I haven't quite decided the best way to describe this season for Bobby Sharp. Bittersweet comes to mind. Jebaited comes to mind. Sharp had a career year in terms of regular season team and individual performance. Sharp finished with a career high 62 points, 3rd on his team and 11th in the league overall, with less than half the powerplay time everyone else in the top 20 had. Sharp's team success was also excellent, posting 84 points which easily put them in first place in the league and nearly tied a record for most points in a season ever. Huge season for everyone. Very sweet. Playoffs though... playoffs roll around and the first round has some bumps and confidence wanes slightly, but the team pulls through. Then in the second round, Buffalo faces an opponent that historically has their number. Game 1 happens though and wow, Buffalo absolutely smoked them. At that point it looks like fate has a different outcome for the Stampede, only to quickly take away hope with 3 consecutive losses. Somehow, Buffalo comes back and ties the series, only to lose game 7 in double overtime. Bitter for sure, jebaited for sure.


So this one stings worse than most early playoff exits in the Buffalo locker room. Lots of expectations set by an incredible season only to be dismantled, piece by piece, period by period, goal by goal, by the hockey gods of FHM. So most of us are spending our time healing, both pysically and emotionally. Some of us are practicing our golf game, something we've gotten quite good at the past few years if you know what I mean. There are some of us keeping up with the occurances of what's happening in the finals but lets be honest, as soon as most of us catch a glimpse of what's happening we all just instantly think that we should be there. It's time that we all channel these feelings and use it as motivation to one up our regular season next year and two up our playoffs by winning the whole damn thing next year.


It's terrible to hear about a young man like Sergei disappearing. I have reached out personally to my entire hockey network, even several players from their home country, to see if they have heard or seen anything about Sergei but so far have come up empty. I am currently in the process of designing milk cartons for Sergei with a picture of his face surrounding by stacks of money, which hopefully tricks people into thinking there is a reward for information about his location when I am way to poor to afford giving anything. Come home Sergei, your brother misses you. Or if you're avoiding him, don't come home.


As a member of Team USA there's no chance that I would bet on anyone except for ourselves (can players actually bet on themselves? seems suspect). We took home the gold last time around with some occasional resistance, but outside of a close OT game in the playoff rounds that yours truly somehow found a way to score in, USA had a relatively dominating performance in the gold medal game and most of the time along the way. Outside of USA though, I think both Canada and Great Britian have a real good shot at getting their name on those gold medals (is that a thing? probably not but it sounds good). Canada had a dominating round robin performance last time around and Great Britian had USA on the brink during that overtime game right before the medal game. USA may face some repeated competition again there, or perhaps a new contender will develop. I expect the standing to remain relatively the same as the last time around though.


a. Based on my experience with Kryyst I would have to give him the nod here. Kryyst has somehow defied the laws of what it means to be hot and cold by not losing a single heat through 3 losses in the second round, including getting pulled and having a lower save % than a traffic cone. Kryyst and his heat is unstoppable, he's going to burn a hole in the ice that the net falls into to lower the scoring area by 2 square feet.
b.
c. It definitely does. The season head-to-head shows how the teams match up against each other and rarely will a team success at drastically changing their gameplan to catch up to someone. I honestly didn't expect a full on sweep (now that I'm actually looking at the series), but I feel like that's in line with how this game works, where if a team beats you semi-reliabily in the season you really don't stand a chance against them in a best of 7.
d. I mean does anyone want to actually go to Hamilton? New Orleans is somewhere I've always wanted to go on vacation. Everything from the atmosphere, the food, the music, what's not to like? I may try to convince the entirety of the Buffalo squad to just forgoe the next game down there and spend that time exploring what the city has to offer.

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Taco