Quick Sabres Thoughts

First off, I hate the NFL Draft. I really do. You want to know why? Because they got me! I wanted to give my full attention to the Sabres game. However, Colt McCoy and Jimmy Clausen's stock falling was just too good to pass up on. Plus, I wanted to see if the Bills would get their quarterback. Yes, I watched about 50% of the hockey game and will catch the replay on Center Ice. So, I'm just going to wrestle off some random Sabres stuff.

-Look, I pretty much acted as if the end of the world was happening after game 4. I still stand by those comments. However, this series is really far from over. Hell, its the Sabres. They were inconsistent all year; losing three straight and then winning four straight. They now have 72 hours to get Thomas Vanek healthy. They have to beat a not so great Boston team (Sorry, but I still don't think they are that good) in two straight games. Kind of sounds simple, doesn't it? Tonight's game was about five things:

1)Solid effort from all four lines.
2)Finally not losing a lead.
3)Still trying to pile it on when they were out in front.
4)They played all 60 minutes.
5)Outhit the crap out of the Bruins.

-Who the hell needs the trade deadline when we have Portland? I know I've been skeptical about anointing rookies as the second coming, but when Tyler Ennis is your leading playoff scorer, you got things working for you. Actually, it could mean that your team really sucks. But Ennis looks like someone that we are all going to enjoy for a very long time. Whenever he gets the puck on his stick, you kind of get the feeling he's going to do something special. The guy has game-breaker written all over him. As for the other Pirates, McCormick and Gerbe were big time gamers tonight for the Sabres. Lots of energy and hitting from the duo-

-Loved Ryan Miller pulling Miro Satan off the rugby pile up. BTW, no way Chara gets suspended for getting an instigator penalty in the final seconds of the game. Yes, I know, there's some sort of terminology involved that if Chara uses self-defense or something, he gets off the hook. However, this is the NHL. They don't discipline star players, especially in the playoffs. Hell, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the referees use a different rule book for the post season. Which I'm sure the NHL hire-ups will do the same thing when they are looking to discipline star players-

-Love Mike Grier! Takes a shot off his head and is bleeding from behind his ear. Does that stop him? Nope. The guy just keeps on ticking like a Timex Watch. BTW, tied for the team lead in goals for the playoffs. You guys better resign his ass!-

-Sorry, but that's all I have on the Sabres. Like I said, I was watching the draft. But the Sabres just need to play like they did tonight and we will be seeing a game 7 in Buffalo. Prediction in my RJ Voice: "This series is going back to where Millard Fillmore's buried!!"-

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Side Note

You know, I was going to save this for one of My Buffalo Media sports blitz columns, but I really want to get into this for a second. Can WGR at least try and not shove 10 hours of non-stop Sabres coverage down my throat? Look, I get that you work with the Sabres and you have to make money off each other. But for god sakes, they were babbling for hours about Vanek being healthy and that maybe Lindy Ruff was holding him back. It was so convoluted that at one point, I had no clue what the hell they were talking about. Seriously, they literally sounded as if they were making this story up.

However, that's not me beef. I'm just sick and tired of WGR treating the Bills as some second rate franchise (OK, they kind of are) that resembles the Buffalo Blizzard or Buffalo Destroyers. Do I really need to get into the love affair the city of Buffalo has with the NFL and the Bills? The NFL has made the Draft into the second biggest event in the football calender year. Can the hosts at least look at a mock draft to understand what players are available? Can they maybe make a phone call to Mark Gaughan or a NATIONAL draft expert to speak about players available? I mean, if you can have the entire broadcast team of Versus and MSG as guests on your show, you could at least have Todd McShay on. For goodness sakes, Pierre McGuire doesn't need to be on WGR three times a week.

If you're going to have Joe Buscaglia (Who acts as their draft expert) as your go to guy for draft coverage, don't you think he should have been on at least once during Schopp and the Bulldog? Seriously, I don't even think the afternoon hosts interviewed anyone with draft credentials. Now, it should be noted that Buscaglia now has his own show that has aired like 3 times during the last two weeks; at the not so friendly talk show hours of 7-9pm. Bottom line: your "Draft Expert" should be on during peak hours for your radio programming. God forbid the NFL Draft takes away from Schopp and the Bulldog discussing the TV show Lost and Hot dogs.

The only time Schopp and the Bulldog spoke about the draft for more than 10 minutes was when they talked about Tim Tebow. That's it. For the last two months, all I heard was Bulldog drooling (Ironically, like a dog) over the concept of having Tebow play for the Bills. I assure you, the reason why the WGR hosts decided to use Tebow as their draft coverage poster boy was because he's the easiest topic to talk about. Everyone has an opion about the dude and you don't have to be a college football expert to know about him. It's a lazy topic done by lazy hosts who just don't feel like researching anything. Hell, I think they made up the Vanek topic from today just so they can avoid speaking about the draft.

Then to top it off, Schopp goes all (Paraphrasing here), "Well, we aren't really getting many calls about the draft, so lets keep going with the Sabres." Um, Mike...the reason why you're not getting many calls is because you know of only 10 players in the NFL Draft and the Tim Tebow topic can only be rehashed so often. I'm sure if you had a draft expert on the show, taking questions about certain players, you would get some calls.

Yes, the Bills suck. But you shouldn't ignore them. OK, my rant is done.