Sabres 8, Hurricanes 1. Ouch! The mediocre month of November is finally over but the month of December took a turn for the worse so far as Buffalo humiliated Carolina in a game that really wasn't as close as the score, if you can believe that. John Grahame was in net and stayed in net for the entire game as there would be no mercy pulling by Peter Laviolette. I'm not sure what more to say. The team hasn't played well in quite awhile now. Even in victory, the consistency has not been there. They've lost 6 of the last 9, and the losses have not even been close. Most were blow outs. Fans can understand losses, but when the losses are not even close games, it's a tough pill to swallow.
Has the team hit rock bottom yet? They face another tough team in New York on Monday night and the road trip continues. It might be too early to push the panic button right now, but by time this road trip is over the Canes could very well be out of first place in the division. If that happens, I would start bringing up players from Albany. The first one that I would bring up would be Michael Leighton, and he wouldn't be brought up to be Cam Ward's back-up, he'd be playing. More tomorrow!
P.S. The "Tube of the Week" depicts what the blueline is missing. Actually, it's missing 2 things, one is a player, one is an emotion. Maybe Lavi needs to break out more bottles of wine, if that's what it takes.
Randy Travis