting and improving the league. Hopefully, the fans in Raleigh and watching on VS will like what they see.

Games of the week

Tuesday-Philadelphia at Tampa Bay-it’s the first night back from the All-Star break so there are a lot of good games on tonight but Philadelphia has had an utterly dominant first half that’s left them in first place in both the Eastern Conference and NHL standings and should be a great matchup against Tampa Bay, which currently leads the Southeast and whose superstar, Steven Stamkos, currently leads the league in points and goals with 67 and 38 respectively.

Wednesday-San Jose at Anaheim-this probably would have been a more exciting game in say, 2007 or 2008 but both teams still have enough proven goal scorers in the likes of Cory Perry, Ryan Getzlaf and Patrick Marleau to make this worth your while.

Thursday-Dallas at Boston-if the regular season were over today, both of these teams would have top three seeds. The matchup at goalie between Kari Lehtonen and Tim Thomas, two players who’ve been constants for their teams this season after awful 2009-2010 campaigns, should be especially intriguing.

Friday-Washington-Tampa Bay or Vancouver-Chicag0-one of the first truly exciting even before the fact Southeast Division games in years or a rematch of two teams who’ve faced off in the playoffs the past two years and could do so again. The choice is yours.

It figures that the 10 days I just took off from this blog to go back to school and get settled in would be the two busiest and headline filled weeks of the month for the NHL and the Buffalo Sabres. Let’s review what’s been going on recently, shall we? First, a look at the Buffalo Sabres.

Coming off of a disastrous 5-3 beatdown by the New York Islanders that wasn’t even as close as the final score made it look, the Sabres needed to rebound against Montreal on January 18 and aside from a penalty-filled first period that gave the Habs a 1-0 lead, the Blue and Gold generally did that with a good goal in the second by Tyler Ennis and a performance by Ryan Miller that matched Carey Price shot for shot straight into overtime when Jason Pominville scored to grab the extra point for Buffalo, though the ridiculous amount of injuries Montreal sustained during the first half of the game didn’t hurt either.

Buffalo played even better two days later in a 4-2 win over Boston that featured a 38-save masterpiece by Miller and sensational goals by Thomas Vanek, Jason Pominville and Nathan Gerbe, who seemed to be driving Zdeno Chara nuts all game long and just like that, the Sabres had themselves a two-game winning streak.

This being the 2010-2011 Buffalo Sabres though, the Blue and Gold just had to follow up a really good game with a clunker. One night after beating Northeastern Division-leading Boston, Buffalo lost again to the lowly New York Islanders, this time 5-2. Ryan Miller was gone before the end of the first period, even though his performance wasn’t quite as bad as it had been in the last game against the Islanders. The Islanders became the third straight team to score first on Buffalo and backed it up with two more goals before Nathan Gerbe scored two for the Sabres five seconds apart and the Sabs sabotaged themselves in the third period with two penalties in the last four minutes. The Islanders’ original goalie for the game, Nate Lawson, left after one period when he injured his left knee but it hardly made a difference.

As bad and typical of their losses this season as the second Islanders loss was for the Sabres, it is true that they haven’t had too many long losing streaks during the second quarter of the season. Two days after the Islanders posted their second five-goal game on the Sabres in less than a week, the Blue and Gold returned the Islanders the favor in Uniondale, scoring the opening goal for once, breaking through a 2-2 tie after two periods and outplaying the Islanders enough in the third period to win 5-3.

At the heart of the rally was the one player who has been completely consistent and productive in every game for Buffalo over the past two weeks, Nathan Gerbe. It was Gerbe who paved the way for the win over Boston with the game-tying goal he scored on the power play and he scored another crucial man advantage goal against the Islanders which proved to be the game winner. He is good at standing up to bigger players and getting on their nerves but his real value has come on offense.

Perhaps no game summed up the Sabres’ recent performance better than their 2-1 OT win over the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday in their last game before the All-Star Break. All the elements were there: the slow start where the other team scored first (Chris Kelly, not even five minutes in), the stretches where the Sabres utterly dominated their opponent (most of the first period but especially the goals by Ottawa native Paul Byron and Jochen Hecht, drawing on beautiful play by Tyler Myers and Vanek), the ensuing shifts where the Sabres played listlessly and looked like they were just trying to kill off the rest of the game and the inevitable part of the game where the other team caught up to them.

Sergei Gonchar’s game-tying goal with just over six minutes left in regulation should definitely have been waved off for interference on Nick Foligno’s part, to be sure, but you can’t blame interference for the fact that the Sabres only registered two shots on goal in the entire third period. If Miller and the Buffalo defensemen hadn’t held Ottawa to five shots in the last 20 minutes of regulation, the Senators wouldn’t have needed a controversial goal to secure two points, let alone one. Shaone Morrisonn’s OT goal wound up winning the game for Buffalo anyhow and it does have to feel satisfying for Sabres fans for the team to have an in-season winning streak over Ottawa for once, even if Jason Spezza’s injured and the team is having even worse of a season than Buffalo. It would just be nice if the Sabres could be a little more consistent.

In the mean time, the All-Star Break is upon us, the Sabres are five points behind Carolina and six points behind Atlanta for the final playoff spot and is likely to get a brand new owner in the next month or two. That’s a lot better than many people would have predicted for the Sabres in November.