00:00and all that stuff, and I just, I found myself just smiling, and I realized I was smiling
00:04because there's this 26-year-old guy who has, I'm not saying he listens to WGR all the time,
00:09but he knows the scuttlebutt around the team has been, they need to get better at goaltender,
00:15and they've got to get hella buck, and when is Alex Lyon going to get back so they can get
00:19into
00:19a rotation? It's the same guy that the third game of the season, Paul Hamilton came on the air and
00:24said, look, this is an opportunity for Colton Ellis to go and grab the starting goaltender
00:30position. Nothing is solidified. It was a rotation last year of three guys. Only two of them are here
00:35right now, and the first one hasn't been stupendous in the first couple of games, so go grab it,
00:39and he was good enough that he started the fourth game as well, but a couple goals went in against
00:44him. Lindy Ruff went with his old playoff mode, the most recent time, all right, we'll just switch him
00:49up and hasn't gone back to him since until yesterday when he goes in, and the dude was
00:55ready to play and locked in, and it makes me think he's been sitting there the whole time going,
01:00I hear you. I hear you talking about needing a goaltender. I don't know if you've noticed.
01:05I've got pads, and I've got the big stick, and I've got a mask. I'm wearing a cup today. I
01:11am ready
01:11to play if you guys need me, and they're like, no, it's cool. We need better goaltending. We just keep
01:16playing UPL. We need better goaltending. We keep trying to trade for Hellebuck, and we need better
01:20goaltending, and we're mad at Yarmou for not bringing in Hellebuck, and meanwhile, this dude
01:24is just sitting there going, hey, me, can I try it? He's not necessarily. I don't know that I'm
01:31going to steal it from him, but I assure you I played the position before. You let me do it
01:35last
01:35year. Can I do it this year? And then he does it, and he was excellent, and it doesn't mean
01:41it's
01:41sustainably great. It just means you had another option sitting there this whole time,
01:46and you're banging your head against the wall, and I get it. I believe in Lindy Roth and his
01:51understanding of the mentality of his players and all that stuff, but Jesus, man, he's been sitting
01:56there the whole time, and he put it all together, and maybe this was right. Maybe this is Lindy's
02:02plan to motivate him to make sure if I give him weeks off at a time, he's going to come
02:06out raring
02:07to go, and now we're going to flip it, and he's going to be the number one. I don't know.
02:11I just know
02:11that I felt really good for a guy who has to have been very frustrated while keeping his nose down
02:16and working to get the opportunity and go out there and give the Sabres their best goaltending
02:22performance of the season in their best game of the season, and we can talk about whether it starts
02:28at the back and works forward, which I think it does. I think it became pretty obvious pretty early
02:32on that this guy was hot at least for the night, and I think it allowed them to play freer,
02:37and it
02:37allowed them to create a ton of chances, and they still didn't convert many of them, and that's a
02:41problem, but all in all, that felt like a, I don't know if turning point is the right word, but
02:48it
02:48certainly felt like a different flavor of Sabres hockey than we had seen through the first 11.
