Winning is a belief - Sabres not believing

For me the game vs. the New York Islanders has been more than just a loss. The Sabres have lost 20 games this season but none of them hurt me as much as the one on Long Island.

Buffalo won at home against the Toronto Maple Leafs the night before and Miller was able to close the door in the third to secure that 3-2 win. It looked like they got their act together. They didn't play the run and gun offensive power-game with pretty passes and sweet goals, but they were hanging in there and fought for the 2 points. 24 hours later it was all gone.

The energy was not there and as always they had to suffer another injury when Vanek went down in the 2nd period after he got hit by the puck. He returned in the third period and had the chance to tie the game late in the game. The third period was a perfect reflection of the Sabres season so far. The Islanders took the lead, the Sabres lost a key player (Regehr) to an injury and Vanek hits the post with under 2 minutes to go on the penalty shot. If you wanna describe the Sabres season so far, you only have to look at this period.

In the post-game interviews Roy said: "We are not skating hard enough". A comment that is very suprising as players hardly admit stuff like that. So is that a good sign that players know whats going wrong or is that another sign of resignation? Right now I think the biggest problem for the Sabres is not the injuries. It's more the mental aspect of the game. They have not won 2 games in a row since mid-november. They know it. It's in their heads and they can't get it out of their heads. People always forget the mental aspect of the game and what it can do for you.

The Sabres are on the road now and will play Detroit, Chicago, Winnipeg and St. Louis this week. We've reached a point we're no one around the league thinks that those guys can beat any of those 4 team this week. I think that they can do it. As a fan you gotta enter every game thinking that they can win that game. They need two wins in a row badly and as soon as they got those the mind-set will change.

It's two minutes to midnight and Buffalo has to start winning games. The motto of this week has to be: "You don't have the ghost of a chance, so grab that."