Sabres 3, Sens 2 (SO) -- SWEET MERCIFUL CRAP!

Did you ever wonder who discovered milk? Seriously, think about it. Who was the first guy to look at a cow and say to himself "Well, I'll just squeeze these dangly bits here and see what happens. Then maybe...oh I don't know...maybe I'll drink whatever comes out of them." Did you ever wonder that? No? Well I do. I think about stuff like that all the time, pretty much whenever I feel the need for a distraction. During meetings. On long drives. Post coitus. Whatever. I also think of things like that when I'm watching excruciatingly dull yet incredibly frustrating hockey games. I have no idea what made me think of that...

The Highs:

• Searching for Bobby Mike Fisher...There he is! Always the last place you look: Welcome back Mickey! Two goals to break a two-fer-twenty-eight game scoreless streak means that the suicide pass you dished to Stillman early in the first, almost getting him killed in the process, is forgiven. Besides, I could never stay mad at you, ya big lug. Whoops...my man crush is showing.

• And lo, a child shall...um...not completely fuck it up: Yo, Brian! 'SsssUP...er...DUDE? Yeah, that's it. I think that's what the kids are doing these days. Now, your second game wasn't as strong as your first, but that's okay. And really, whose is? Ask Beloved. But you still played better than Reds has on most nights this season, trust me. But a small bit of advice, if I may: you might want to lay off creaming opposing (veteran!) tough guys into the boards from behind, especially when one considers that you look like the kid who bags my groceries. It's for your own safety. You'll thank me for it later.
  

• Dost mine eyes deceive me?!?: A hearty congratulations to Andrej Meszaros (No, really!) for coming to Alfie's defence by absolutely leveling the Sabre player (whose name escapes me at the moment) who had the temerity to face wash The Captain following a goal mouth scramble. True, it was a bit of a blind side hit...and it was late...and it was the most body contact I've seen you involved in all season...but in a game like this, I'll grasp at just about any straw for something positive. Ugh...I have to go take a shower now.

The Lows:

• *Sigh*...we'll have to start all over again with the Electrical College: The pre-game talking heads made much hay with the fact that the Sens had spent the majority of that morning practice concentrating on "defensive responsibilities". So what happens? A Keystone Kops routine in front of our net leads to Buffalo opening the scoring (I'm pretty sure all five of our fearless heroes took a swing at the puck, but I'll need to check the replay) and the tying goal comes with Christon Philichenkov playing "no, you take it" in front of a sprawling Gerber, who had already slid halfway to Geneva. So...how'd that work out for ya, boys?

• In goal, for YOUR Ottawa Senators...Mister Super Fantastic Trampoline Guy!: Speaking of whom...You're doing it again Martin. It's what got you benched last year, and what lost you the starting job back in December. Rebounds. Crazy ass rebounds followed by you letting yourself get out of position. It's simple really. Stand up. Top of the paint. Face the shooter. Stop the puck. Now you try.

Creamy Middle:

For a team playing for its playoff life, the Sabres came out absolutely flat, and we should have buried them, early and often, then salted the earth, laid a wreath and been happily on our merry way to the first round. But we didn't (shots on goal after the 1st period? 18-9 Buffalo. 18!!) and we paid the price. And now, I find myself wracking my brains, trying to remember the last time, other than '97 that is, when we hadn't clinched a playoff spot with a scant four games to go. And unless The Bryan has a magic "Defence" elixir stashed away somewhere, we won't see the end of April, even if we do get in. And on that happy thought, I'm going to continue drinking...

Up Next:

If you thought the boys were lethargic last night, just wait until tomorrow, when we play a desperate Bruins team, in Boston, at one o'clock in the afternoon. We'll be lucky if the boys don't take their afternoon naps right on the bench. Oh, THAT's right! We won't get to see it! And why not? Well let me tell you...and I want to make myself perfectly clear here, removing all ambiguity lest my words be open to misinterpretation...*ahem*...SOME PENCIL NECKED CBC COCK KNOCKING FUCKSTICK DECIDED THAT WE DON'T WANT TO SEE LATE SEASON GAMES AND DECIDED NOT TO TELEVISE IT! I'm looking at you Nancy Lee. Stupid, hockey hating, bi-- La-la-la-la-la...I'm okay, now...La-la-la-la. Yep, right as rain. FUCK!

Behind Enemy Lines:

I had hoped to find a Bruins blog that offered a game thread, if only to allow me the opportunity to punch the "refresh" key for three hours while screaming at my monitor...since, you know...I can't actually see the game (Fuck you Nancy! You goddamned, pig-headed...no...easy...deep breaths...musn't lose...AAAAAARGH!!), but alas I couldn't. So I'm happy to direct you to The Old Bruins Fan. Nothing fancy, just good, solid hockey talk with none of the panic that someone blogging about a team 2 points out of ninth should espouse. I have to admire that. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to write a very strongly worded letter.

Faceless Drones 3, Sens 2: In Which The Devils Continue To Struggle With The Elimination Of The Rover

Welcome back to the Bad Old Days. I had no idea, but apparently there is a vast, silent majority of fans secretly pining for the return of the rodeo that hockey had become before the lockout. Who knew? Big Lou, that’s who. So let’s all thank Lou Lamiarello and his army of clones, the New Jersey Devils (ably abetted by on-ice officials we should add), for once again being at the vanguard of those forces eager and willing to destroy flow, squash offence wherever they find it and ensure the inevitable regression of hockey’s popularity in dumbass idiotic undeserving “non-traditional” markets back below that of Antique Roadshow and midget mud wrestling.

The Highs:

• This? ‘Tis but a scratch: Anyone who doubted just how valuable A-Train is to our Cup hopes, I submit to you the following sequence:Early in the first period, Anton, as is his wont, drops to block a shot from the high slot. Not content with the usual, leg first technique, our boy decides to add an element of risk to it. He blocks it with his face. A quick trip to the bench and a self examination of the nose later (nope, doesn’t look broken), he’s back on the ice for his next shift. In a soup kitchen somewhere in America, Craig Ludwig sits, smiling.

• That’s an impressive display of man meat right there. Wait. What?: Schubeedoo, Fish and Neiler. Ladies and gentlemen, your beefed up, stoked up, truly terrifying starting line for last night’s game, and boy howdy, did they do their jobs. CBC should put overlays on the replays, POW!, WHAM!, OOF!, Batman style. And for the first 90 seconds of the game, there was more energy and excitement on the ice, and in the stands, then there had been for weeks. Seeing this, THE COACH decided to capitalize by immediately splitting up his new CRASH line, thus allowing the Devils to suck all life out of the contest. Once the game was safely out of reach, THE COACH once again demonstrated his considerable brilliance by putting them back together in the third. Once.

The Lows:

• Egregious Golden Groin Defensive Brainfart of the night: Fearlessly picking up the torch so skillfully dropped by the late, unlamented Joe Corvo, and on a night marked by The Captain’s own goal (can he at least get an official point for that? I’d hate to see him lose the scoring race by one), our boy Jason distinguished himself with an absolute frozen rope from his own corner, into the low slot. A fantastic, no look pass. The only problem, of course, was that it was a fantastic no look pass directly onto the stick blade of John Madden, Sens killer of note. The fact that Emery made the save (I know!), in no way mitigates the unbridled, bile producing stupidity of this play.

• Behold the terrifying scoring machine that is Arron Asham: I’m going to take it a bit easy on you Ray. Just a bit, mind you, and for a couple three reasons. First, you didn’t exactly get any help from the guys in front of you, and once the rest of the team got their collective heads out of their asses, you made just enough big stops to keep us in it. Secondly, we all know that THE COACH doesn’t take a good effort in a losing cause into account when picking a starter for the next game, meaning you’ll be sitting on the bench Tuesday night, so I don’t want to rub anymore salt in the wound. But…um…geez Ray. Arron Asham? Really?

• Duct tape? Aisle 47: The operating budget of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is on the north side of one billion dollars. To put that into perspective, this is roughly equivalent to the GDP of Bhutan* or, conversely, Amy Winehouse’s monthly meth allowance. So, would it be too much for this humble taxpayer to ask that the CBC feed emanating from our Nation’s Capital not look like its being beamed from the dark side of (Nancy Lee’s) Uranus, and that’s when the signal isn’t breaking up completely? Perhaps to make up for the extra costs, Mothercorps could scrap that fiber optic connection between Dean Brown’s brain and the NHL statistical database. All that bandwidth must cost a fortune.

*I have no idea what the GDP of Bhutan is.

The Creamy Middle:

I really don’t think I’m overstating things, when I say the continued success of the New Jersey Devils is the absolute worst thing to happen to hockey since the Fox glowing puck. Standing defiant against all of that post-lockout run and gun fun, they just kept hanging around, clogging up the neutral zone and otherwise sucking all that is good and just and righteous about hockey right out of the game. Combine that with the knee-jerk “monkey see” mentality of the other teams (except THE COACH, of course. Lord knows we can’t play defence to save our lives) along with the inevitable backslide in the competence of the on ice officials, and…well there’s a reason one of the most successful teams in the league with a brand new arena can’t draw more than 12,000 per game. I mean, a reason other than playing in Newark. As for the Senators performance last night, I’ll give them a very slim pass based on the strength of the last two periods. Hey, it’s hard pulling yourself out of a coma that quickly.

Up Next:

The fast fading Flyers make an alliterative appearance at the Bank Tuesday night. Don’t look now Sens fans but both the Habs and Devils are now nipping at our heels for the conference lead (and it could be tied by game time). Now, I’m sure THE COACH is stressing to our guys that the tightness in the standings dictates that they must put all thoughts of reclaiming their manhood and exacting revenge aside. Playing a solid game and getting the win is what must take precedence. God, I hope they tell Paddock to piss off.

Behind Enemy Lines: Better late than never, but I'd like to rectify a long standing oversight and introduce Flyers.Femme, a key member of HLOG. As the banner proclaims, Not. A. Puck.Bunny. Obviously not. There's far too much knowledge there. Needs more infuriated desperation though.

Game 20: Sabres 4, Sens 2 -- The Creamy Middle: Roadkill Edition

Gentlemen, you will kneel before the scheduling gods and do homage. Render unto them thanks and praise for their mercy and wisdom. Why? Because you have a game to play tonight. Oh yes, verily, be ever grateful that Sid and the Kiddie Korps are in the House. Why, you may ask? Had this been an open date between last night's disgrace and Saturday's rematch with the Flyers, you would have had to answer for your "performance". You would have answered for it with the longest, most grueling, downright evil and quite possibly fatal bag skate of your careers.

How bad would it have been? Plenty. Coach P. would have established a twenty-mile perimeter around the Bank into which no puck could venture and still hope to survive. He would then, bullwhip in hand, had you dress in full gear, and strapped weights equivalent to a Volkswagen to your backs to run you through one hundred wind sprints, red line, to blue line, to hash marks, to goal line until the weaker among you were slicing open your own jugulars just for the excuse to stop. First man to fall would reset the count AND have to clean the puke from the ice afterward. Then how about a two hour "cool down" session on those pretty stationary bikes Brenden Shanahan thinks are so funny to top it off? Gentlemen, Coach P. would have ensured that if any of you had somehow survived the ordeal to go on and procreate, your future grandchildren would still be in pain. Okay, maybe Coach P. wouldn't have done any of that. Aren't you glad I'm not your coach? You have tonight's game to redeem yourselves gentlemen. I would suggest you take full advantage of the opportunity and perhaps not suck the moose cock quite so enthusiastically.

The Lipstick On The Pig:

• Hello, Leon's? About that don't pay a cent thing...: My television somehow made it through the first 29 minutes and 27 seconds of this exercise in craptacular with most of its major components intact. At 29:28, Alfie scored to make it 3-1, and I put my hammer away.

The Lowest Of The Many Many Lows:

• Lost puppy, free to a good home. Answers to "Rayzor": Ray, I don't know where that horse went, but you'd best find it and get back on it and right smartly. 3 goals, one of them a soft floater from the top of the circle, on 9 shots after losing your last game to the worst team in the league (Hi Coach Han -- oh, sorry) is a one way ticket to being traded to the British Ice Hockey League for some battered haddock wrapped in newspaper. Or worse, Los Angeles. That would leave Swiss Pastry to carry our Cup hopes, and that is something for which I could never forgive you.

• Why no, I don't believe a six foot opening is large enough for a three inch object. Why do you ask?: Chris, as your picking the carbon slivers from your palms this morning, I want you to forget about it. Forget, for the moment, that that shorty would have meant a 3-3 tie and the completion of an improbable comeback. Forget that your miss cost us any momentum we'd managed to generate to that point and therefore probably cost us the game. Forget, as hard as it seems, the fact that you hit the freakin' post on a deserted net from three feet away!! Forget all that. Look at those splinters. Now, perhaps you're squeezing the stick juuuust a tad too hard, no?

• Well, if it's in a "newspaper", it must be true!: Last Friday, I advanced the theory that Heater was in a slump. The following Monday, the Ottawa Citizen's Allen Panzeri reported to the breathless masses that...wait for it...Heater was in a slump. I don't know what that means, except that I should probably track the IP addresses of my visitors a little more closely. Anyway, Dany, your two goals in the last three games ( or 3 in the last 12 for those of you scoring at home) does not mean your slump is dead. Only that it has been relocated to other parts of your game. Apropos of nothing, standing still while flailing helplessly at opponents with your stick (as lovely a tribute to the Golden Groin --BFF 4EVAH!! -- as it may be) and taking stupid penalties is not the optimal way one would go about being a leader.
  

Curdled Middle: Depending on what happens against the Flightless Birds tonight, we may be on the verge of a full blown slide. Of course, I can't actually see what's happening in tonight's game as it is the first of seven of those abominations before the eyes of man and God known as "Pay-Per-View". As I would rather urinate down my own throat than shell out money for a third rate broadcast, thus feeding and giving credence to the beast that is corporate greed, we'll move straight on to...

Up Next: Bobby Clarke's fiendish army of the undead comes to visit on Saturday. A bright shiny penny to the man, or woman, who brings me Steve Downie's head on a plate. What? He's in the minors? All right. Two bright shiny pennies.