Written by Heather | 30 November 2011

I missed almost all of the first period thanks to my regular babysitting gig.  I watched the second and zoned out for much of the third.  The TV was on and I was kind of paying attention, but it was clear it wasn't the Sabres' night, and I wasn't sitting in front of Twitter so I curled up on the couch with my Kindle and focused more on what I was reading than what I was watching.  And then when the game was over, I put on a TNT movie I'd recorded and didn't give the Sabres game a second thought. (The movie is Scott Turow's Innocent and so far it's, well, a TNT movie.  I read the book a couple of years ago, but really I'm watching because Richard Schiff, who played my sweet, funny Toby Ziegler on The West Wing is in it.  And he's good.  I love him.  He's one of the most appealing and charismatic not-that-good-looking guys ever.  Like Charles Bronson.  Or Tommy Lee Jones.)  I have to say, it was kind of nice to 1) turn off the part of my brain that cares that much about the Sabres and 2) not care what everyone else thought about the Sabres.  While I definitely can't do this forever, I am enjoying it in the short-term.

Anyway, even if the Sabres COMPLETELY sucked ass tonight - and it's possible because like I said, I wouldn't have noticed - I'm not sure I really have it in me to panic at this point.  It's the end of November.  We're 24 games in.  The team was probably going to need some time to gel anyway, especially on the back end, and that process has been interrupted by of the number of injuries in the last couple of weeks.  I've never been a big fan of the "Injuries aren't an excuse!" school of thought because sometimes injuries ARE an excuse.  The Sabres have 27 points.  The best team in the league has 32 points with one more game played.  That's not terrible especially for a team that again, has had 8 to 9 regulars out in the last couple of games including the starting goalie.  Is the team perfect?  No.  Are they a total disaster beyond all hope of redemption?  Probably not.

Some small picture enjoyment: Zack Kassian's first NHL fight and Brayden McNabb hitting the hell out of people.  Even more enjoyable than those things were Rob Ray's reaction to Kassian's fight and Mike Robitaille's reaction to some of McNabb's hits.  Seriously, how cute were those two?  You'd think they'd died and gone to hockey heaven.  I think Roby would have hugged McNabb had he walked across the set after the highlights.  Also, JOCHEN HECHT IS A GERMAN SCORING MACHINE!  Jochen scoring means my world is pretty a-okay.  (Take that, all you, WHO NEEDS JOCEHN HECHT ANYWAY? people!  TAKE THAT!)

(I spent 45 minutes watching clips of The West Wing on YouTube.  I could have easily gone all night.)