It sucks to have to do this two years in a row now. First round exits are for the birds.

Just wanted to come over quickly and say congratulations on your hard fought win against my beloved Sabres. You guys certainly played hard and will be a tough out going forward. I wish you guys the best of luck in your next series and beyond. Besides, if you win the cup it will make my Sabres look that much better.

As for the series, I could make a lot of excuses (and I think there are some pretty good ones to be made) but at the end of the day despite everything else when we had the chance to put you guys away we didn't. You took that opportunity and ran with it - and now you're through to the next round. Congratulations. No one will ever accuse this Philadelphia team of quitting.

The last thing I want to add is that I do my best (after cooling off from heartbreaking losses) to judge opposing fan bases not by the number of idiots they have posting but rather by the number of reasoned, intelligent, well spoken posters they have. I must say, you and your blog stack up very favorably in that regard. It's been a real pleasure having good debate with some of you, and I look forward to it again if we happen to meet next year. Here's hoping.

As I said, good luck. It's been fun. 

A little over a week ago I posted the first version of this and, at least it seemed, people enjoyed it enough to prompt me to have another crack at it. This one is going to be a bit longer so bear with me. For convenience I've also broken this edition down into a few categories: 'trades', 'free agent signings', and let's call the last category 'the leafs win the cup next year' in the sense that it's never going to happen. Let me take this opportunity to apologize to anyone who feels I've taken an idea of theirs. I'll try to give credit when I can and though I read most everything on this site sometimes I can't remember where I read something. So if I've presented an idea that you had previously mentioned feel free to leave a comment and I'll attribute the idea properly. Oh, and also - unlike last time I'm not totally on board with all of these ideas. Some of them I think would actually be bad for the Sabres but I wanted to throw them out there anyway for conversation.

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One of the most fun things to do in the offseason (at least from my perspective) is to look around the league and see what kind of assets could be added to improve our team for next year. Ideas have already been thrown around (trading for Brad Richards, etc.) but I thought I'd throw my two cents in. These aren't necessarily moves I think Darcy is likely to make but they are certainly possible moves for a team to make and it would be great if that team was us.

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Many of you probably know (and despise?) me as I've frequented this blog during the past series. Well I had an informal bet with one of your commenters regarding who would win the best of seven series between our two teams. I'm here to pay up on my end of it.

As you all know; the Boston Bruins defeated the Buffalo Sabres and will advance into the second round of the playoffs. I didn't think it was likely but I'm here to say I was very wrong. Feel free to use this space to rub that fact in my face.

I won't make any excuses (though I think I could make some really fantastic ones) because that's the sign of a sore loser. All I'm going to say is that your team played very well. Tuukka Rask was outstanding. Your special teams were dominant. The Bruins are getting hot at exactly the right time.

I wish you guys the best of luck in the next round. Congratulations.

Look, I get that the rankings are a joke and are often based on whatever the opposite of logic is - but I still don’t get how Duke is ranked forth in the nation. They only have four losses. Great. Has anyone bothered to look at who they’ve played or how embarrassingly weak the ACC is this year? They’ve played 7 ranked teams this year, going 5-2. Not bad. Until you look at the fact that FOUR of their five wins against ranked opponents came against teams that are no longer receiving any votes. They aren’t just not ranked anymore, UCONN, Clemson (x2), and Georgia Tech got a total of 10 votes toward a ranking. A whopping 10 for all three teams combined in both polls, 10 out of thousands and thousands of votes. Suddenly Duke’s record drops to 1-1 against opponents that are currently ranked. That deserves forth overall in the nation? But even beyond that - how can a team be ranked forth in the country, in line to potentially get a first overall seed in the NCAA, when they are in one of the weakest conferences and still not dominating (they’re only one win ahead of 23rd ranked Maryland). Looks like Maryland can also beat up on the pathetic ACC teams, shouldn’t they also be top 5 or 10, not 23rd? It’s ridiculous. Duke even got a first overall vote in the ESPN/USA Today Poll. Are you kidding Coach K? You’re seriously going to vote your own team as best in the country? I suppose you also think the ACC is the strongest conference as usual.

Or take Ohio State. At least they’re playing in a conference that looks pretty strong this year. But they’re ranked 6/7 and they have SEVEN losses. Are they getting extra points for having 6 of those 7 losses on the road? Is that supposed to bode well for them in the NCAA? I get that they’re playing in a tough conference, but it isn’t any tougher than the Big East and if they’re going to put Ohio State in the top 10 they better put Marquette and Louisville in the top 25 as they’re each 10-6 in the Big East, which seems equally impressive when compared to Ohio State’s resume. Especially considering Marquette’s three heartbreakingly close losses to top 10 teams that could have gone either way and Louisville’s obvious trend of late, they’ve gotten better. But worse yet, tell me how Pittsburgh is 17/18 while Ohio State is 6/7 when they both play in dominating conferences and both have seven losses. Ohio State beat Purdue when they were 6, Wisconsin at 16, and Michigan State at 11. Pittsburgh beat Cuse at 5, WVU at 4, and Nova at 3. Ohio State has also beaten California at 12, Pitt beat UCONN at 15 - neither are ranked anymore. Ohio State lost to Purdue at 4, UNC at 4, Butler at 20, and WVU at 12. Pitt lost to Texas at 3, WVU at 6, and Georgetown at 14. Ohio State is 4-4 against ranked teams. Pitt is 4-3 against ranked teams, teams often ranked higher than the teams Ohio State played. How can anyone honestly say Ohio State’s resume is better than Pitt’s - let alone 11 spots better?

Again, I get that the polls are a joke. I get that they’re all about "what have you done for me lately". I get that they prefer to have idiots doing the voting. But someone’s going to need to explain to me how Duke has a better resume than Kansas State, Purdue, Villanova, or several other teams. Someone is going to have to explain to me why Ohio State is far superior to Pittsburgh or Tennessee. Seriously. Someone please explain this to me.

There's a game today [oddly] scheduled for 3:00 and, though I'm watching the Bills, I'm already in hockey mode. It's about the midpoint of the season and I figured now was as good a time as any to talk about some things that have been annoying, perplexing, worrying, and [other random adjective]-ing me.

First of all, and I'm not saying it's particularly persistent on this site, but there are way too many people who casually claim that the Sabres are in a "weak" division. In my opinion that's nonsense, for a number of reasons. First, no matter what the division, division rivals tend to play each other tough and it's rare to find an easy divisional matchup, I don't care how bad the team is. Even Carolina plays Washington tough (they're 1-1-1 so far this year despite having the biggest point discrepancy between first and last in the division). Second, and this is what really annoys me, the Northeast has FOUR teams currently in the playoffs occupying 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 7th places. I just don't see how that translates to a weak division. Sure, Toronto is struggling this year but so are Carolina, Philly, Edmonton, Columbus, etc. I wish people would put the "Northeast is weak" claims to bed already.

Does anyone else think the past two games where we've come back from down three have been two of the most fun to watch? I lived in Boston for a while and one of my favorite regular season games of all time was the one where we were down 4-1 with eight minutes to go in the third and we ended up winning in a shootout. I love me a good comeback. Then there was the 7-6 playoff game in Ottawa - I don't think I need to recap that one for you guys. I'm not saying I want to get into the habit of going down 3-0, but it is fun to watch them come back.

I really am not a fan of the winter classic happening every year. I think it would be much better as a once every two or four years type thing. It seems to me that in a few more years they're going to run out of good venues and have to start recycling the old ones. That being said, I think Minnesota should get one soon - they love hockey up there. Obviously somewhere in Canada would be huge also, but I think I heard somewhere that NBC isn't too keen about letting that happen.

I think Tim Connolly should have gotten a spot on the US roster. Nothing more to really say about that.

I don't know if this is a good idea, but I kind of hope Lindy is at least considering resting Myers occasionally. We have seven healthy defenders right now who all have NHL experience. It seems to me that taking Myers out would not only keep him fresh but also might help him learn by watching from the press box. I'm not saying this should happen frequently, and I realize it will probably will draw ire from some of you, but it seems like such a waste to have Sekera as a healthy scratch for every game. Maybe he could rest Rivet or some of the older guys too. Just something to consider.

Lastly, I was perusing the team stats this morning and noticed something that was pretty odd. As the team has been doing pretty well this year most of the players are either plus or even, with Lydman leading the way at a plus-9 (which surprised me). Myers and Tallinder are up there as well at plus-7 and plus-8 respectively. There are only three players in the negative: MacArthur, Butler, and Rivet. Rivet is only a minus-1, not great but not terribly worrisome. But Mac and Butler are both minus-10's, which seems really really high to me. I'm curious as to what could explain this, both of these players seem to be having decent years but these plus-minus numbers are atrocious, considering the team's overall goal differential of +18. What I really don't understand is how Rivet and Butler's numbers are so far from each other, since they're almost always on the ice together. In any case, it seems odd to me.

At the same time, I noticed we already have five players with ten or more goals (Connolly, Roy, Pominville, Vanek, and MacArthur) and four more are well on their way (Gaustad 8, Grier 8, Hecht 8, and Stafford 9). That's some offensive balance, especially considering this team isn't exactly lighting the lamp at record pace. If our top nine forwards all get around 20 goals, as their on pace to do, that would be pretty impressive. I'd like to see our top guys get a few more, especially Vanek, but I'm certainly not complaining about the way things are going.

I suppose that's about it. Let's take it to Montreal today, go Sabes!

With the majority of articles lately talking about next year and firing, well just about everyone, and how the season is over and what not I thought I'd write a quick piece about why I don't think the season is over just yet.

Before I begin I would like to point out that I am not (completely) delusional. The Bills played really bad against the Dolphins. Injuries are piling up and confidence has seemed to disappear. That makes a turnaround much less likely. I know that things look pretty bad right now.

At the same time, it isn't as though we've been losing to terrible teams. The Patriots are super bowl contenders until Brady retires. The saints are undefeated (early as it may be) and look pretty damn good so far. The Dolphins are only 1-3 but I think they were in a boat similar to us having played some pretty tough teams (Indy, Atlanta, SD) and their record probably wasn't a great indication of how good they are. On top of that, we played two of those games away and nearly won one of them. Now I'm not going to try to make excuses for how poorly we played this past Sunday, but as bad as we have played there is no reason why we couldn't play better. I still believe that confidence comes and goes quickly - one really good game could be enough to set us back on track.

I get the impression that most of you believe this team is better then it is currently playing (otherwise I'm not sure why firing a coach would help) and I believe that too. At the same time, I think the beginning of our schedule was really tough. In the next four games we play three very beatable teams (Browns 0-4, Panthers 0-3, Texans 2-2). Now the same argument made for Miami (that their record didn't belie their talent) could be made for the Panthers and the Texans have a better record then we do so if we can make it out of the first half of the season at .500 I would say there is still reason for optimism. Especially considering after the bye week we might be getting a nice boost in the form of returning players from the injury list (namely Poz).

So I know many (maybe most?) of you are going to disagree with some of this (all of this?) - but I say lets just give them a few more games. After all, we're Bills fans, waiting for a team to turn it around is in our blood, what else are we going to do?

Today I was thrilled to receive in the mail (it took a while because I live in Boston) a Project Mayhem shirt from twoeightnine design that I was fortunate enough to win (admittedly through pure luck) in the Buffalo Rumblings 53 man roster prediction contest. I just wanted to quickly thank twoeightnine for the awesome shirt, it's going to be fun wearing it around New England (as though I didn't get enough middle fingers from Pats fans for my TO Hope shirt and Posluszny jersey at the MNF game). I recommend that anyone who hasn't already head over to their site - they've got some pretty cool (and hilarious) designs that are really worth checking out.

So thanks to Brian and anyone else involved in setting up the contest and thanks to twoeightnine design for sponsoring it.

The Buffalo Rumblings League 4 Fantasy Football draft concluded just last weekend and yours truly wound up with both the Miami defense and Ted Ginn Jr. on his team. I took the Dolphins D because in our format points are awarded primarily for sacks, takeaways, and scores and I figure you guys to get a lot of sacks at least. My dilemma is with Ginn, who currently sits on my bench as my 4th WR. My first three are R. Wayne, B. Marshall (I know), and (you're really going to hate this) J. Cotchery. So I figured I was basically talked into taking your defense reading this site - now I'm ready to be talked into starting T. Ginn. Have their been signs of life from Ginn thus far in training camp? Is there realistic reason to believe he'll put up good fantasy numbers (1,000 yards and 6+ TDs)? 

Oh, and other reasons you'll hate my draft: I also picked up L. Washington (good value in the 13th round, 127th overall) and, well, I don't know how to say this, but... this guy. Speaking of Brady, we got a kick out of this at BR today. Am I crazy for drafting a team I don't want to win? Probably. At least this way if the Bills go down in flames it will probably mean my fantasy team is doing ok.

Last year the Buffalo Bills had a familiar record of 7-9. While I recognize the danger I may be putting my life into while saying this, that 7-9 record struck me as actually kind of impressive, and here's why: we didn't win a single divisional game. How many other teams won seven or more of their non-divisional games? Nine did, the Dolphins (7-3), Patriots (7-3), Ravens (7-3), Titans (9-1), Colts (8-2), Giants (8-2), Eagles (7-3), Panthers (8-2), and the Falcons (8-2). So of the ten teams that had seven or more wins out of their division only two didn't make the playoffs (and I think we all know which two teams). If we had won just half of our divisional games we might have also found ourselves in the postseason.

At the same time, I'm not naive enough (though admittedly close) to ignore the company we kept when it came to our divisional record 0-6. Two other teams achieved that feat, the Lions and the Rams.

So what has changed since last season? Thanks to the acquisition of Terrell Owens our wide receiver depth is enviable. Our relatively young team has another year of experience under its belt. At the same time we've discussed ad nauseam the potential pitfalls of our re-tooled offensive line, our green quarterback and offensive coordinator, among other things. I tend to fall on the overly optimistic side of things when considering the upcoming year. With that disclaimer out of the way I'm going to come out and say it - I think our division is overrated. By that I mean I think the Bills stand a very good chance of winning half (or maybe even more if I allow my mind to really wander) of our divisional games next year and thereby improve our record with two or more wins.

Now before you write me off as insane I will admit that I think beating the Patriots will be a long shot at best and will take something of a miracle. This prediction is more focused on the Dolphins (a team one year removed from a 1-15 record) and the Jets (a team without a clear-cut favorite for quarterback). I remember last year when we were 5-1 heading into a stretch and people were actually saying that we were going to win three divisional games in a row! Imagine that! 8-1!?

Now look, obviously those people were 110% wrong, all I'm saying is where has the confidence gone? Is it really unreasonable for us to expect the Bills to win half of these six all important games? I mean right off the bat I'm going to say that we really should have won that game against the Jets last year (last minute fumble), sort of like we really should have beaten the Browns (last minute missed FG). Add to that the Jets will probably be starting a quarterback that just doesn't scare me and I think the only way we lose to the Jets is if we beat ourselves (kind of like we did the first game last year when Trent made at least 3 critical mistakes, so very possible). With the Dolphins I expect a fair amount of regression. 1-15 to 11-5 is very impressive, but I don't see them beating the Patriots next year, I don't see them winning 7 of their non-divisional games, and I don't see them beating us twice. At a minimum I think we can beat the Jets and the Dolphins once each and I don't think it's a stretch to see us getting another win or two in there somehow. In 2007 we beat the Jets and Dolphins both times and I just don't see enough change in either team to rule that out as a possibility for 2009, despite 2008. I think we've gotten more better than the Jets or Dolphins since 2007, if that makes any sense.

Now that's great and all but what will it matter if we also regress in our non-divisional games - we are after all allegedly playing more difficult competition. I don't buy it though, I think we could definitely win six or seven non-divisional games again and thereby finish the season in the 10-6 range, even though that may not be enough to make the playoffs. Games against the Bucaneers, Browns, Jaguars, and Chiefs are very winnable. Games against the Texans, Panthers, and Falcons could end up being toss-ups. I don't think it's crazy to say we could win one of the Saints, Titans, or Colts games.

When the team had confidence last year they were beating teams like the Chargers who were pretty good. We lost all that confidence in three consecutive losses to division opponents and ended the season 2-8. I think if we can stay in the hunt and stay confident we could pull off a couple upsets and finish 9-7 or 10-6. To do that I think divisional wins will be crucial though, without them we could be looking at a record considerably worse than last years. This team seems to play infinitely better with confidence and I think when they play their best they can compete with the best.

So have at it. Call me crazy (I probably am). Am I underestimating our divisional opponents? Am I overestimating the Bills? Or do some of you think that maybe we could pull something like this off? Lastly, is it sad that I'm hoping for a 10-6 season, probably not even enough to get into the playoffs? It seems like it to me.

Post Script: I've been reading for a while but this is my first post on this blog so I hope it turned out ok. I was still kind of just playing around with some of the features so it's, I guess, relatively amateur. My apologies.