On a Sunday full of get-a-load-of-this, it was going to be hard to beat this:
Oh, and there were 15 goals in that game, too. It happened in a venerable old barn, with a team that hasn't been good in almost 15 years but is suddenly brilliant pulling out an 8-7 win after leading 4-1 and trailing 7-5. It also drove the gerbils at YouTube positively bat-guano crazy, which is the newest measure of big-deal-hood.
There were other contenders, to be sure, like the post-match field storming at Ibrox after Celtic-Rangers; Queens University winning the Atlantic Sun conference tournament and getting an NCAA invitation in its first year of eligibility, despite giving up 49 points to Central Arkansas' Camren Hunter; and Michigan beating Michigan State, which wasn't really an upset but does mean that we can in good conscience type the name Yaxel Lendeborg. The discovery that the Dominican Republic's World Baseball Classic lineup might well be better than that of the Los Angeles Dodgers was exciting, and there was also the rollicking bad behavior at the Australian Grand Prix.
The point is, there were a lot of things that could catch the eye, but it was Lightning-Sabres that delivered the most heat, and consequently light. The two teams were tied atop the Atlantic Division, had some scores to establish (the settling comes later), and each wanted to send a message to the other that this rivalry, which is just barely three weeks old, will be a spiteful one. Maybe not Celtic-Rangers, but it won't be for lack of punching.
Even if there had been no penalties at all on Sunday, this game would have been worth celebrating both in itself and as an installment in this strange and promising new rivalry. But oh, how there were penalties: a total of 28 for 102 minutes, all of which were born of anger, revenge, or both. Teams do not reach numbers like that without some fights, and there were plenty of those: five separate scuffles, all seemingly designed as manifestos rather than happenstance. This wouldn't seem to leave much room for hockey, but there was a remarkable amount of that, too: Buffalo taking a big lead, turning it into an embarrassing deficit, then snatching it back with four goals within nine minutes in the third period. Just for all that action, a game like this would have stood on its own as a treat. Throw in the glove-drop message-sending, and you have a 1980s-style classic.
More than that, we had what we had because the Sabres are the new item on the NHL menu—not new as in actually new, but new as in "Where the hell did they come from?" Unlike the Lightning, who have recently won two Stanley Cups and made two additional Finals as half of Florida's ongoing annexation of the league, the Sabres have been routinely and relentlessly awful for nearly a decade and a half. They have the worst aggregate record, the longest run without a playoff berth in league history, and one of the five worst in North American sports history over that stretch—all in a sport that sends half its franchises to the postseason every year. To say the Sabres have stunk is to slander the very concept of stink. Stink's lawyer will be in touch.
But all that accumulated offal-and-egg fragrance magically dissipated after Thanksgiving, although the residual effects of all those years of watching other people have fun were still being felt two weeks later when general manager Kevyn Adams was fired. Since that moment 14 weeks ago, the Sabres are 25-5-2, have climbed from 15th place in the Eastern Conference to second, and entered Sunday's game in a first-place tie with the Lightning atop the Atlantic Division. They suddenly have that new-car smell after years of taking the bus, but we'd discussed that in an earlier lesson. Since that blather-o-rama, they are 13-3-2, which technically is cooling off, but in reality has made them the best team in hockey. You may argue the merits of the Olympics on your time and your own dime.
Sunday marked their latest test of strength against one of the sport's well-established bullies before a full house at Something Something ATM Kiosk. It was the teams' third matchup in the last five weeks, with Tampa winning the first in overtime then getting getting sanded and waxed, 6-2, on Feb. 28. Thus, there was some residual hatred brewing slowly between these two ships in the night, even if it started off as manufactured.
And the game itself was spectacular, at least in that unaffiliated-fans-getting-their-money's-worth kind of way. Josh Doan's game-winning cleanup of Rasmus Dahlin's slap shot with 4:49 left was surely the Sabres' most defining moment since 2011, and arguably its finest since 1999, which was the last time they actually reached the Final. To the fans mad enough to stick it out with the franchise through all their draft lottery bullshit, "long-suffering" doesn't begin to cover it.
The best news for the Sabres, though, is that they play at home against the Lightning again in four weeks, while the memory of yesterday is still relatively fresh in the minds of the players and their respective clienteles. Knowing that in a 1,312-game season the two best games will be played in the same place, between the same teams, is more than merely satisfying. It is the extreme opposite of tanking, and as such becomes the event of the year. It might not be a better game than Sunday—that's a high bar to clear—but it's something to look forward to on an otherwise megablah Monday.
