Buffalo Sabres

Are they really this good?

The Sabres headed out on a 7 game road trip last Thursday, with Coach Lindy Ruff saying he was looking for 9 or 10 points from the 14 available. I was thinking 8 would be good (a winning record on the trip) but maybe it’s time to start holding this team to a higher standard. The Sabres are 9-0-3 over there last 12 games and 14-2-4 over the last 20. As of today, they are 12 points up in the Division, with a game in hand on Boston and 3 on Ottawa. While teams in 5th through 13th place teams are all battling for the final 4 playoff spots, the Sabres are instead battling for the Conference with Washington, New Jersey and Pittsburgh.

When I watch them play, I keep thinking to myself “Are they really this good?”. I remember watching the team in December of 2005 coming out of the lockout, a game at HSBC arena against Dallas. Dallas was one of the top teams in the West at the time, and the Sabres looked like the better team on the ice. That was the moment that season where I realized that “Yes, this team is really good!”

I’m still waiting for that moment to happen this season. I went to the game against Colorado about 10 days ago. Again they got off to a slow start and got down by 2 goals early in the game. They played a better 2nd period but were down 3-1 going into the third period. Just when I thought they were out, they score two in the 3rd and take it to the 11th round of the shoot-out before losing.

But this is what they’re doing…they’re finding ways to win games, or at least to get points. They’ve come from behind in several games in the last month, at least three times now from two goals down. They’ve won tight defensive contests. They’ve won shoot-outs, and in last nights 7-2 win.

So, I thought about it a little bit more: are they really this good?

Well, there’s no doubt from a goaltending standpoint they are about as good as it gets. I’ve often said that Ryan Miller, while having potential, had not reached the status of a top-5 goalie in this league. Well, he’s reached that and then some. You would have a hard time not putting him in the top 3 this year, and could definitely argue in favor of #1. He leads the league in both goals against (at 2.01) and save percentage (a jaw-dropping 0.936 as of this morning). AND, he does this on a team with no real defensive stars.

But, let’s talk about the defense. I said they had no stars, but that will change in short order. Tyler Myers, unless he has some setbacks in the next few years, is rapidly maturing into a top defenseman, and he already shares top pairing duties with Henrick Tallinder. He is excellent at using his size, and the pair is playing some excellent hockey. In addition, he has 27 points, 5th on the team, and is providing the offensive help that has been sorely lacking since Brian Campbell left for Chicago. (That’s 15th in Defenseman in the NHL, and he is only 2 points out of 10th - Brian Campbell, BTW, has 5 more points and makes $6 million more per year.) He should at least be in talks for the Calder Trophy, though I doubt he wins it.

But, I don’t want to ignore the rest of the D-men. As a whole, they are playing very well. Individuals get hit with a lot of criticism on the message boards…I hear just about everyone (Rivet, Butler, Montador) getting bashed at one time or another. And yes, they do make mistakes at times, even Myers has made a few doozies. But with Miller back there, they have enough to keep the team in every game. (They are currently tied of 2nd in the league in team goals against at 2.21.)

Offensively, I would say the team is performing slightly below what I expected, but all of that is on one player: Thomas Vanek. While he leads the team with 13 goals, I would expect him to have 20-25 by this point in the season. You add that to the rest of the team and the Sabres are top ten in the league in offense. The Sabres are currently 18th in the league in offense, but are only 6 goals shy of Dallas, who is 9th in the league. Beyond Vanek, you have a team that is spreading the offense around. I argued before the season started that this team succeeds on the back of not Vanek, but on a healthy Tim Connolly. And he is providing the most spark, with a twelve game point streak and 42 points in 49 games played. Other players that had off-seasons last year have picked up to their normal pace. Jochen Hecht and Jason Pomminville in particular are back on track as playing better two-way hockey which has also led to more scoring opportunities. Mike Grier’s addition has been huge in terms of the work ethic of the team. (Can we sign this guy to a 3-year extension please!) They currently have 7 players with 10 or more goals, and likely will finish the season with at least 11 players in that category.

So, I’m beginning to believe this team is for real. The playoffs are all but assured, and the Division will be hard to lose at this point. While winning the conference would be nice, I would be happy if they could get the #2 position and hold on, giving them home ice in the first two rounds.

While I’m hoping to increase my number of updates, I won’t be watching the next 4 games, as they all start at 10 PM EST or later.

Sabres reach half-way mark: Clinch playoff berth

Yes, I am calling it now…the Sabres have made the playoffs. (And so, I would argue, have New Jersey, Washington and Pittsburgh.) Here’s how I see it:

1) Halfway through the season, the Sabres have gotten 56 points.

2) If we assume, as is typical, the Sabres need to reach 94 points to make the playoffs, that means they need a mere 38 points in the second half of the season. That is 19 wins, or some equivalent with ties. They could easily go 17-20-4 the rest of the season and acheive that….that is NINE less wins in the second half of the season than in the first.

3) Another way to look at this is they are on a 1.37 points per game PPG pace. To get to 94 points, they need to finish getting 0.93 PPG in their last 41 games. There are only two teams that didn’t acheive that pace in the first half, Toronto and Carolina. So, the Sabres would have to play like the Maple Leafs for the entire second half of the season to miss the playoffs.

4) The current seventh seed (NY Rangers) are NOT on pace to get 94 points, but are on pace to get 88 points. The eight through eleventh seeds are on pace for between 80 and 84 points or less. So, if we instead consider the Sabres need to get 88 points this season to make the playoffs, the results become even more assured. 88 points require the Sabres to get 32 points in 41 games, a 0.79 PPG pace. Only Carolina has a record worse than that, and they 11 wins in 41 games.

5) The Sabres are up 15 points on the statistical ninth seed (Montreal - who has 45 points in 45 games - or a pace of 41 in 41.) That is 36 % more points than Montreal, which is HUGE.

So, I would bet any money right now that Buffalo, as well as NJ, Washington and Pittsburgh will all be in the playoffs come April. I will also predict that Boston and Ottawa going to be in the playoff mix as well, with Boston still able to pass Buffalo for the NE Division. So, the Sabres goal is no longer the playoffs…they have acheived that….it is now the Division they need to set their sights on.

Game 39 vs Pens - what a way to end the year!

WoW! What a game. I was at the game tonight, and I can’t believe they won. When Pittsburgh went up 3-0 and Miller was pulled, I thought the game was pretty much in the bag….I was just hoping it would get interesting again…and it sure did.

The first period was another clunker for the Sabres. Not that they played terrible, but they could not get any offense going at all except for one flurry about 15 minutes into the game. Pittsburgh had a 2-0 lead at the end of the period, though the 2nd goal was kind of a fluky one.

Then Miller let in a stinker early in the second. (I saw that shot coming, he sure should of, and there was no screen at all.) The Sabres were playing better in the period, but Pittsburgh was holding them down well. I was getting annoyed at the Pittsburgh fan behind me saying to his GF “Wow, look at the skill of Crosby…he’s amazing,” which is fine if he actually does something, but I thought the Sabres held him in check pretty well - he got an assist on that third (bad) goal.

Anyways, a scrum towards the later stages of the second period resulted in a penalty shot. (I think a Pittsburgh player covered the puck with his glove in the crease, but I am not sure on that ruling.) Drew Stafford was given the shot a game after he was benched, and he beats Fluery easily. I thought - “Well if nothing else it will liven up the crowd,” but a few minutes later Stafford banged home a rebound in an open net and it was suddenly a game again.

Maybe it’s the momentum, but Pittsburgh looked flat in the third period, even though they had a scoring chance or two. Patrick Lalime played excellent, not allowing a single goal on 27 shots. And it was a play by Drew Stafford again going to the net that resulted in the tying goal, where Paul Gaustad knocked in a backhand shot when Stafford’s pass/shot got through to him. Once it was tied, it felt like their was only one possible outcome, and when Pittsburgh took a dumb penatly late…the Sabres finally clicked on the power play and took the lead.

I still am dumbfounded what to think of this team…at times they look awful, yet they beat one of the best teams in the league coming from 3 goals down. Part of that has to be on Pittsburgh…that should NEVER happen to a top team. But still, the Sabres put in the effort in the final 40 minutes, and were rewarded for it. I still don’t want to go up against that team in the first round!

And where did this Patrick Lalime come from. More quality play for his fourth game in a row. I hope he can keep it up, because he’s probably playing another 10 games before the seasons out.

So, the Sabres finish December at 9-4-2 on the month which they played 15 games in 27 days - though I picked them at 8-5-2 for the month, so I wasn’t off by much. They have a 7 point lead in the division just 2 games from the half-way mark.

January is a odd month. After two days off, they start with 5 games in the first 9 days, 4 of those at home. Then, they have a long four day break, after which they head out on their longest road trip of the season - seven games in 11 days, before finishing the month with 2 home games. So that’s 6 at home, 8 on the road. Opponents include 10 currently ranked playoff teams, though Montreal doesn’t really belong having played several more games than teams below them. They also have three games against Division leaders (Colorado, San Jose, and NJ) and a total of six games against Western Conference teams. (An interesting note - the Sabres sit at 7-0-0 against Western teams - the only Eastern team that is undefeated in this regard.) I think the Sabres will start the month strong, but we could see a struggle on the road trip. I predict 7-5-2 this month, and they maintain their Division lead.

Happy New Year everyone!

I’m back! Sabres continue to roll…

Hey everyone - I spent 10 days in Disney World cut off from the real world - except for hockey. A good friend of mine texted me the scores of the Sabres games, and I gotta say I was thrilled to see them continue to play well and win games. Including last nights game, which I was home for but unable to watch because it was on Versus (thanks to Comcast and DirecTV you bastards!), the Sabres went 5-1-1 over that stretch, with wins against Chicago, Montreal, NY Rangers, and Toronto (twice), a loss to Ottawa (no surprise there) and an OT loss to Pittsburgh. They even started to get good play from their back-up goalie Patrick Lalime, who played stellar against Chicago and Pittsburgh, two teams that aren’t slouches in the scoring department.

In the meantime, much of the Eastern conference has become mired in mediocre play. This is good news for the Sabres, who sit 10 points ahead of the ninth place team (NY Rangers) with a game in hand (3 games in hand on Montreal who is also at 39 points).

The good news continues: Statistically, the Sabres, along with Washington, New Jersey, and Pittsburgh, have essentially clinched a playoff spot. The Sabres are currently on pace for 110 points, but let’s assume that as typical 95 points are needed for a playoff spot. With 47 points in 35 games, (22-10-3) they have to get only another 48 points in the remaining 47 games to clinch that playoff spot…that’s 1.02 points per game…a record of 21-20-6 gets them there, five games under 0.500. To confirm this, I check with my favorite site - Sports Club Stats. They indicate that statisically the Sabres have a 99.4 % chance of making the playoffs. That is weighted based on their record versus their opponent, but if you check the unweighted stats (assume a 50-50 chance of winning any one game) they still sit at 94 %.

As if even more positive news needs to be mentioned - it’s starting to look like you might not even need 95 points in the East. As of right now, only 5 teams are on a 95 point or better pace in the Eastern conference (the four mentioned above plus the Bruins). The eighth and ninth place teams are on pace for a mere 84 points. Not that I think 84 points will get you a playoff spot, but it just shows how far ahead of the eighth spot the Sabres are right now.

So, the Sabres are well on their way to the first goal of any NHL regular season - make it into the playoffs. After that, their are two more goals to strive for…win your Division and win the Conference. While I do not think the Sabres have a realistic chance at the latter, they are in pretty good shape for the former.

Right now the Sabres sit atop their divison as follows:
Buffalo: 35 games, 47 points
Boston: 35 games, 41 points
Ottawa: 36 games, 40 points
Montreal: 38 games, 37 points
Toronto: 37 games, 34 points

The bottom teams I give no chance of catching the Sabres, 10 points is a HUGE margin to make up over half a season, and neither of those teams are particularly good. Right now, I actually think the Leafs could pass Montreal before the season is over, the Habs are so bad, and Toronto just does not have the goaltending to go on any kind of run. The Bruins and Ottawa are a different story. The Sabres have a serious problem with Ottawa, they cannot beat them head-to-head with any consistency. They have 4 more games head-to-head, and I hope that Buffalo can manage to win 2 of them. That said, I do not think Ottawa has the horses to catch the Sabres this season.

The Bruins are another story….while they are not the team of last year, they still have a good defense and some ability to score. Tim Thomas has been inconsistant this year, and remains so into December. It looked a few weeks ago like they had righted their ship, but just went on a 0-2-2 run before beating Ottawa last night.

The Sabres are NOT a great hockey team, but they are in a division that has no other team that is playing very well. They are in the drivers seat right now, with a statistical chance of 86.4 % of winning the Division (again from Sports Club Stats). But I think that the Sabres could be battling it out until the end with the Bruins for the Division. I still expect to see this team slide, likely in January with a brutal road trip (7 games in 11 days). But, one cannot complain too much about where they are now.

Next up is a trip to DC with the Capitals, then Christmas break.

Game 28 vs Caps - shut-down the top team?

Well, I have to give props to this team. The last two years in games after they laid eggs like that NJ game on Monday, they often came out and continued to play lazy. Last night, they came out hard, and worked for pucks, and beat the Capitals 3-0. Probably most impressive was completely shutting them down, thanks again in large part to Ryan Miller.

While the failure of the top-6 to again provide any offense looms large…I think this is a big win. It really solidifies for me that the Sabres are for real this season. 1/3 of the way in, they are fourth in the east in Points per game. And 4th in wins, while having played less games than all those in front of them. So far, 2-2 this month, and just beat another top team.

Here’s an interesting point…I always look at the regular season as “the race to 95 points”…the teams that get there in 82 games are almost 100 % going to make the playoffs. The teams that don’t, won’t. To get to that magic mark, you need to average 1.16 points per game. What I found interesting is that as of right now, only 6 teams in the East that are above that mark, with a 7th (Ottawa @ 1.10) that is not far off. The best of the rest is Philly at a lousy 1.04, and there are 6 teams at 1.00 or less. One of these teams (Philly or below) will have to go on a 1.22 PPG tare the rest of the season just to squeak into the playoffs. A team like Toronto needs to go to 1.31 PPG…that’s winning 2 out of every 3 on average the rest of the season.

It will be interesting to see where they stand when I return - I’ll be missing 6 games - a span which COULD end up with a big move in either direction. While it’s a very busy schedule (6 in 11 days!), the opponent mix is not too bad. (Chicago and Pittsburgh tough opponents - Rangers, Habs, Leafs, and Sens not so much.) I’d love to come back and see them 4-2, or 3-2-1 even. A decent next 15 games could put the playoffs in the bag, and then you get to start looking ahead at the Division.

Anyways, so long…I’m going to Disney World!

Quick mid-week update

Well, the Sabres have probably one of the toughest challanges this week, and in the first of three games they folded at the challange. There three home opponents this week are a combined 20-6-4 in their last 10 games. They started on Monday against New Jersey and played awful for a full 60 minutes. With 2 losses in a row, it seems like a split between Washington and Chicago at a minimum is necessary before hitting the road against the Rangers this weekend.

I will be leaving town for 10 days - a time in which I will miss 6 games! Hopefully, the Sabres (and everyone here) can get by without me, and they will elevate their level of play over the last two games.

Game 25 vs Montreal - Du Gateau

So,to explain my title - I took French for 5 years in high school…we had one French teacher who like to transfer American sayings into French. One of my favorites was “Du Gateau”, which he used for “Piece of Cake”…literally translated it meant “some cake”, which makes little sense as is and might be why it appealled to me.

Anyways, last nights win against the Habs was “Du Gateau”. Montreal looked just terrible for 40 minutes of the game. The Sabres came out hard early and brought pucks to the net. Halak,the goaltender for Montreal, was giving up rebounds like the puck was hot to the touch, and the Sabres buried some of their early chances. Actually they still missed a few easy goals on top of the 3 goals they got in the first 9 minutes. Thirty minutes in, Montreal had 5 shots on goal, and 8 through 40 minutes. They turned it on a bit in the third, but the Sabers didn’t let ‘em back in, and the final score was 6-2.

I still think this win says as much about the state of the Canadiens as it does about the Sabres though. That is a ship that’s not righting itself this season. If this is a typical example of how they play, I honestly think you are seeing better play out of the Maple Leafs right now, and you very well could see the Leafs pass the Habs before the season is out. (Though neither team is getting a playoff spot come April.)

But again, you only play the opponents you are given any night, and the Sabres did what it took to bring home an easy win. Chris Butler was injured with what Lindy Ruff after the game indicated a slight ankle-sprain, so hopefully he won’t be out for long.

You may have noticed I stopped predicting Sabres wins and losses. It was more because I was having a hard time sitting down to write the predictions before each game, so I thought if I am only going to do it part of the time, I might as well pass on it all together. But now, I’ll give it a stab…the Rangers have lost 3 in a row (badly), but are coming off of 4 days rest (not always a good thing). I think the Sabres win there next one on Saturday.

In other news, the Sabres got Patrick Lalime to agree to a “conditioning assignment” in Portland, playing in 2 games over the weekend. This is likely to eliminate the excuse that “he doesn’t play well because he doesn’t play”. So I see it being very likely that he will play a bit in the next two weeks. I see likely for him to play against NJ or Washington next week, probably take the game against the Rangers NEXT saturday, and either Toronto or Pittsburgh the following week, most likely Toronto if the Sabres continue to win.

Sum it up: November results and December projections

So, the Sabres beat the Leafs again at the ACC, with Ryan Miller again the star early. This time, at least the Sabres didn’t wait all the way until the end to score, but there “stars” are still not getting on the board. Nice job shutting the Leafs down…the one thing they are able to do a bit is score…if you can hold Toronto to 2 or less goals, you are almost always going to win that game this season.

So, the Sabres finished off the month with a 7-5-1 record in twelve games. Looking back at my post on November 2nd, I predicted a 7-4-2 record so not that bad. It was a very up and down month, one win, 2 losses, three wins, 4 losses, and three wins. They scored 32 goals while allowing just 31. (The previous month their differential was 34 for - 24 against.) They remain on a 1.33 points per game pace…which is 109 points for the season. For the month, they got 15 of a possible 26 points, or a 1.25 pace. Maintaining that pace for the rest of the season would result in 104 points at the end of the season. Their opposition was generally weak again…with only 5 games against opponents currently within the top 8 teams. (It should be noted that if you include teams within 1 point of 8th, that number jumps to 9 though.)

Overall, though it was a reasonable month. I think the Sabres came back down to reality. They are playing a more consistent brand of hockey than in previous seasons, and basing their game on solid defense and stellar goaltending. The offense is having periods of struggling…where they frequently play soft in their opponents end, and even on nights they play better, they can’t put the puck in the net. But I feel a lot stronger now saying this is a playoff worthy team should Ryan Miller stay healthy. (They’ll lucky to stay ahead of Toronto without him.) If you finish every month just 1 game above 0.500, you are assured a playoff spot in the NHL.

Now things get a bit tougher. The Sabres are playing 15 games in December in a 27 day span in which they only have a single 2-day break. This is their second busiest month of the year with Match having 16 games. Surprisingly, they only have 3 back-to-back games this month, which is less than in November. They also have 10 home games during the month, including a 5 game home-stand to start the month. They play SIX different opponents twice in the December - Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, NY Rangers, Washington, Pittsburgh. All are home / away sets, except Pittsburgh is twice in Buffalo. The only one-off opponents this month are New Jersey, Chicago and St Louis.

The quality of the opponets remains fairly average, though: 8 games against opponents currently in playoff spots, and 7 that are not. Because the Sabres have been playing fairly well against the lower tier teams (going 6-2 against them in November), I see this as a decent but not spectacular month: my prediction is 8-5-2, which will keep them solidly fighting for the division as the new year starts.

Game 23 vs Carolina - All it takes is one big save

At the end of the second period, I sat in my seat at HSBC arena thinking two things:

-”I’ve attended 10 periods of Sabres hockey this season, and seen a total of 3 goals.”
and
-”If that save by Ryan Miller does not get this team’s heads out of their asses. Nothing will.”

Because, let me tell you folks, the Carolina Hurricanes are a BAD hockey team. At one point during a Carolina PP - I noticed they had one player behind the net battling the Sabres for a puck…while the other four players stood around at the points. Sloppy play and looking uninspired for much of the game tells me this team is already mailing it in.

Yet, the Sabres entered the 3rd period very lucky to only be down 1-0. Again, Ryan Miller shone in the first two periods of this game. The lone goal against was on a bad Tyler Myers giveaway in their zone, coupled with a brilliant shot by Matt Cullen.

Particularly in the second period, Miller was a wall while the Sabres played as sloppy as the ‘Canes and couldn’t get the puck out of their own end. He made at least a half-dozen immpressive saves, including a short-handed stunner on Rob Brind’amour that should be seen. (Go to NHL.com yourself and watch it!)

Well, the Sabres DID respond, piling it on in the 3rd period, and turning a sure loss into an easy win. I still don’t know what to think of this team, they played a couple terrible games in the last week…but then poured in on against Philly on Friday and finally got some scoring last night. They are in the thick of it in a conference that has a lot of teams jammed in the middle. This is going to be an interesting year. They are now 6-5-1 on the month, and a win against Toronto on Monday away from a pretty solid November. Though I think we will see Patrick Lalime in net on Monday, I think the Sabres will take that game, as they typically play strong against Toronto, particularly in the ACC.

1st quarter report - State of the Sabres

There’s a bit of a “sky is falling” attitude in Buffalo right now. Sabres fans are obviously on edge, feeling they are seeing a repeat of last seasons fast start followed by November disappointment. I am in that boat, but I am trying my best to remain optimistic, and the best way to do that is to look at the numbers:
Last season:
First ten games: 6-2-2 (14 points - 1.4 PPG)
Next ten games: 3-6-1 (7 points - 0.7 PPG)
Total: 9-8-3 (21 points - 1.05 PPG)

This season:
First ten games: 8-1-1 (17 points - 1.7 PPG)
Next ten games: 4-5-1 (9 points - 0.9 PPG)
Total: 12-6-2 (26 points - 1.3 PPG)

So, while both season’s saw a big drop-off from the start, in both the first ten and second ten this year, the Sabres collected more points. And looking at last season, after 20 games, the Sabres had 1.05 points per game (PPG). This put them already out of a playoff spot. (If you consider that typically 94 points are needed for a playoff spot - that’s 1.15 PPG.) This season - they have 3 more wins than last year - it doesn’t sound like a lot - but that’s 15 % more wins…enough to get you in the playoffs.

And let’s make one point perfectly clear - the Sabres were clearly NOT going to maintain the 1.7 PPG pace they established in the first 10 games. That would give them 139 points at the end of the season - and this team is clearly not close to a NHL record breaking team. Even at current pace, they would acheive 106 points, which would likely be enough to win the division, if not result in a 4th seed - which to me has always seemed a little high to hope for.

But at 1.3 PPG for the first 20 games puts the team at a pace where you need to get 1.10 PPG for the rest of the season to make the playoffs, last season, they needed 1.18 PPG in the last 62 games, again, a pretty significant difference. (This is the pace that Florida and the NY Rangers will need to acheive to make the playoffs at this point.)

Now, comparing the Eastern Conference as a whole (using a PPG basis) I took the teams, and listed them (with there current Conference standings) and resort them in order by PPG. (Note these stats were calculated before Monday’s games.) Even 20 games into the season, you can see that the 8th place team (Atlanta) has 1.15 PPG, which is the predicted slot for 8th at the END of the season.

Rank —————- PPG ——- GP
4  New Jersey —- 1.38 ——- 21
1  Washington — 1.35 ——- 23
3  Buffalo ——- 1.30 ——- 20
2  Pittsburgh —- 1.30 ——- 23
5  Philadelphia — 1.25 ——- 20
6  Ottawa ——-1.25 ——- 20
7  Tampa Bay — 1.19 ——- 21
9 Atlanta ——- 1.15 ——- 20
8  Boston ——- 1.09 ——- 22
13 Florida ——- 1.05 ——- 21
10 NY Rangers — 1.05 ——- 22
11 Montreal —— 1.00 ——- 23
12 NY Islanders — 1.00 ——- 23
14 Carolina —— 0.68 ——- 22
15 Toronto——- 0.67 ——- 21

So, using this basis - the Sabres still clearly belong in the third place spot, though they are BARELY ahead of Ottawa in the Divisional race, but are well ahead of the 9th place ranking. Yes, the Sabres did not have a good weekend, and squandered their large lead in the Division. They still have weaknesses, not the least of which is being able to score goals, but they actually played pretty well in the OT loss to Boston on Friday. They are only a week away from having played three well-fought games against Edmonton, Calgary, and Philly. They have a couple of tough games next week with Washington and Philly, but after that, they have four of the bottom five teams on the above rankings in Carolina, Toronto, Montreal and the Rangers. And, the one thing they HAVE done well this year is beat the lower ranking teams. So, I’ll keep my fingers off the panic button for a few more weeks. Keep the faith Sabres fans that the playoffs are a mere 62 games away.