What has caused this change in the Sabres

0:00Why have we asked our contractor we found on Angie.com to be our kids' legal guardian? Because he took such good care when redoing our basement that we knew we could trust him to care for our kids. Ballade of them. Should something happen to us? Are you my dad now? No. Sorry. I do basement. Connecting homeowners with skilled pros for over 30 years. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. And pros for all your home projects at Angie.com. Presented by T-Mobile, the official wireless partner of Odyssey Sports. With an awesome network and great savings, there's never been a better time to join T-Mobile. Visit your neighborhood store to make the switch today. Ring Central's AI receptionist uses voice AI to answer on the first ring, so you'll never miss a call again. In just a few minutes, you can personalize your own AI receptionist to answer questions, without calls, schedule appointments, and even send texts in multiple languages. Plus, it's easy to scale. Create unlimited AI receptionists across any phone system.

1:02It's all powered by one reliable platform for effortless AI communications. See for yourself at ringcentral.com. Ring Central. Voice of your business. One thing that has changed for a lot of hockey fans, like Sal was saying last segment. He's among this group. I am not because I pretty much every night during the season watch a hockey game when I get home from work. Just his force of habit, my wife works a lot of nights. I'm home alone a lot, grown children, you know, the whole deal. So that's just what I do. But fans now that have not been doing that are probably doing that. And for you specifically, I want to make sure you're aware that the Detroit Red Wings already won a hockey game today. There was an afternoon game today. Red Wings at Predators, I don't know, Detroit 1-4-2, late empty netter to seal it.

2:05So they are now tied at 76 points with the Sabers. They have played one more game than Buffalo, so Buffalo's still holding down second place in the division. But just a fill in could... Why have we asked our contractor we found on Angie.com to be our kids legal guardian? Because he took such good care when redoing our basement that we knew we could trust him to care for our kids. Ballade of them. Should something happen to us? Are you my dad now? No, sorry, I do basement. Connecting homeowners with skilled pros for over 30 years, Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find pros for all your home projects at Angie.com. Presented by T-Mobile, the official wireless partner of Odyssey Sports. With an awesome network and great savings, there's never been a better time to join T-Mobile. Visit your neighborhood store to make the switch today. Ring Central's AI receptionist uses voice AI to answer on the first ring. So you'll never miss a call again.

3:06In just a few minutes, you can personalize your own AI receptionist to answer questions, route calls, schedule appointments, and even send texts in multiple languages. Plus, it's easy to scale. Create unlimited AI receptionists across any phone system. It's all powered by one reliable platform for effortless AI communications. See for yourself at ringcentral.com. Ring Central. Voice of your business. Because you care now, right? These teams around the Sabers and the standings, it matters. 803-050-50 is the phone number. You want to get involved in the show. We would love to have you like Paul has done. Paul, you're first up this segment. Thanks for calling you on WGR. Well, Doug, thank you for having me. I've just come to the conclusion the Montreal Canadians and the Detroit Red Wings aren't going to lose again in the regular seasons, or neither can we. Every time I walk and play, they win and they look fantastic. Yeah. I got absolutely agree with you. Saturday, I watched three hockey games. It was a great day of hockey on ABC. The Rangers actually came through for us and got a point from the penguins.

4:10That was nice to see. And then we just see Tanner Geno and Nick Dolorey. What a fight. Oh my goodness. And you don't often see Nick Dolorey lose a fight. But Geno did get the better of him after Dolorey started fast. But man, those were just some heavyweight punches thrown. I got to give it up for both of those guys. And then, of course, we took care of business against the Florida Panthers. And what I would say has changed for this team. The reason it's real, we've got two incredible breakout seasons from Peyton Crabbs and Matthias Samuelson. We've got good goal tending from whomever is in the net. Our coach is on point. And I want to point out in the game against Florida, at the end of the second period with two minutes left, we got a power play and Lindy called time out. He didn't save it for what might be at the end of the game. He took it there because it was the end of a period and it was a chance to get a goal that would change momentum. We didn't get the result, but it was absolutely the right move to take the time out there. And that tells me my coach is on point.

5:12Everything about the team right now is on point. And I still point to the firing of Adams because just the lift it gave everyone. Everyone has the edge now. We saw in the game against Tampa, Dalline doing what he always does, throwing some cross checks to the people, Braden Point this time, who then two hands Dalline on his skate boot. Dalline goes down and who comes in? Noah Osslin devolved people to have a little fight. And you know, respect to Braden Point who could have hurt that young man. Yes, that's right. So it's just everything's firing. They look like a team. They're there for each other. Couple really important players are having breakout seasons. My coach is on fire like he hasn't been in a long, long time. Everything's coming up, Mill House says they would say in the sense of football. Appreciate the call very much. Yeah, I'm really curious to see what ends up happening with Benson now back. Because to me, that's the spot Krebs is in right now is Benson's spot.

6:14And they had a great night on Saturday. It was a, I don't say it was easy. I mean, going in there, they had to work for it. I mean, it was not a tense game for us. And so, you know, not that worried about where Benson is and Krebs has had so many good moments, especially recently playing on that line that, you know, I think it probably will take that line taking a nap or them losing a game before it'll change. But I think sooner rather than later, you're going to see Benson back up there. I think it's just too good when he's there with Talk and Thompson. But Krebs has had a really nice year and can sort of fit in different spots, which gives you a lot of value. You know, Samuel Sin, I'm glad you brought him up. I think it came up when we were talking with Joe Yerden earlier, just the turnaround he's had and what his season has been.

7:17And how the fan base feels about him is such a lesson in not overreacting to one situation. We were so sour, so mad, rightly so. Last year with that devil's situation when Thomas, Thompson got rocked and Samiston carried all the blame for that for being on the ice and not recognizing the situation. He is such a key part of this. And his personality, I read a great piece, Matthew Fairburn with the athletic, I like his work a lot. You know, a lot of people that cover the sabers. I try to read them all and support them all. Of course, you know, our Paul Hamilton being a part of that too. Obviously, the piece Matt did on Samuelson and his importance in the room sort of as an icebreaker, as someone to keep everyone loose. I think it's really hard when you're feeling the brunt of the fan base

8:19like he would have been to be that personality and have it be what the team needs you to be. And I think he's really found that spot now. His play undeniably has been fantastic. I mean, again, just like the team, there ain't nothing fluky about it. He is producing offense. He is eliminating danger, chances. I mean, he just takes people out of place in a way that he simply was not doing prior to this season. I know maybe it was happening late last year and I heard Lindy recently say he thought he was their best demon towards the end of last year for like a chunk of maybe 30 games. And I would cop to being guilty of maybe not noticing because everything was just the worst at the time. But either way, such a huge part of what they're doing here

9:20this year. Ed is next up. Hi Ed, thanks for calling. You're on the air here on WGR. How you doing, Bulldog? Good to talk to you. Nice to talk to you. I felt like at the beginning of the show today, when you started, it felt like you had that epiphany that we've all kind of been having, thought we were nervous to say it out loud, but to hear you say that the sabers are good. This is like, I felt like streamers and balloons and like a marching band should have come out. Like because this has been obviously years in the making. And so as a, I'm just going to share with you like as a nerdy GR listener, I have gone through years of like some of my favorite parts of the show and I'm very lukewarm hockey fan prior. Just because of the state of the sabers. The fun for me would be to tune in at night and watch a bit and I would say, you know, these guys can't even pass good.

10:20And then I would listen to you guys and to hear your rants and I'd be like, I would feel your passion and your frustration. And I'm like, I want to launch the sabers. I can't wait till they're good. I don't even want to do this someday. And now it's just, you know, sort of come full circle. And now we're all like, well, just got there. Finally, they're pretty good, they're pretty good. So I just want to give you your props. You, I know you think that the rants for the team, I heard you say not your best moment, but I'll politely disagree with you. I think that, you know, those things got people like me to watch and you got me to know what dudes to watch and so I appreciate it and it's fun. It's fun. It's nice. Thank you. I appreciate all that. I was not trying to say, I'll just clarify quickly and then take a break. I don't regret the rants. I'm not embarrassed by them. What my point was is that really it became impossible

11:24to sell them as genuine. I want it to always be real. And the sabers had beaten me down to such a point that even when fans would be like, man, I can't wait to hear Bulldog rip them today. Be like, guys, I'm dead inside. I'm sorry, I cannot, I mean, I could, I could, I could, you know, manufacture it for you. But that's not ever how I wanted to do this. So it's good, you know, what ends up happening now is their good expectations will be raised and then we can get mad again when it doesn't go well. And it'll be real, it'll be honest. It'll be like, how did you let that happen? And that's, that's how sports should be. You shouldn't be so beleaguered rooting for your favorite team that you don't even care when they're terrible anymore. There's the worst relationship you could possibly have with a sports team that you care about.

12:25And that's where we had been living. And so, I don't know, I'm not, I'm not telling you, Rance will be back. But like, once they have you caring again, that's how it happens. You need that peace. When you don't care, you're just yelling into the void. And I've never wanted to be that. So fortunately, I've been lucky enough not to. So, I don't know, in a weird way on a day where we're celebrating the Sabers being good again, it's all back. And that means like anger when it doesn't go well. But that, that's how it should be, right? That's, that's normal. This being dead inside, not normal, bad, real bad, right? Being dialed in and caring enough to get really genuinely upset about a result. That is, that's where you want to be living. Thank you for the call. I'd really appreciate all the kind words. 8030550 is the number I'm the bulldog mic has the day off today. This is W. presented by T-Mobile,

13:26the official wireless partner of Odyssey Sports. With an awesome network and great savings, there's never been a better time to join T-Mobile. Visit your neighborhood store to make the switch today. Ring Central's AI receptionist uses voice AI to answer on the first ring. So you'll never miss a call again. In just a few minutes, you can personalize your own AI receptionist to answer questions, route calls, schedule appointments, and even send texts in multiple languages. Plus, it's easy to scale. Create unlimited AI receptionists across any phone system. It's all powered by one reliable platform for effortless AI communications. See for yourself at ringcentral.com. Ring Central, voice of your business. I'm Sally Helm with the podcast History This Week. In each episode, we serve as your eyes and ears into history's biggest events, major elections, world wars, scientific breakthroughs. But we also bring you into the smaller behind-the-scenes stories, the unsung heroes, secret meetings, even personal grudges that changed the course of history.

14:27Listen to and follow History This Week and Odyssey Podcast in partnership with the history channel. Available now for free on the Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts.