"A Fairytale Ending"

The Sabres mustered two very important points this evening with a 6-5 win over the San Jose Sharks via a shootout, but Lindy Ruff said it best in his postgame conference when he mentioned that this was 'a fairytale ending'.

In my previous post, I talked about the plane crash that occurred late last night in Clarence Center. 49 people had lost their lives, including a person in the house that was hit. His wife and daughter miraculously survived the crash. Along with this, many Sabres actually live around the area, and if the plane has landed diagonally on the houses instead of take a nosedive, they may have been harmed as well. There was an article in the Buffalo News today about how most of the players were shaken up, and how much they felt for the community. Western New York is a tight knit area. These players know what everyone means to one another. Craig Rivet said in his post practice interview this morning that if the boys came out with their best effort and got a win for the people of Buffalo, then they would be happy because they helped take our minds off of this tragedy for just a little while.

So they did.

They held a moment of silence for the victims of the crash before the game began, and watching it on television was an eerie scene. They panned the camera over the Sabres bench to see the players with their heads down on their sticks, and then they had an overview of some of the crowd. At the bottom of the screen it read 'Up next: Sabres vs. Sharks', and the quiet scene went into a commercial break. It gave me chills up my spine, and even thinking about it now is giving me chills once again.

I won't talk about the actual game until tomorrow morning because I'm dead tired, but the emotion of the fans when Jason Pominville tied up the game was something I haven't watched or felt since the 2007 playoffs. I've missed that energy coming from the fans. A come from behind win from argubly the best team in the league, even though the Sabres led 3-0 at one point, was huge. This is going to go a long way for the team. They got two points, and were able to give Buffalo a little something to cheer about during these sure to be hard times coming up over the next couple of days.

To you boys I say - Thank you, Sabres.

Power outages are tough.

I'm typing this entry at my sister's house because my power has been out at my house for over a day. Yesterday was quite adventurous, seeing as I could only wash my hair last night with a flashlight brightening up my bathroom. Also, I was stuck in a home that was 56 degrees yesterday. I never thought having no electricity could be so boring. I have off from school again, so this means I'll have a week off technically for President's Day break. I wish I had brought my Participation In Government homework home on Wednesday so I could've had it done. Oh well.

My condolences go out to those who lost family members in the plane crash that occurred last night. It's creepy that something like this happened right before Friday the 13th. I can't even imagine what these people are going through right now. Everyone who was involved in some way is in my prayers and thoughts.

It appears that Matt Ellis is going to take Jochen Hecht's place in front of the net on the second power play unit after what happened during Wednesday's game. If my power hadn't of gone out, I actually had a post cooked up where I was going to yell at the Sabres for failing against the Senators so badly when they are worse off than they are. Freaking ridiculous. Since my disgust from that game has come and gone, I won't mention it anymore.

But yes, because of the Sabres going 1-for-12 on the power play that evening, Lindy has changed things up with that second unit. The power play is where they desperately need a big body in front, which is why Gaustad and Vanek were so key to have out there. Now with them both gone, someone needs to step in and take a beating to screen the goaltender and try to tip pucks into the net. Ellis sounded more than willing in his interview yesterday to get done and dirty in the crease. Staff is also a pretty big body, and though he certainly doesn't have the large mass that Vanek does, I think he should do a pretty good job. I'll cut them some slack since that was the first game where they were parked in front, so hopefully something good will happen tonight against the Sharks.

Looks like Nabokov will be starting in net for the Sharks, and Miller for the Sabres. I hope that the Sabres have the same outcome as they did last year when they visited the tank.

Uh...about that plane crash...