Empty Net Sports

Game Day Blog 48/82: Leon vs. Jack Night, Sabres @ Oilers

by · January 23, 2018

The winter winds are blowing in the direction of four straight tonight. All that stands in our way is the city that still can’t get over the fact that a few lottery balls spun in our favour almost three years ago.

Tonight’s Opponent: Buffalo Sabres

Their Record: 12-26-9, 33 points

Arizona has officially caught the Buffalo Sabres. Both teams are tied for dead last. Remember: Arizona started 0-10-1. They didn’t pick up their third win until November 16.

Our Record: 21-23-3, 45 points

We have the current longest winning streak in the division. Hottest team in the PAC. Look out, Anaheim. We coming.

Last time we played them: We’ve had some bad games this year but that one was definitely the worst. No need to relive it.

What do they have? Reading those tweets about how Jack was supposed to take them to the promise land or at the very least out of the septic tank it’s a classic case of dramatic irony, in that, instead of getting quantifiably and marginally better, Buffalo might actually be worse this year than they were the year they intentionally tried to lose every game. They have 12 wins after 47 tries, putting them on pace for around 21, which would be two less than their very publically intentional tank from 2014-15. The Bills made the playoffs before Jack Eichel has.

We hysterically laugh at people who to compare Jack to Connor but people often forgot how bad we clobbered them in the Draisaitl/Reinhart draft. In 47 games, Sam Reinhart has accumulated a whopping 16 points, and our big lovable goofball Jesse Puljujarvi has two less in 17 fewer games. This is the part, again, where I remind you how stupendously wrong people were:

And my personal favourite, courtesy of the sink pisser:

Atta be, Dave. Puck sense, baby.

I hate how much I love Buffalo, a city so immune to success that they’ve been unceremoniously fucked over by the feet of both Scott Norwood and Brett Hull. Imagine losing a championship game because of a foot on two separate occasions? This is, indeed, one of the very few teams and cities that we can actually laugh at without sounding painfully hypocritical. They are only organization that has collectively sucked more ass than we have in the last eight years. This is the team that intentionally tried to tank and get McDavid, and we are the team that tried to make the playoffs and still won Connor McDavid anyways. We are the football to their Charlie Brown. The extinction to their dinosaurs. The chin-up bar to their Sam Bennett. If anything, we should be comparing Connor McDavid to nobody on Buffalo, Jack Eichel to Leon Draisaitl, and like Sam Reinhart to Ryan Strome. Those sound much more reasonable and fair.

At least elsewhere, things have been going pretty well for the Sabres. They’ve been beating the shit out of each other at practice:

Their media have slowly started to scapegoat Jack Eichel:

And then promptly get self-implodingly butthurt when you tell them how ridiculous they sound:

Somebody please a hurt feelings report for Mike Harrington.

Chad Johnson started for Buffalo in Calgary last night so I’d expect Lehner to get the nod. He was about 20 seconds away from shutting us out back on November 24.

Eight people showed up to watch the World Juniors.

What do we have? Jesse fever has rapidly spread throughout the city. We all might not agree on the importance of shot blocks or hits or faceoffs or Kris Russell or the Hall/Eberle trade or whether it’s appropriate to piss in a sink but I think it’s safe to assume that we all agree it’s a better day when a microphone is in front of Jesse’s face:

I can’t get enough of this dude. He’ll say something. People will laugh, and he observes their laughter as being the outcome of something funny he must have said. He’s getting more and more confident in front of the mic and his already gigantic personality is beginning to blossom even further.

We need four in a row. This is a team we should beat. They played last night, they have the worst goals for in the league by 17! (!!!) (!!!!!!!!!) (Okay, think about that… Arizona has scored 17 more goals than Buffalo. Name me six forwards on the Coyotes I’ll wait). We have a serious shot at riding this momentum into the All-Star break given that we’ve already won three straight, we haven’t lost in 14 days, we’re playing the worst team in hockey tonight, and the Calgary Flames (who we play on Thursday) are literally immune to beating us. We’ve lost three straight against Buffalo. It’s time for a change. We’ve owned them in basically every aspect you can own an organization. Gotta whoop them on the ice now, and we’re sending out our secret weapon. It’s fucking Tony Time, Edmonton:

Cam’s in the crease. He’s 1-1-1 all time against Buffalo with a 3.79 GAA and a 0.864 SV% so he’s definitely due.

Prediction: Beat their ass. 6-1 Oilers. Connor gets a hatty. Jesse with two.


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