00:05Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!
00:11Brad May wins in an overtime!
00:20What?
00:24I'm just thinking about how difficult to execute trying to complain about how...
00:31What are we doing here? That's so long ago.
00:34Can we live in the present, please?
00:36Like, how badly that would go over. I'm sorry. I'm nervous.
00:40You're constructing a straw man argument against somebody complaining?
00:45I'm constructing a... Yes, yes.
00:47About that clip?
00:48Yes, yes. Enough already.
00:51How many playoff goals did Brad May ever score?
00:5688 games.
00:58Oh, in his career?
01:03Seven.
01:04Four.
01:08Scored that goal, won the year before for the Sabres in 92.
01:13Okay.
01:14That would have been the seven game series against Boston that the Bruins won.
01:17Dave Reed?
01:18Yep.
01:19One for the 97 Sabres?
01:23Okay, against Ottawa or against Philly, I suppose, right?
01:27Yep.
01:27There were two series that year.
01:29I don't think of him as being on that team, but he was.
01:31Yep.
01:32And then, one for the Canucks in 04.
01:36Also played in the playoffs for Colorado and your Anaheim Ducks.
01:41Won the Cup with Anaheim.
01:432007.
01:43Yep.
01:44Yep.
01:45Yes, he did.
01:46We're at Key Bank Center.
01:48Sabres and Bruins tonight here.
01:50Game five.
01:518-0-3-0-5-50 for your calls.
01:55The big Bowen Byram banner right above us here as you come up the escalators to the left after entering
02:02the arena tonight.
02:03He's in the black uniform, and the signature is impossibly bad.
02:08But Bowen Byram has been a great story.
02:13And I opened him up just because he was one of, there's always been a few things with the Sabres
02:21in the last decade, kind of all the time, that just confound, defy explanation.
02:28And Byram wasn't on the, I'm sorry for my voice, Byram wasn't on the extreme end of that.
02:34I mean, he wasn't somebody that, he wasn't wrist-aligning for me, somebody that the Sabres are giving this player
02:3925 minutes and it's killing them and they don't know it.
02:43But I didn't think he was worth the price.
02:46I thought he was probably better than Middlestat, but I thought also that the move was to flip him last
02:52year and if they wanted to.
02:54I thought they would do that too.
02:57And I don't know how it, you know, what happened there.
03:02You know, maybe they weren't as eager to do it.
03:06Maybe they just had a certain price in mind and that was the only way they would do it.
03:10And that can be synonymous with not being that eager to do it.
03:13You know, like I got to get this guy off my team.
03:15It's more, can I get something that I really value if I want to get this guy off my team?
03:21And maybe that never materialized and holy cow.
03:24I mean, it's not to say like they couldn't be doing what they've done all year without him.
03:32You know, because who knows who's in his place, right?
03:36But he's been dynamite for them here.
03:40And I have been saying since they got hot that their thing here, their superpower is those four guys.
03:48Those top four D are just the engine.
03:51And I think offensively anyway, really everybody else has sort of receded a little bit into the background here.
04:00And he just sort of keeps kind of controlling games when he's on the ice.
04:05I always admired his, he's a, I love watching him skate.
04:10I mean, he just, go back to get the puck, guy right on you, and just, I'm not worried about
04:17it.
04:17I know, I don't have to worry about off the glass and out or anything.
04:22I've got, I'm confident.
04:24I've got the power and the strength and the skill to just, I feel you hanging on my back.
04:29I'm just going to keep striding and I'm going to skate away from you.
04:32He's just so good at that.
04:34And obviously the goals, I mean, you know.
04:36Good instincts.
04:36Yeah, he's just a really, he's just a really, he moves so well.
04:41And you could always see that.
04:43I mean, really from when he got here, they weren't exactly playing like they play now with the D so
04:48free.
04:49But there was some of that, you know, even two years ago when he first got here,
04:53there was some of that where he and Darlene would have shifts where it just looked like,
04:57they look like they can do whatever they want out here in the offensive zone.
05:01And his numbers were suspect, especially away from Darlene,
05:04which is what would get you to like where, where, how valuable is this guy?
05:08Can he be, can he be a pair driver by himself?
05:11Or, or what have I got here?
05:13And it seemed like, no, he needs the stability of the, of a, of a partner.
05:18That's maybe, you know, better that is going to elevate him like Darlene was.
05:21But man, he and power together have been dynamite in this series.
05:25Well, it's not quite fair to him to say that, like, so much credit for his, you know, rise, if
05:35you will, is because of other guys.
05:38I don't want to go that far, but I think you said it all right there.
05:41I think the problem I had last year, I mean, I'm trying to analyze them in the context of the
05:48whole roster.
05:50And some of these, like Eichel and Reinhardt, when they were here, okay, well, I can, I can see it.
05:57But where is it getting me?
05:59Like, I got to figure out how to build a winning team somehow.
06:01Right.
06:02And not just have this or that great player.
06:06And like you said, when Byram was apart from Darlene, it was a disaster.
06:11Well, I can't have a guy of that caliber be a disaster.
06:15Plus now he's 24.
06:18He's still only 24.
06:18So 23 years old last year.
06:21What can I do with that?
06:22He's already been traded, but he, he has a ring.
06:25There's a contract coming eventually, like even a bigger contract.
06:28If he's going to be a part of the group and like, you got to on the Sabre side of
06:32it.
06:32But in terms of a trade, wouldn't somebody might, maybe somebody would like the look of this player.
06:38So I thought the math was, there should be a move here.
06:41And again, I would say, I think the Sabres wanted to do it, but they were always gun shy.
06:46And I think they might've felt, sorry, I don't mean to cut you off.
06:48Well, I just, you know, the fact that Darlene, that Samuelson happened this year, just made that.
06:56Like that's locked in.
06:57Right.
06:58And, and now you've got a first overall pick in power to go with Byram.
07:03And now you're, now you're taking off.
07:05Like now you've got two D pairs that are like almost elite, if not elite.
07:10And you can make it work with the third one as they've done.
07:14So I want, I said already, like, I don't want to take, it's not fair to take credit away from
07:18the player when the player is doing the work.
07:20But I think circumstances always have a lot to do with, well, not always.
07:25Some guys are just so good or so bad, but they often have a lot to do with your results.
07:31And I would think with him, that might be a big part of the story.
07:35Yeah. I mean, going, going into the year, I thought he was going to be need, would need to be
07:40paired with Darlene for, for them to get a good result from him.
07:45And, you know, the plan for what it's worth, I mean, going back to the summer was Kesselring was going
07:51to be the stability partner for power.
07:54And that, that was, and Samuelson was relegated to the third pair.
07:57If we even wanted them around, you know what I mean?
08:00That's where that was, but Samuelson blasted off.
08:03So that got Byram off of Darlene's pair and eventually with a little more time on task here, Byram and
08:10Power have developed into a really, really good, I mean, excellent pair.
08:15I don't know if they're both elite, but I think as a group, those four, I mean, I'd put that
08:22group of four against any team in the league.
08:25I think they're that, they're good enough to, I think, to qualify for at least an argument about that.
08:30You know, I mean, they don't have, you know, I almost said Taves and Kane.
08:35I don't know why.
08:36Taves and Makar, like his D partner, like that's, that's the best pair in the league.
08:41Makar largely drives that.
08:43And I mean, he's just electric, but beyond that, I feel like my second pair is better than their second
08:50pair.
08:50And that sort of mitigates whatever gap there would be between Makar and Taves and what, you know, Darlene and
08:56Samuelson say.
08:57So they, they really, it's such a, it's such a fortunate thing that they did not find the right trade.
09:05If indeed they were looking, and I agree with you, I think they were.
09:08It makes sense that they were, because they would have felt like we're already committed to too young D.
09:15D. And a third, if you want to count Samuelson, like we've got, like we're invested there money wise, if
09:23not body wise too.
09:25And maybe we should try to strengthen, if we find a top six winger, you know, kind of like the
09:32trade they made initially to get them.
09:34Like that was, that was what that was.
09:35I've got this, this young center is not, Middlestad is not, we're not committing to another young forward in this
09:42group.
09:42We've already done that.
09:43And so let's get a D for him.
09:46And then maybe you think about doing the reverse of that a year or two later, and it didn't come
09:51to fruition and they're so much better off for it.
09:53And I think Kesselring would have been in that math too, thinking that he could be, whether that's power or.
10:00Sure. Right. Yeah.
10:01You know, like you said him, you mentioned him earlier.
10:03Yep.
10:04That would free up something with Byram, but just didn't work out.
10:08Yep.
10:09What do they say?
10:10Sometimes the trades you don't make.
10:12The best ones.
10:13Like definitely qualifies here.
10:15He might be their best player in the series.
10:17I think he has been.
10:19I think he has.
10:20Power made a play though.
10:21I mean, it's not, it's not that thundering or thunderous body check that so many fans want from him, but
10:28Boston was threatening in the second period.
10:31A pass came across the slot and powers are standing there like, Nope.
10:34Just sort of almost caught the pass and, you know, put it forward on his forehand.
10:39He did play.
10:40He did take a big run at someone along.
10:43It was obscured because of the TV angle.
10:46It was right on the wall in their own end.
10:48Second period going left to right.
10:51And when he, I don't, I don't know what kind of contact he made, but he charged at somebody and
10:56got at least a piece of them.
10:58And I said, Oh my God, was that power?
11:00And you had to wait for him to get up.
11:02And then he got up and you could see the back.
11:04I'm like, I don't know that I've ever seen him like gallop toward contact like that, but he did that
11:09in game two, at least feeling it.
11:10Yeah.
11:12Mike's open the bulldog at key bank center or more after the.
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