00:00Not only can we talk golf with Brian, Tita Green Saturday mornings at 7, it's Players
00:04Championship Week, but of course also the Sabres, and that was always, for as long as
00:10we've all been here together, available, but now it's fun.
00:14Yeah, we never, we would almost purposefully avoid talking about the Sabres with Brian
00:20when we were talking about the major spats.
00:23I mean, you know, enough of that happens in the spring, at least the Masters is in the
00:27spring, like the playoffs are starting.
00:28We just haven't had occasion to do it because the Sabres haven't been relevant.
00:32Well, Brian, one advantage you have on us is you're in the building every night, and what
00:38is that like now?
00:40It really has been a total 180 turn.
00:44The atmosphere reminds me of when I was first covering games for the station, back those
00:49two years, the two runs to the Eastern Conference Finals coming out of the lockout, and I mean,
00:54the crowd has come back, and they've come back with like this pent-up energy.
00:59They've just been waiting and waiting and waiting.
01:03I just love how like the crowd is into every shift.
01:09Like if there's a good shift with pressure and a lot of good forecheck and puck possession,
01:13even without a goal, like there's a huge ovation as they make the change and go off to the
01:18bench or even, you know, during penalty kills, every clear seems like it's such a big crowd
01:24reaction along those sort of things, all right?
01:26Even the hit, you know, people are into it, and you know, there isn't any, which I know
01:32you appreciate, Mike, there isn't any scoreboard or PA prompted chanting or cheering.
01:37Like that is something that I love.
01:39Like the crowd is intelligent enough to realize, hey, we're helping here, or we can help here,
01:45like, and to be able to just do it.
01:47Like I just, it's such a refreshing pain from obviously a decade or more where you're sitting
01:53in there and at times you feel sorry for all these people that paid a lot of money to sit
01:57in those seats.
01:58Yeah, but I love this part of it so much, Brian, that one of the Montreal games when things
02:04were just starting to really heat up, right?
02:06They played Montreal three times in a span of a couple of weeks or three, whatever it
02:10was.
02:11And one of those games at home, there's a play late where Benson like breaks up a play in
02:16the neutral zone and the crowd recognizes and applauds.
02:20I'm like, I, we have missed this.
02:22Like we have not been paying enough attention to the games to ever care about a play like
02:27that, protecting a one or two goal lead, whatever it would have been in that case.
02:31I don't remember specifically, but I remember noticing the reaction and going like, I think we're
02:35back or at least we're coming back.
02:39Yeah.
02:39I mean, it's gotta be for those that are season ticket holders or, you know, if you're, you're
02:43part of a pack or you split one, like the difference between games that you've been
02:48going to, to what they are now.
02:50I mean, it's just, it feels so good.
02:53I don't know if it was with you guys or on the morning show, but I love what a caller
02:57said here the other day about just how they said they're almost hoping, like trying to
03:03soak this in, like don't rush getting to the playoff.
03:06Let's enjoy this buildup too, because there hasn't been any in so, so long.
03:11And now it's trending so well to the point that they're going to make it that there's
03:16not even that, like on your edge of the seat worry, like, oh my God, could they blow this?
03:20Could they not?
03:20Are they going to make it?
03:21Are they not?
03:21You know, it is just soaking this final month here, which, and we still have a month because
03:27of the Olympics pushing things back.
03:29Like they're not, they're going to play till April 15th.
03:31So regular season wise.
03:33So we still have a month of what could be a whole month of enjoyment of what we've been getting.
03:38But yeah, in terms of in the building, it's night and day.
03:43It's refreshing for us working on the broadcast.
03:45It's energizing because we're hearing things that we haven't heard in years.
03:49And, you know, it's definitely a different atmosphere in there.
03:53Well, the next time, hopefully we all won't still all be together.
03:56The next time we're in the, we're down as bad as we have been down for the last 14 years,
04:03but especially the last two or three where like all of us diehards even are barely tuned
04:11in really to the inner workings and like the results and all of it.
04:15It's just like, you're dead inside about it.
04:17All it takes is just the flicker and everybody's right back.
04:20Right.
04:21Cause it was like this before the lockout.
04:23And then there was a season long lockout and the Sabres came roaring out of that and
04:28eventually got hot and it became the place to be.
04:31I mean, the previous two or three years here under Kevin Adams, Brian, were about as dismal
04:36and dark as I, as then would have been.
04:39And then there was no bankruptcy and league ownership, but as soon as the team warrants
04:45your attention, man, we just cannot wait to get back.
04:49Yeah.
04:50I think you're right too, about what you said these last two years, even in the, in the,
04:54what you'd label as the darkest of times during the previous decade of them missing the
04:59playoff, I felt like there were like little time periods of like, there was in some sense,
05:04like a goal in mind, even the tank years, there was a goal.
05:08Okay.
05:08We're going to be terrible.
05:09But the reason is because of this, like we're going to get McDavid alike, Michael or whatever.
05:14It felt like we were spinning and there was no, even like, well, what's the end game here
05:20for us being bad.
05:21Like we're not even maybe hitting the home run with these number one overall draft picks.
05:26You know, you're watching these players from these other teams and, you know, even, you
05:30know, even you watch like Celebrini or some of these players, but you're watching some
05:33of these players dominate that their number one overall picks.
05:36And we're like, Oh, we have all in power.
05:37And you know, how has his season turned around?
05:39Like all these sort of things are even Ross McDonnelly, you're like, Oh, Quinn Hughes
05:42is playing at such a higher level.
05:44Like all these rewards that you're supposed to be getting along the way.
05:47Oh, Sam Reinhardt, Jack Eichel.
05:49Well, they're not here anymore.
05:50Or even some of the players that they traded for Eichel and Reinhardt, like hadn't been
05:54performing up to enough to the point where you even felt decent about those trades.
05:58So the fact that now all of these seem to be just piling up, it's all coming at the right
06:03time.
06:04I can't tell you how many times I've been asked, like, it can't have just have been them
06:10hearing that Adams was going to be fired.
06:11Right.
06:12And then you really try to think about, well, what could have actually been the trigger?
06:18And I feel like you still have to keep going back to that because the roster itself is
06:23identical, essentially.
06:24Now, obviously they made a couple of moves here at the trade deadline, but throughout
06:28the run post-December 9th, the roster was essentially the same.
06:32You want to give Lindy Ruff credit in the sense of saying, well, he obviously, there was
06:36something there and maybe Lindy even made some internal changes himself in terms of how he
06:41approached things when the DM was changed out.
06:45And, you know, I remember when we heard the Adams rumblings that we also maybe had thought,
06:49was there something going to happen with Lindy too?
06:51So maybe he did something within there.
06:53I want to give him credit for sure.
06:56But the fact that up until the trade deadline, the roster was the exact same.
07:02Like, it's so curious to me to think that the person that's labeled as the GM would have
07:08that big of a difference in changing it.
07:10And then there's part of me that says, well, Adams essentially assembled this roster that's
07:15now performing at this level.
07:16So, like, what was the true disconnect that caused that not to work at the time that he
07:22was employed?
07:22And now all of a sudden, now, you know, it's a total, it looks like a total different franchise.
07:27It's so fascinating.
07:29I have a, I think maybe you're the same, Brian, or both of you really, sort of an inclination
07:34to not settle for, well, they just did this one thing and everybody's belief changed and
07:41attitude and all that kind of, you know, intangible stuff.
07:45But I like how EJ Raddick put it on this show on Friday.
07:50He's like, I've always liked this roster.
07:52For two years, I've liked this roster.
07:55But they're not a team that had the luxury of a Colorado or Tampa Bay, or Carolina he
08:01might have used instead of Tampa Bay, either way, where you just sort of know it's going
08:05to work out.
08:06Like, the standard is high.
08:08And EJ said, the Sabres had to get to a point where they were going to play every game like
08:12it was opening night.
08:14And maybe that has happened.
08:15And I don't think it takes, I don't think you need 30 games for that.
08:18I think it can change in five for 10.
08:21Yeah.
08:21And they did win 10 in a row from there.
08:23So then, everybody's job gets easier.
08:26You trust each other more.
08:28Coaching gets easier.
08:29And suddenly, you can believe that it's maybe good enough.
08:34So that kind of thing needed to happen.
08:36And if you told me it came from the move, to an extent, at least, I'd believe it.
08:41Because I think that the credibility they were lacking changed with that move.
08:47Yeah.
08:47And players knew that.
08:48I definitely feel like it.
08:50I know it is factually correct that the roster was assembled.
08:57I just don't.
08:58I do not have any reason to think this team would have done what they've been doing since
09:04Adams was fired if he hadn't been.
09:08I think we'd be sitting here talking about the guys they just sold off at the trade deadline.
09:12And they get saves now.
09:14That also helps a lot.
09:15Yeah.
09:16That helps a lot.
09:16They haven't needed them the last couple games.
09:18Right.
09:19Not that many.
09:20So, well, it's really fun.
09:22Brian Kozio on the West Her Hotline.
09:25Let's get to the golf.
09:26It's…
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