The Good and The Bad

So, was tonight good or bad? We got two huge points, which is good...but our franchise goalie is now injured which is bad. Let's go through tonight's game, shall we?

Well look who decided to show up. Paille AND Hecht. Solid. When I saw Connolly back on a line with Hecht I just thought to myself how Hecht is just a lost cause and Connolly won't make him any better...well I am glad to say that I can retract that statement...for tonight at least. Roy was very good, making two great plays to set up both Paille's and Sekera's goals, and netting one for himself. It was a huge win considering that Carolina is right behind us and Florida won, same old same old. It's going to be like this for the rest of the season, I'm sure.

So...now onto the BAD. Ryan Miller. Hurt. Fuck. My initial reaction was just, "WHY?!", a la Nancy Kerrigan. Really though. He's been having a career year and just playing like a top-5 NHL goalie. When goalies were dropping like flies this season I just kept thinking to myself, "Count your blessings, Sabres fans. Be glad it's not Miller." With our two best players out indefinitely, and with the tight playoff race, it's going to be very interesting. I'm sorry if I come off too frank, but this just fucking sucks. I'm not ready to press the "panic" button and say our season is doomed, but we all know that this team owes a lot of their wins to Ryan Miller. He's been spectacular and has gone above and beyond to ensure that his team wins games. I guess you just don't have time to feel sorry for yourself because the standings are too tight and our next game is on Tuesday (which I'll be going to). Lindy was absolutely livid in his post-game press conference. He believes that the collision was intentional. Ryan did say that he doesn't think Gomez would do something like that. I don't really know what to think. But man Lindy looked furious, you could see it in his eyes. What I am thinking about is the reaction. There wasn't much. When Miller was getting bumped against Ottawa without any retaliation from our guys, a lot of fans complained that it was sending a bad message to other team's around the league and we were also saying, "God forbid if Miller got hurt...". Although they did show Timmy go after Gomez and you saw Kaleta shouting at him from the bench. But what do you think?

I'm pretty surprised that Miller agreed to an interview tonight. He was extremely upset, for obvious reasons. You could hear it in his voice and see it in his face. While I adore Miller getting sassy during interviews as much as the next fan, I couldn't get full enjoyment out of it tonight given the circumstances. He kept trying to leave but the reporters kept asking him questions. I love his facial expressions when he's pissed off, but man, all I wanted to see was this face:



I don't want to see Miller being all sassy and pissed off if it means that he's talking about himself being injured. I'll do my best to talk to the hockey gods tonight to see if they can help us out and make sure that he isn't out for a long period of time. This blows. I just hope he's not out for a long time for obvious reasons, but also because if he's out for a long time it might take him a little bit to get back into the swing of things. He's really been on a roll and now it's going to be interrupted by an injury. Great timing too, considering our top scorer is also out several weeks with a broken jaw. Cool.

I consider myself to be an optimistic person, so I'm going to hope for the best. Ryan will not be out for a long time, and while he is out, Patty Lalime and perhaps Enroth(?) both do a good job until Ryan is ready to return. And once Ryan returns he'll get right back to business and continue playing like he was before he got hurt. And then we all live happily ever after. The End.