Tag / NHL

by Greg

Ready For The Winter Olympics

2010 Winter Olympics in VancouverAre you ready for the winter olympics? It’s almost here! The Campbell household enjoys watching all of the olympic sporting events, but I am partial to the winter sports. (Perhaps because I like snow and cold?)

We’re excited to see the hockey, featuring all of the world’s best players (kind of like an extended NHL all-star game!) including Ian’s new favorite team, the Russians! 🙂 We watched the 80s movie, “Cool Runnings” (with John Candy, about the Jamaican bobsled team) so we’re excited to watch the bobsled event. Figure skating, speed skating, all the skiing events…

CURLING! (Need I say more???) 🙂

To prepare for the upcoming games we have been doing all sorts of olympic-related things. Watching “Cool Runnings” was one. Jen has picked up some books from the library. The boys used the rest of their Christmas money at Blockbuster to rent Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games! (Which we have found is quite entertaining! We highly recommend!)

AND, finally, once we discovered that NONE of the hockey games would be on regular NBC TV, we decided to “bite the bullet” and upgrade our cable for the month. (Ian also offered to chip in, since he has had a paper route since last year, and has some extra spending money. That was awesome.) 🙂 Even “awesomer” was the flyer we received in the mail the day we ordered the upgrade … the current promotion will cost us only $5 extra per month! Sweet.

So we are psyched. Looking forward to two weeks of winter sports fun. Go USA!

by Greg

Nemesis

Ryan Miller

It’s really unbelievable when in the world of professional sports, one team can totally dominate another, game after game, season after season.

Unless you are a fan of a Buffalo pro sports team.

No, I am not speaking of the incredible streak that the New England Patriots are still enjoying against our Buffalo Bills… though that is a pretty frustrating one for we Buffalo fans. Tonight I’m befuddled by the way the blue and gold managed to post another ‘L’ in the standings after sixty minutes versus their current (and long-time) nemesis: the Ottawa Senators.

The Sens have won 8 straight against the Sabres, and their dominance has extended to the post season in recent years, with their last meeting being a win in only five games against the President Trophy winning Sabres of 2006-2007. (I believe that was the highest point total in Sabres’ history that year.)

From what we’ve heard, it was a hard-fought game. They got the first two goals, then the Sabres scored two goals in 27 seconds to tie it up … then the Sens scored in the last minute of the game to get the win, 4-2. (Empty netter added at the end.)

Oh, I forgot to mention… all four goals were scored by Daniel Alfredsson and Jason Spezza, each with two. (All that was missing was two more from Dany Heatley, who now plays for San Jose.) Those two continued their strange dominance of the Sabres.

The Sabres are really having a very good season. They have a great goalie, who is having a good year. They have just enough scoring from the right players (but could certainly use more…) And for a while they had quite a lead in their division.

They just better hope that they don’t face the Senators in round one of the playoffs.

by Greg

NHL Hockey is Back… with a QUADRUPLE-Header!

The 2009-2010 NHL season begins this Thursday, October 1st! We are looking forward to that here in the Campbell home. Our team (the Sabres) does not start until Saturday, but there will be plenty of hockey to watch before that!

I went to versus.com yesterday to see if they were carrying any opening night games, and was excited to see a double-header scheduled for Thursday night. Imagine my excitement when I kept reading!

Thursday
6:30 Capitals at Bruins
10:00 Sharks at Avalanche

Friday!
Noon Red Wings vs Blues (Helsinki, FIN)
3:00 Panthers vs Blackhawks (Stockholm, SWE)

Yes, folks, that’s right! A quadruple-header!! Awesome. Can’t wait.

Versus carries two or three NHL games per week during the season, but not usually four within 24 hours!

Enjoy!

by Greg

The End

Well, it was a great, great season, and a great run through the NCAA tournament for my Spartans, but last night, it came to a screeching halt. Not only did they lose the game, and not only did they lose it by 17 points, they were simply a shell of who they had been all season, and through the previous 5 games in the tournament. They had more than 20 turnovers, they were dominated on the boards (they led the entire nation in rebounding margin in the 2008-2009 season) and their shooting percentage was just horrible.

Still, they kept getting to within about 15 points for the last 10 minutes of the game or so. They were playing some pretty good defense, and started to catch up in the rebound column… but it was too late, and, well… you have to hit some shots! Sheesh! 🙂

It was a great season, though. Definitely fun to see my team get so far, do so well.

The Sabres on the other hand…

They played last night, too. Actually, they played Saturday night as well. Lost both times. Pretty badly. On Saturday, to their credit, they made a valiant attempt at redeeming an awful game. They got the score to 3-2 after being down 3-0 to start the third period. Dominated the third, but lost. And it was a key loss. Had they won it, they would have tied the team directly above them, and been very much “in the hunt” for the last playoff spot.

But they did not.

So, last night, they needed to win, well, pretty much the remaining four games in the season. Tough task against one of the best teams from the Western Conference, Detroit, but it’s what they had to do. It was 0-0 through half of the game, until they allowed a power play goal… then it just crashed and burned. They ended up losing 4-1.

They still have a slight chance at making the playoffs. They would need the three teams ahead of them to lose most or all of their games, while they win all three of theirs… right. Not going to happen.

The difference between the two endings is, even though MSU was not “on their game” they still kept their heads in the game, and were sticking around to the end. The Sabres… I guess you could say they are trying, and they are “sticking around” to the end, but it also seems pretty obvious that they don’t belong. I’d look for major player turnover in the offseason for the Sabres, while the Spartans will return largely the same team of guys… meaning it should be a good season next year, too!

So, my teams are done… time to start getting ready for Buffalo Bills football!!! 🙂

by Greg

It Comes Down To This

Two Big Games

The Sabres are basically already eliminated from the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs. They have only 9 games left, and they are a full 8 points out of the top eight spots – the playoff teams. They fell to the 10th spot and have been hovering there for quite a while, thanks largely to long absences by their top two stars, Ryan Miller and Thomas Vanek.

But perhaps, really, it’s just because they’re not that good.

Still, after watching them fight back two days ago – impressively, I might add – from a 3-1 deficit against the team directly above them in the standings… there’s still a very small glimmer of hope.

In fact, it’s really only as big as the next two games.

Toronto has had a rough season. The Sabres should beat them. It’s a home game, and they should win. (After their most recent slump, though, the Leafs are only 3 points behind the Sabres in the conference standings!)

The big game is tomorrow night, in Montreal. Hockey Night in Canada. Montreal is currently holding the 8th playoff spot. The Sabres will effectively be eliminated if they give that team two points. If they win both the next two, they will climb to within 4 points though, with seven games remaining. That’s still doable.

So, it should be interesting… looking forward to watching the next two games to see if this team has any fight left in them. They get their star goalie back tonight… perhaps that (plus the big come-from-behind win on Wednesday) will be just the boost they need.

by Greg

Sabres Lose Top Stars, Clinging to Playoff Hopes

Ryan Miller is OutThe Sabres seem to have plenty of bad luck in the injury department. Not just this season, but nearly every season. A few years ago, they made it to game seven of the conference finals, but most likely lost because they had one starting defenseman who was healthy! Many of the defensemen have missed time this season also. 2009 has been pretty much the same story, including the most recent injury to all-star goalie, Ryan Miller.

In Saturday’s victory over the Rangers, the Sabres lost Miller to a high ankle sprain. Those are bad. They usually place football players on the season-ending IR. They involve at least weeks of recovery, sometimes months. That’s bad. Miller is arguably the Sabres’ best player. And if some might give that title to Thomas Vanek, well, he’s gone too.

The Sabres’ best news this season has been the huge contribution from Tim Connolly, who it seems has been injured for more than two thirds of every season he’s been in the league! (Including this one.) He has become the star the Sabres hoped he would be since returning from his injuries this season.

Sabres.com posted an article about the injured Sabres, including an encouraging update: Thomas Vanek is skating again in practice. He was not expected back this early. Max Afinogenov and Andrew Peters are also currently recovering from injuries.

It’s definitely not good when you are clinging to eighth place in the conference – the final playoff spot – and you lose your top two players. The Sabres are likely thinking about making some trades before the trade deadline on March 4th. Maybe a veteran goalie, maybe another forward… who knows. While Connolly, Derek Roy, Jason Pominville, Drew Stafford, and a few others have had pretty good seasons, it’s hard to recover from losing your best two players. Perhaps a trade or two can give the Sabres what they need to make the playoffs, get their stars back, and make a run of it. Perhaps.

The playoffs are always more fun when your team is in it. We’ll see if the 2009 playoffs will be “fun”.

by Greg

The Sabres are Double Awesome

I just posted a more detailed article on our Buffalo Bills site, but thought I’d share the condensed version here for those who might not care about the game’s details…

Last night the Sabres played a pretty tough team on the road. Minnesota was 4-0-0, and they are a great defensive team. Buffalo is good at scoring, but it was going to be difficult to win no matter how well they played, so I said to the rest of the family before the game started, “If we win tonight, we are awesome!”

Well, it started well. We got the first goal, and finished the first period up 1-0! I was getting excited! Maybe we were awesome! BUT… it went downhill in the second period. (For you non-hockey folk… there are three 20-minute periods in a hockey game.) The Sabres were down 2-1 after the second, and after our goalie basically put the puck in OUR net in the third period, we were trailing 3-1 to a team who doesn’t lose when they are ahead in the final period.

So, I changed my declaration. I said, “If we win now, we are DOUBLE awesome!” I really didn’t think they’d win… I just hoped we’d at least get one more goal to make it respectable.

Well… we did. And we got another. And in overtime… we WON!

And so…

The Sabres…

ARE DOUBLE AWESOME!!!! Whoohoo!! 🙂

by Greg

Hockey Is Back!

With football season in full swing, and alllll the other stuff going on around here in Campbell-land, it’s pretty hard to fit anything else in, but we were offered the good six-month promo price on digital cable so we decided to do it for the bulk of the hockey season. So far we have been rewarded.

I followed the Sabres’ offseason moves and was optimistic that we’d see a return to something more like the President’s Trophy season of two years ago. If you can extrapolate anything from only two games… we just may be!

The Sabres have won their first two games, one against the Eastern Conference champs from last season (with some great saves by our supposedly superstar goalie, as well as TWO goals in the shoot out – both of which didn’t happen much last year!) and the other in a blowout on the road – 7-1 over the NY Islanders today. If Miller plays as well as he did in the first game (and as well as he did in the previous few years other than last season) then we certainly can score goals…

Could be a fun year!

Could we have two championship teams in Buffalo this year??! (How crazy would that be??!)

So, busy here, but having fun.
Go Buffalo!

by Greg

NHL "Parity"

Minnesota Wild - NHL Playoffs
Every sport tries to say they have it. Parity is the word that means you have achieved ultimate sporting success. There is true competition amongst the teams in your league. But really… so far as I can tell… only the NHL has achieved such a thing.

Proof is in the series between the Minnesota Wild and the Colorado Avalanche. First, they are the 4 and 5 seeds in the Western conference. That means they were the closest to each other in points. They are a great matchup on paper. But then, you have the actual games. Each of the three games so far has ended 3-2… in overtime. Including last night’s game. Minnesota has a 2-1 series edge, but I fully expect a 3-2 OT win for Colorado the next time they play. This series is great!

So far there is only one series that is a potential sweep. (Well, two, but only one that might actually end up a sweep.) The Pittsburgh Penguins seem to have Ottawa’s number. This is interesting in that Ottawa ousted the Penguins last year fairly easily (4 or 5 games) and this year were tearing up the Eastern Conference for quite some time. They have faltered at the end here, but still have some fantastic players who can score anytime they want to. (As evidenced by a late season 6-3 win over the Sabres – a game in which the Sabres held a 3-2 late third period lead!!)

Some other great first round matchups include the Caps and Flyers, Flames and Sharks, Rangers and Devils, Bruins and Canadiens… well, really.. ALL of them! The defending champs (Anaheim Mighty Ducks) are down 2-0 in their series, but I wouldn’t expect that to continue… that should end up a great series as well.

So if you have Versus (a cable TV network) they are showing two games every night, and they have some great coverage between periods and after the games. NBC is carrying games on weekends. I think.

And, if you live in Canada… you’re set. 🙂

NHL Playoffs are here, and it is the #1 sports spectacle in all of pro sports! Enjoy it while it lasts!

by Greg

Just Sayin’…

Sabres HockeyI did a little figurin’ tonight, and even if – best case scenario – the Sabres were to win all three of their remaining games, finishing with 92 points on 40 wins… we still probably won’t make the playoffs!

Best I can figure, from who’s playin’ who from here on out… Sabres will end up tied with Washington with 92 points (that’s IF they can win the rest of their games!) and if Boston loses the rest of theirs, then we’d finish ahead of them.

We need:

  1. To win the last three games, getting 6 points
  2. AND… Boston to lose all three games, getting AT MOST one more point
  3. OR, Philly could lose all three of their games, and we could sneak past them…
  4. AND… Washington to only get 3 more points. Max.
  5. OR, Carolina to lose the rest of their games. (Washington wins that division, we beat Carolina for last spot. I think.)
  6. LOTS and LOTS of luck!

🙂