BlueMonk

Awesome officiating

Weak goal, typical of the Wings letting up late with a lead. Kronner's play was extremely lazy and Conks was asleep. And now a PK.

All these teams are pretty much interchangeable as far as I'm concerned, so it comes down to travel for me. If the Wings are able to advance, then doing so while accumulating the fewest miles possible is advantageous in the long haul.

A meaningless game, and the Wings played like it.

With all the great local musical talent, they pick THAT pile of crap for the April In The D theme? Gah. Wings PK has been very good tonight.

This was a terrific effort by the team. They sure didn't look like a team that was playing the back end of consecutive nights. Lots of energy both 5 on 5 and on special teams. The PK in the middle of the 2nd period was playoff caliber; they were flying all over the ice, taking away the point shot and the passing lanes, winning races to pucks, etc. The battles along the boards were physical all game long and they never let up, even when they had a big lead. Osgood played an excellent game in goal and kept it scoreless until the offense could get it rolling. Really, a nearly perfect effort. I saw everything I expect from this team tonight.

Nice no call.

I've always appreciated that Buffalo plays run and gun hockey. So many teams are terrified to take risks, but not the Sabres. When they were an elite team a few years ago, they were a lot of fun to watch.

Not happy to see Kopecky sleepwalking out there, not even aware the puck is practically on his stick.

Beauty glove save, eh? Nice.

I don't really like to get into goaltending discussions here, because the focus on goalies is embarrassing on this board. But the guy everyone is singing the praises of here today, Backstrom, just let in the go ahead goal on an unscreened wrist shot with less than a minute to go. PERSPECTIVE.

Great glove save by Ozzie there.

Very solid PK.

Yeah, this is why I'm inclined to think the Wings are actually playing well as opposed to the Wild just not showing up.

The Wings really came to play today! But they're in the all-too-familiar position of protecting a one goal lead despite severely outplaying their opponent.

I know it can't really happen. But I bet if you could assess the true impact of having a poor puckhandling goaltender come out to stop pucks and try to help his defensemen, the net positive might be less than it seems.

There is no reason for a goaltender who has terrible puckhandling skills to ever play the puck. What I'm trying to say is, Osgood should never play the puck. Ever.

Hehehehe. Dismal play entering the playoffs has been actually worked out for the Wings in the past. The 2002 season springs to mind; I don't think they won a game in April that year. Turned out okay.

3 straight home losses. Have there been 60 total minutes of full effort in all 3 combined? I'm not sure. Like I said, bring on the playoffs!

Goalie has to stop that. These are backbreaking goals that destroy a team's will.

No worries, we got Sammy on the point making sure things run right.

Yeah, all the improvement they made last year in learning how to balance puck possession with making the simple play has been undone this year; they're constantly failing to execute the obvious chip out in favor of some fancy pants nonsense that leads to brutal scoring chances against.

Inexcusable. After getting the tying goal like that to sh** the bed immediately is pathetic.

I know what you're saying. It's sort of half-assing it by the official in that type of situation. Like when they call off a goal because of goaltender interference but don't penalize the player who interfered with the goalie. It's like a way of saying, "This call probably isn't that strong, so rather than rub salt in the wound by putting you shorthanded, we'll just waive off the goal and split the difference."