Buffalo Boy's Blog

I guess I should write something about this one since the Sabres have decided to get hot as of late. Its not to hop up on the faint hopes that those of you on the bandwagon have, its to provide some realism to this sense of hope that is going to be crushed with in the next week or so.

Sure they beat the Habs last night and that was great, emotional, kept their dismal hopes alive, and to some of you, their hopes are not as good as you might think.

Lets do the math, even with the win last night, they still coughed up a point to the Habs, the team they ultimately need to catch. So instead of being 3 back, they are now 4 back.

After last night, there are 7 games to go in this disappointment of a season and just to catch and tie the Habs, the Sabres need two of those games. Granted the Sabres have the tie breaker with last nights win, so all they have to do is tie the Habs in the standings.

So assuming they win their next two against the Atlanta Thrashers who have given Buffalo fits all season and The Washington Capitals who BTW are second in the East and have the worlds best player in Alexander Ovechkin who is becoming quite the Sabre killer, they still have the Devils, Red Wings, Leafs, Hurricanes and Bruins. Granted we always hand the Leafs their asses, they almost came back on us on Friday.

None of these games coming up are going to be easy, and my math says they have to without a question in my mind go 6-1, 5-2 minimum to do it. 5-2 with a horeshoe and their lucky charms that Florida and the Habs tank the rest of the year. I could see one team doing that and that would be the Habs, Florida is just playing damn good hockey.

So, to sum up the above, despite the win, it was nice, they were gritty, but looking at the big picture and the fact that they took some injuries last night that are going to hold some guys out for a game or two namely Kaleta and possibly Rivet, it just ain't gonna happen folks. Its still too little, too late. Where was this earlier in March?

*As an aside, but was it me or was the officiating as awful as RJ and Harry Neale were pointing out last night. It seemed as if Montreal was getting away with a lot of cross checks and garbage that had us retaliating, not to mention a holding penalty on I believe Sekera that wasn't anything at all and a retaliation on Hecht that should have gone to both players. Rivet got slashed, no call and Derek Roy got a few sticks to the chops, both no calls. The officiating in this league seems to have gone from bad to worse. Just wondering if anyone noticed the same thing.