The October Rundown of the Buffalo Sabres

Hockey is BACK.

Okay, I am two three articles behind, so this is the monthly rundown on what happened, also you’re getting BONUS content: video game reviews since Titanfall is really why I’m behind after Rich fixed the draft stuff.

So the Sabres opening night did not go well at all, with Eichel out, and Kane breaking three ribs, in a game that the Sabres got demolished. Things looked pretty bleak. Kane was going to be out for months, Eichel until Christmas. Then we had to go see the first prize of the 2015 draft. Connor fucking McDavid

Except, the Sabres beat the hell out of them 6-2, and shut down Connor McDavid. Who was so traumatized by the loss, he gave up his union given right for a day off and showed us all why it was a really bad idea to give him the captaincy and did not stand up for the players, instead, giving in to management’s wishes and opting to practice the next day. It’s a long season Connor, you’re going to regret that.

The rest of road trip that did go Two points in four games and letting the Flyers come back from a 3-0 lead. Classic collapse. Sabres twitter was on FIRE. People were calling for Bylsma to be fired, Franson to be sent down, etc.

In the middle of all this, Hudson Fasching got his shot with the squad. However, it’s quite a headscratcher. Bailey and Baptiste have been doing better in the season. We have a case here where Murray is trying to prove that he won the McNabb trade, but the only part of that trade that could be considered a win was sending Jon Parker away from upstate New York. Moot point now since both of them are now playing on the Sabres now.

Anyways, this author went to the Sabres/Panthers game on Saturday. One of my best friends from college was in town and he was going to go to the New England game Sunday, so figured why not go to the game. What a game though. The Sabres managed to win and get the shoutout. Former Sabres legend, Mark Pysyk showed us that analytics only tells some of the story with an own goal. Then the Sabres went on to Winnipeg the very next day and won AND THEN, they went to Minnesota, AND WON AGAIN.

Overall, the month didn’t end too badly. I mean the Sabres have enough points for 8th place at this point.

We’re finding out what players are stepping up when the star players get hurt, which will be vital in the long term, however, one of these players, Matt Moulson, should probably be traded away this season so they can offload that contract to whatever team will take the deal. Tyler Ennis seems to be coming along nicely, albeit slowly. Josh Gorges, Cody Franson should be offloaded at the earliest opportunity. Brian Gionta is not a horrible tire fire that he was last season. However, we are in October, we’ll see what happens. Edmonton is now the Stanley Cup favorites if you listen to the Canadian media. Nazem Kadri is better than McDavid because he beat him out on a goal last night, and Shea Weber is the favorite to win the Norris because typical Montreal.

It looks like NHL Gamecenter isn’t a piling of flaming shit this year, based on what social media is saying, which is nice. Meanwhile, the NHL website continues to be garbage, with it a unnavigable pile of shit. I’ve seen Geocities websites better designed than that shit site that was probably designed by some ITT graduate being paid 10 an hour. You get what you pay for assholes.

I’ve been a little late because the video game hits kept coming, Civ 6 and Titanfall. Civ 6 is okay, I haven’t played it as much as I would like, mostly because I want the mods to come out for it, but that may not be until January. Titanfall though, 9/10. The first was an excellent game, but the second they made it slightly easier to pick up and play. Some core mechanics changed, no shield regenerations, Titan customizations. During the tech test, people were mad about that, but once you play the full game, you understand why it was done, because other changes were done to the game that made up for what they took out. Work still needs to be done, with matchmaking balance, parkour needs to be worked out, completely different in this game than in the last. Also, please add stats soon and make the post game scoreboard something that actually is modern and none of this miminalist shit, I want to see other players levels. Anyways, buy this game and go vote next week.