First and foremost: Happy belated birthday to my cousin Mark, 39. Happy belated birthday to my cousin Genna, 17. And happy belated birthday to my niece Avery, 4. I love you all!
Now, on to Sabres stuff!
The Sabres traded Brian "Soupy" Campbell two days ago, at the trading deadline, for San Jose's Steve Bernier and their 1st round pick next year. Soupy had to go because he's an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year, and his value on the open market shot up even higher after Boyle signed a huge contract with Tampa Bay. So we had to get something for the Flying Tomato. Losing Soupy really sucks. A few months ago I called for him to be made the permanent captain of the Sabres. But this is professional sports, and there was no way the Sabres management were going to pay him $6.5M plus per year for five or six years. And as much as I love the guy, he simply isn't worth that much.
So off goes Soupy to to Silicon Valley, and in comes Steve Bernier. Bernier is a 22-year-old French-Canadian kid from Quebec City. He's got good size at 6'2", 225 lbs. He's a former 1st round pick who was kind of lost in the shuffle in the Shark Tank. But the scouting report on him is that he's tough in the corners, and he scored oodles of goals in junior hockey.
So the Sabres pick him up hoping he can provide some good minutes each night, and we'll see what happens. Lindy Ruff promptly inserts him on the top line with Derek Roy and Thomas Vanek. Bernier goes on to have the kind of game that legends and movies are made of. It was a wild and wacky game, which the Sabres won 8-4. Here are the highlights:
- On his second shift with the Sabres (picture above), Bernier scores on a 2-on-1 with Roy feeding him beautifully.
- On Bernier's 5th shift he blasts a howitzer from the top of the faceoff circle for his second goal. Yep...2 shots, 2 goals!!!
- Late in the 2nd period Bernier finds Roy with a delicious pass and Roysie scores.
- Late in the 3rd period Roy gets nailed with a cheap shot and Bernier comes over and levels the guy. Absolutely destroys him. He then drops his gloves to fight another dude, but he wants no part of Buffalo's new favorite player!
- Andrew Peters, who has four career goals (and about 400 crappy fights under his belt as the Sabres' enforcer) scores on a no-look feed from The Kaleta.
- Ryan Miller takes a slap shot right on his face mask, breaks the welding holding the cage together, and bloodies his nose. Miller comes back later in the game to a standing ovation.
- Ryan Miller stops Scott Nichol (the punk) on a penalty shot in the 2nd period.
- For the first time I can ever remember all four goalies are used.
- 14 Sabres players had points, including Toni "Chainsaw" Lydman with 4 assists! Wow!
- A guy named Tootoo beat up our Adam Mair.
- The Kaleta hit EVERYTHING that moved. The Kaleta is from the Buffalo area, and we are all in love with the way he plays.
All in all, an absolutely crazy night in downtown Buffalo. The Sabres are alone in 8th place, the final playoff spot. We are only 9 points out of first place in the conference. No way we can catch up to Jersey, but 4th or 5th is realistic if we can just continue playing with heart!
Here are the highlights. Not sure why Sabres.com didn't put up MSG's highlights, but they're beautiful just the same.
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