Red & Black Hockey
Canes win, stay in ninth
by David Lee on 02/27/09 at 12:46 AM ET
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On Thursday night, Carolina beat the visiting Sabres 2-1 in a game decided in the shootout. It was everything it was advertised to be. Exciting, dull, exciting, dull, exciting and dull. Jussi Jokinen, who was brought to Carolina for exactly this reason, scored the deciding goal in the shootout.
I was lucky enough to get a free ticket in the third row, center ice, right behind the benches. Fantastic. I’ve sat that close before, but not at center ice. Thanks to my great friend Amanda, who is a Sabres fan, for the ticket.
Because Buffalo got the consolation point and because Florida defeated the Rangers, Carolina will stay put in ninth place. Carolina and Buffalo both have 69 points, but the Sabres have a game and hand and, thus, the tiebreaker. For now, they’re still in the playoffs and Carolina is still out. They will keep that game in hand until April 8. Crazy.
Carolina is now five games into a six game stretch from which I said they’d need 10 points. They have eight. They’ll travel to Atlanta on Saturday to finish this little set of games. After that is a really tough seven game stretch (five on the road) out of which they’ll need to get eight points, but will be lucky to get five.
One of the most interesting things I observed during the game was a Sabres fan who had driven up from Charlotte for the game. He was in the second row, behind the Sabres bench. He spent a significant portion of the game yelling at Toni Lydman through the glass. Not yelling encouragement, but rather lobbing criticism his way. After the game, I asked him why he was giving his boy such a hard time, and his only response was ‘he’s terrible” and so and so forth. He promised me that if I watched enough Sabres games I would be doing the same thing. For whatever it’s worth, Lydman led all Sabres with five hits.
There were tonight, as there always are, loads of Sabres fans in the house. Some who drove or flew down from WNY just for this game. I’ve said before and I’ll say again that I didn’t have a problem with any of them. Instead, I’ve got loads of respect for fans like that. They’re always plentiful, they’re always loud, they’re mostly respectful. While it’s true that there are some jerk Sabres fans out there, it isn’t because they’re Sabres fans. There are plenty of jerk Hurricanes fans and there’s no reason for unprovoked hostility.
The Sabres will have an excellent chance to at the very least, maintain their position over the weekend. On Saturday, they’ll take on the Islanders while Carolina will be in Atlanta. Meanwhile, Carolina can back their way inside the bubble. They’ll still have to take care of their own business, but some of the other teams will have tougher draws. Florida will be in New Jersey while Montréal will be hosting San Jose.
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Tags: Buffalo+Sabres., Carolina+Hurricanes,
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About Red & Black Hockey
David Lee is a restaurant manager with an unused degree in political science. He can be found at Carolina Hurricanes games, Scrabble tournaments and indie-rock shows. Sometimes, all in the same day.
David has contributed to CBC.ca for their Stanley Cup playoff coverage in 2006 and to the New York Times Slapshot blog for theirs in 2008. Red and Black Hockey was founded in July of 2005.
