Other rinks the Sabres have practiced in

0:00Yeah, I think it's that time of year where you have to be ready. It's stressful, it's unpredictable, you can get good calls, you can get bad calls, you can get borderline calls against you. There's a lot of stuff you've got to fight through, I thought our guys did. They stayed together, the bench was good, and they just kept talking about getting back in the game. And there was one on Saturday where Dalline, it's that high cycle, and Dalline just kind of stops, or slows down and gets an interference penalty. Yeah, it looks like a pick play. If that's a penalty now we're in trouble. Yeah, right, because yeah, that's like our secret sauce is playing up there like that. So yeah, try not to run into guys, I guess. Him or anybody else. Yeah, that wasn't great, but they got there Saturday. I felt like that was important. Just I know that they're still in good shape. And if they lose the game to Seattle, their chances of making it and everything would be fine, but it felt like a lot to win.

1:06I heard, I'm going to bring this up mainly because I mean, I like the observation, but it was also one that I shared. I heard Jeremy and Joe talking this morning about the game and how it how tense it felt. And you know, after Friday, kind of really want to get this one. I mean, the captain after Friday said tomorrow night, I'll tell you a lot about who we are or whatever, that kind of thing. I better effort is needed and you're down to nothing like a moment, Benson passes to Krebs. And you know, it's going to be at least a good scoring chance was like a like up in your seat. And then he shoots it and it goes in and you're you're making sounds. He's like, well, like, okay, I guess I was pretty pent up. That felt pretty good. That was really big. That's indicative of how important it was that they win Saturday. I think like I was at two to one. Get there. And you know, they got there. It's just always Benson. Yeah, it's just always Benson. That guy.

2:11803 05 50 for your calls. Here is Mark with us. I'm Mark. I just wanted to add to Bulldogs recollection of the 75 playoffs of the Sabers against the Canadians. It was magical because at that time previously our basic hockey experience was with Huck and I in Canada. So, you know, Maple Leafs and the Canadians really thought of as royalty with the possible exception of the brilliance. So those teams really were, I mean, for us to have they have a playoff game against the Canadians and do so well against all those names. Conway LaFlure, my hobblets of brothers. I think driving with the time. Sure. And then a person will know how the student and Nichols and they were practicing there. So they're really just really invigorated me. Is that right? Montreal was. Oh, okay. Okay. Montreal was practicing on Grand Island somewhere probably on the river. No, I don't know. Yeah.

3:13It's just a touch before my time, but I can appreciate the importance of it. Don't forget. I'll re-reshard, I believe. The pocket rocket still acting and not skip over him. Right. Loaded. I mean, baby, it's debatable. Sure. I just think if they were to get through Tampa Bay this year, whenever. And it can't be the first round. I mean, probably. There's still a chance of that. I mean, I guess yeah, Montreal could pass both of them. You know, they're four points back. They've played one fewer game than us. I mean, it's not nuts. What I would love about it that isn't just the fact that I root for one team and not the other is I just don't really buy that you have to lose first in sports. I mean, it happens a lot, but most teams lose anyway, whether they have experience or not, only one winner. So I don't know, like I don't really care for the sabers that they haven't been to the playoffs in so long. I feel like they're going to know what to do. Maybe they'll lose, but I'm not really, I'm not scared for them.

4:16You know, six, we have this. That's right. And I don't know, same, same thought. Just go, just go play and Philadelphia was loaded with guys that had played in the playoffs before and the sabers weren't and they just crushed them. So I'd like to see that. I mean, they'll never go away. They'll always be people who will tell you that, you know, you have to lose first. You don't. Right? 0506 should be that and that is not the dark ages. I mean, you know, whatever. It's 20 years ago, but still it's, it's recent enough. It's current. It's not 1975. And that you just showed up after, I mean, what is that? They're in in 2000 and then they miss for so. Oh, right. I want to get the penguins, right? But I mean, they really had that was only a couple of years, but it was some very dark times. There's a missed year for the entire league. There's bankruptcy and all that other stuff. And they sort of showed up with this new team and were great. It's almost an entirely new roster. Yeah. And wouldn't anyone who was really paying attention to those two years.

5:170506 and then 0607 tell you like the 0506 team was the better team like they had the better look at it. I think that, I mean, that you could argue about that. But like they didn't learn how to do it from having been through it in 0506 and 0607. They got stopped at the exact same point. And I think we're less competitive in the series. Overall that got them eliminated. I mean, they got knocked out in five games against Ottawa. Whereas, you know, Carolina, the year before took the calamity of defenseman injuries and eventually the damn broke, but they still got to seven games there. So yeah, I don't, I'm not at all spooked by there. That's not to say there won't be guys that might crack. We'll just be guessing at whether they have or not because they're never going to tell you like nobody ever says. Yeah, that game started. I was really terrified. I couldn't process my thought. I couldn't keep my thoughts clear. Everything was happening so fast. They were on me so quick. It just, you know, it comes and goes. But I'm not at all thinking about them as being at some big disadvantage because they haven't been there before.

6:29Where were the Canadians of practice in 1975 when they were here? Some school? Well, how many schools have a rank? The caller says the Sabers practice at Nichols. He was a student there. Yeah, I don't know. Let's get let's bring that back. There was there was. I don't know how long. I don't know if it was around still then, but there was a rank right over the bridge in Fort Erie. Yes, really, really close by. That might have made sense as a practice rank for an opponent in a playoff series, especially a Canadian one, especially a Canadian one. Didn't the Sabers play in that rank like or the Bisons? I believe for a time. I believe for a year. Yeah, I love that Nichols rank. Did you love it? Like it's so steep. Yeah, I love being in there. Yeah, I played in there when they didn't have glass. They had like chain link fencing. Okay, that's how old person I am that I played on a rank that didn't have glass and then had chain link fencing. When the Sabers practice there in the 1975 playoff, did it have chain link fencing?

7:32What might have, might have. Honestly, like that might line up. Like I think I was 9 or 10 when I played there with one of the first travel teams I was ever on. Could Rick Martin shoot the puck through the fence? I don't know. I don't know, but that's how I remembered. I hope that that, I hope our listener who was going to school back then, then what that lines up with his recollection because I remember it being chain link fencing. But yes, I like the, yeah, that rank has been a lot to us. Both of the kids learned to skate there, Owen played a lot of hockey there, growing up, and then eventually played a senior high school there. So that's a, and it's a two blocks from our house and my daughter. It's a very sentimental place to us. Yes. Yeah, right. Here's Jim next. Hi, Jim. Hi, fellas. Good show. Look at him. I was just trying to get a topic here with, you know, suppose the Sabers going to the playoffs and lion and UPL are playing about even. I wonder if they, they use analytics to decide who starts, you know, because I really, I really wonder about that whole thing with hockey.

8:33Is he better against left hand shots? They include all that kind of thing, but even in the placement of players playing on a, not only basis who sits. I just wondered what the role was in the analytics, because I mean, to break things down to percentages and laws of averages and that's really all it is. But I really wonder what the role of the analytics is in the Sabers playing playing players. If there's any others, just it's just choosing players or playing players. Where do you come into a role? You know, it's really kind of interesting. I wonder what a guy does every day that goes and does that, you know. I think they prepare reports on guys game to game for the coaching staff and for the whoever needs GM. I mean, Kekalainen has said that he's heavily invested in that part of the game, but specific to goalie. I mean, I don't know. But I think it informs, I think everything they do to some extent or another, at least it's considered.

9:34It might be looked at and set aside like, you know, yeah, no, I, I like this guy better, even though his numbers aren't good right now. Let's keep with it because we think he's going to play a certain way and play a certain role for us. And let's try to see it through. This might be Timins and Metsa right now happening live before our eyes. You know, we thought it was a good idea to acquire this player for a specific role in the offseason. And he barely was used in it and now he's healthy. So let's see if that actually we were right. Let's see if it pays off to have this guy on our third pair now. That's some of what is going on. I'm sure some of that is numbers driven. I don't know either what the goalie. Pieces for that. I mean, I think if you go back long enough to the days when the starters played, I mean 70 games out of 80 or 82 games. And now it's not like it's very, it's rare for anybody to come close to that.

10:36That's data. Anything that sort of against how it has always been in sports is probably data. Now there's more respect for it. And now it even pretty much I think wins the day in many situations. But all the other things like handedness and. I mean, Paul always brings up with the Saber's goalies how they've done against a certain other team. I don't care at all about that. The sample sizes are so small that I would hope the Sabers would not care at all about that when they make their decisions, but they might. So I don't know. I feel like if it's going to look in and now. That's not because they have a chart that tells them to. That's because they might think that he has more upside. I think that that's maybe it. And that would be a gut call. That would not be. I mean, he's got it. He's has a career of statistics. But I think that that's mostly at least a gut call. If that's where they're leaning right now. And I think it might be.

11:37I mean, why would he play tomorrow night? Right. I think I think this is the first sign that they're going to like. Okay, let's try him first is what's happening. And I always sort of thought. I mean, look, I think it. It's played out in such a way that the case is has been made. I mean, Lion gave up five in Anaheim and four. Where does an empty netter on Friday night and didn't come up with anything really. He made all great save and then got scored on like three seconds or four seconds later on Friday night. Right. It's sprawling save out to his left and then the pucks in the net a few seconds later. Not to blame him for the goal, ultimately, but he just didn't get anything that really helped you. Get that game back on track and get it back on your way. So, but with that said, I've always felt like looking in athletically pedigree. It sounds so much age. It's it's that I think Lion, you've got more of a reason to think you know who Lion is.

12:38And that this year his results have been excellent, but you might be bracing for the return to the mean with him. Whereas looking in, I think you still aren't really sure you would hope his ceiling is the back half of the season two years ago. Where he had like he just looked he looked every bit like that's our number one goalie. Who's Devin Levi again? What are we doing here? Like let's give a contract to this guy. Oh, I imagine they would like to see that in full bloom. And so, but he's also outperformed Lion in the last week or so. So all that adds up to all right. Let's see if he can do it. Six in Anaheim even Lion. Oh, yeah. Okay. Devin Levi, the show has never sounded older, right? Then a reference to Devin Levi. Mike's open the bulldog here. Sal Capaccio from the NFL owners meetings in Arizona, probably at four. There is the chance that they'll a certain interview was going to come up. Sal said and we might have to move things around a little bit, but that's the current plan.

13:46Thanks for listening. We'll have Paul Hamilton on later. This is WGR.