Lindy Ruff’s quote above just about says it all doesn’t it.

If fans were expecting a continuation of the edge of your seat excitement spilling over from Wednesday night’s game, they would be disappointed. The Buffalo Sabres came out flat tonight against the Montreal Canadiens at HSBC Arena, and ended up taking it on the chin. Final score, Montreal 6, Buffalo 2.

Fans from Montreal Welland, Stevensville and Crystal Beach were in the building tonight, chanting “Go Habs Go” and singing the “Ole, Ole” song. Patrons were treated not only to pictures of soldiers in fatigues waving Sabres flags on top of tanks, but also a real live military guy in the house, getting his own standing O to the strains of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA”. Oil at $103 a barrel, gas heading to four bucks a gallon, the greenback collapsing against world currencies, America heading into recession. Who the f**k cares! Let’s all stand and cheer and sing and spooge to the drumbeat of war war war!

But back to the game…The Sabres were outshot 12-6 in the first period and fell behind 2-0 after one. Tomas Plekanec scored a nifty power play goal on a cross ice pass shot from a bad angle, then Mark Streit added a goal midway through the period.

Buffalo would come back in the second period, when Thomas Vanek scored his 27th goal on the power play. Montreal then padded their lead with two goals, another power play goal by Plekanec on a cross ice pass which looked almost identical to his earlier goal, and then he scored his third of the night on another power play, this time from just across the blue line.

Montreal made it 5-1 in the 3rd period when Andrei Kostitsyn blew in alone on Ryan Miller and put the puck up high. That got the Habs crowd hailing from spitting distance the other side of the Peace Bridge in a real throaty mood, singing “Hey Hey Goodbye” while earning derisive boos from the Sabres faithful. Tim Connolly scored his 7th of the season on the power play in the middle of the frame, and then Sergei Kostitsyn completed the ugly night with Montreal’s 6th tally late.

Coach Ruff spoke about the failure of special teams and all the Montreal power play goals. “We have to dig in. I don’t know if this set up is going to work. All the power play goals that have scored on us in the last few games… we’re not going to win games like that.”

It was anticipated that Ruff would keep his lineup intact from Wednesday despite the health of Drew Stafford and Maxim Afinogenov. Ruff replied “I felt we would put our best lineup out there. They were ready to play. It’s easy to look back and say ‘we shouldn’t have changed’ and if we lost the game we’d say ‘we should have changed the lineup.’” Talking to Stafford, he was told after the morning skate that he would be playing tonight.

The final game of the homestand comes this Sunday at 6PM, when the Detroit Red Wings, the team standing in the way of back to back Sabres Presidents Trophy titles (yes I am being a comedian… thud!), come to town. Dominik Hasek has been out injured but did play tonight in their 3-2 loss to San Jose, so we might just get our chance to boo him come Sunday. Dave in Rocha over at Bfloblog thinks our guys can beat the Red Wings. Check out his takes on tonight’s game.

Side notes –

-Take that Don Cherry! All Montreal scoring tonight courtesy of Euros.

-Where are you Andrew Peters! Lindy Ruff put Maxim Afinogenov on the 4th line with Patrick Kaleta and Adam Mair tonight. Let’s just say that’s a failed experiment. “I thought Max turned the puck over too many times” said Ruff. Nooooooooooooo!

-Did they really announce 18,690??? Those yawning gaps of empty blue seats in the upper corners of the 300s suggest otherwise. Memo to Sabres: Gold game prices are too expensive!

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