Some of my Favorite Moments

I began watching the Sabres in the 2005-2006 season, and since then, there have been moments that have sucked me in to the sport and caused me to follow it as crazily as I do today.

06 Playoffs


The Sabres entered the playoffs that year expected to get knocked out in the first round. In fact, they weren't really expected to even make the playoffs that year.
After being bottom dwellers for the past few years, they almost lost their franchise before Tom Galisano saved the team by buying them the summer before.
Coming out of the lockout, they played a pretty good season and weren't expected to go very far but what they ended with was what longtime Sabres broadcaster Rick Jeanneret called "the best season of hockey I've ever seen."

The first round was against the Philadelphia Flyers, and was quickly ended in five games and included an 8-2 blowout.



What came next was absolute domination against the Ottawa Senators, who feasted on Buffalo over the years and one of the games during the regular season ended with the final score of 10-4 in Ottawa's favor.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, including me, believed that the Sabres would pass Ottawa.

But when Buffalo won it in five, I was just as shocked as anyone.



Some of my favorite goals from that series are below.















The last one, that being Jason Pominville's series-clinching overtime winner, really made me believe that the Sabres were a Stanley Cup contender, and after seeing them play like that, I was convinced they would win.

That moment also made me realize that I was a true Sabres fan. A lot of people don't like hockey and don't really get as in to it as i do, but when a sport can pump you up that much, give you chills when such goals as that are scored, and spark some sort of emotional response out of you, it's almost like a drug.



The Sabres went on to lose to Carolina in 7 games in the Eastern Conference Finals.



There's no doubt that the Sabres were a better team than the Hurricanes going into the series. But it seemed that every game two more Sabres were placed on the injury list. Key defenseman such as Jay McKee were lost and eventually led to the team's downfall.

When a team can play at that high a level of intensity with maybe half of the roster being call-ups from a lower level league, you know that's when you have a great organization. The Sabres seemed possesed in those playoffs. If the roster wasn't ravaged with injuries, they would have won the Cup, no doubt in my mind.

The next season, people were calling it the "revenge" season. The Sabres were expected to once again compete for the cup or at least go deep into the playoffs.
A Cup was not one that year, in a disappointing loss to the Ottawa Senators in the Conference finals, but that season went down as the all-time best regular season in Buffalo Sabres' history.

It started out with ten straight wins, which tied the leauge record for wins to begin a season (the first one of those wins a shootout win over Carolina to open the season).

That season was probably the best I've ever seen, so many things happened that year, the blowout games, the amazing comebacks, the emrgence of many young players into our team, a full-on line brawl, and even a goalie fight.

The fist game I want to take notice of is a game on March 23, 2007, in which the Sabres were trailing 4-1 in the third period.

Incredibly, the Sabres came out with the victory, 5-4, In Regulation!




The next is personally my favorite moment in the past four years.

In a game on February 24, 2007, against the Ottawa Senators, Chris Drury was blindsided with a late hit from rugged forward Chris Neil.
This responded with Drury laying face down on the ice, bleeding from his forehead, and soon to be concussed.
Drew Stafford, a rookie at the time, dropped the gloves with Neil to stand up for his teammate and captain, and everything just erupted from there. After a long review of he hit, Neil was not penalized for the play, only for the fight he had with Stafford right after.

Lindy Ruff responded by sending out his three goons, Andrew Peters, Adam Mair, and Patrick Kaleta, against the top scoring line of the Ottawa Senators.

Immediately off the faceoff Mair dropped his gloves and sucker punched Jason Spezza right in the mouth and Peters went right after Dany Heatly. All hell erupted when the coaches had to be restrained and Lindy Ruff was in the press box screaming at Bryan Murray, who in my opinion, could use a good beating.

The goalies also dropped the gloves as Ray Emery went at it with Sabres goalie Martin Biron, and after Biron had his lunch fed to him, Peters went after Emery and tossed a few punches his way.

This led to a long, long review and hundreds of minutes in penalties.









I'll continue this "favorite moments" blog at a later time. Stay connected for part 2.