NYI 3, Sabres 2

HOLDING ON BY A THREAD

The sky is not falling, but it is holding on by a very thin thread.

The Sabres improved to 0-2 last night on Long Island and took another leap in a season that could hopefully prove to be Darcy Regier's last.

Mike Comrie, a free agent acquisition and newly crowned Sabre-killer, scored two more brining his two night point total up to 6 (4-2-6). The Sabres have played a Comrie occupied team for the last 7 non pre-season games and have lost 6 of them.

U.S. born Rick DiPietro outplayed his American counter-part after being blasted with 17 shots in the final frame, saving 16 of them. Ryan Miller had a lackluster performance during that same period saving 4 of 6 shots.

Two games in and the dulled Sabres find themselves one of three teams with no points (Florida and Atlanta) creating a mirror image of last year's amazing start. They were man-handled defensively Friday night by a line assembled by a second year GM that only two years ago was still playing in net for the Isles. They were out clutched last night by one member of said line.

The lack of leadership played all the way through the game last night as the team is still searching for a leader on the ice to set a tone and example for the rest of the youngsters to follow.

Ales Kotalik should be back for Thursday's game against Atlanta, but most fans are probably not holding their breath for any spark to come out of his return.

So here we are, two games, two losses and only 80 more of these things to go which is a lot of time for the threads to snap and the sky to fall on Buffalo yet again. This is all despite the encouragement by the front office, and what reason do they have to lie?

NYI 6, Sabres 4

DEFENSELESS

If there is some sort of solution for the leadership void and the defunct special teams on the Buffalo Sabres, it had better show itself soon.

The power play was powerless and the penalty killing was more like penalty massaging as the Sabres gave sold out HSBC Arena little to be happy about after the season opener.

After grabbing the first goal, a delayed penalty left the Stafford line out too long and resulted in a six on five equalizer.

The Sabres took the lead back after a nice transition set up from Afinogenov to Roy, but after two quick penalties by Buffalo, the Isles scored the tying and go ahead goals on the ensuing power plays.

After that, the Sabres would only tie it up again, twice, on goals by Drew Stafford and Thomas Vanek before surrendering the lead permanently towards the end of the second.

After Vanek's goal in the second, Buffalo seemed to not have any answer to either DePietro or the Isles offense. The Sabres could have skated five forwards and probably seen the same result.

The power play was mere a continuation of the joke it was late last season and the penalty killing units couldn't kill a penalty with nine milimeter.

The most troubling part of the game was the tempo of play in the third period. There appeared to be no-one wearing blue and gold that was willing to sacrifice their body to block a shot, drop th e gloves, make a big hit, or even make some noise on the bench. This lack of leadership resulted in sloppy passing, sluggish skating and bad turnovers.

The Isles, on the other hand, seem to have a solid line that they managed to put together via free agency acquisitions after losing some key players this summer. I repeat, they lost players via free agency, but put together a solid line via free agency to compensate those losses.

The same can't be said about Buffalo. I'm not going even say the names anymore, since both are nestled in nicely with their new teams, but the leadership that said unmentionables provided in situations where the team needed to come from behind was not there, not even close.

Yes, it's only one game, but one home game with a road game the following night. Already, there is pressure to win, or else it's 0-2, and a poor tempo for the season's start.

Everyone keeps saying that X and Y are only two players. Remember, Hasek was only one and look how those few seasons went after he left.

Drury And Briere Already Producing

NOT GONNA BE EASY

First night of the season for NYR and Philly, first night of continuing agony for Buffalo. No matter what happens this season, watching Chris Drury and Danny Briere do what they do for their new teams is going to be difficult.

If the Sabres are good, it will be easy to say, "Well, they could be better with Chris and/or Danny."

If the Sabres suck, it will be even easier to say, "Well, it's because Chris and Danny are gone."

Either way, this summer will still be in everyone's mind from the drop of the puck tomorrow night to the final buzzer or goal in April, May, or June.

To add salt to the wound is that a Buffalo arch enemy, Brian Murray, apparently gets it and is now the envy of every Buffalo fan alive. Knowing that his top scorer and offensive cornerstone, Danny Heatley, was going to demand the highest salary imaginable next summer, signs him...wait for it...A YEAR EARLY!!! Murray not only locked up his best scorer through his prime, but did it for just a shade higher than our brilliant GM did for Thomas Vanek. Imagine that; foreseeing free agency issues and making preemptive moves to avoid such issues. Instead, we get the Drury's on MSG talking about their son living his lifelong dream to play for the Rangers.

One of two things is gonna come out of all of this. Either the Sabres are going to go deep into the post season or the Sabres are not even going to make it. No matter which one happens, every Buffalo fan will definitely be thinking throughout the whole experience what would have been had one or both of our two ex-captains been there to help.

The only thing that we can hope is that if the latter happens, it will be "bye-bye Darcy" and "don't let the door hit you on your arrogant ass, Larry".