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for September 2010
 Jason Pominville scored the game-winner in the third period as the Buffalo Sabres defeated the Ottawa Senators Tuesday night, 2-1 in NHL preseason action Dundas, Ontario.
Pominville took a breakout pass from Luke Adams near the Ottawa blue line, snuck in all alone and beat Robin Lehner high on the right side with 8:46 left to break a 1-1 tie.
The biggest story was a third period scare for Buffalo. Tyler Myers crashed into the boards early in the third period and gingerly skated to the bench. Fortunately the injury wasn’t serious.
Rob Neidermayer also scored for Buffalo while they were shorthanded after Lehner misplayed the puck behind his own net. It was his second Buffalo goal in three preseason games.
Buffalo next travels to Montreal for another preseason tilt on Thursday night.
 What a whacky Tuesday for the Buffalo Bills.
First, Trent Edwards was claimed by the Jacksonville Jaguars, a move that for once I actually saw coming (hey when you’re typically wrong you rally around victories). It’s a good opportunity for Edwards, with David Garrard struggling badly and only Todd Bouman behind him. Ironically, Edwards will be back in Orchard Park in about 12 days when Jacksonville visits Buffalo on October 10.
Also, the Bills signed Levi Brown to the 53-man roster; the same quarterback the team cut before the season and didn’t deem worthy at the time of at least putting on the practice squad. Brown will serve behind Ryan Fitzpatrick and backup Brian Brohm.
Lastly and perhaps most intriguing, ESPN Wisconsin’s Jason Wilde is reporting that Bills are now willing to listen to trade offers for running back Marshawn Lynch. Wilde mentions Green Bay as a potential suitor now that the Bills have “put word out” about Lynch’s availability.
Lynch’s stock may be up now after 143 rushing yards on 30 carries over his last two games against Green Bay and New England.
It looks like the Bills may not be so great on the field, but plenty busy off it. Stay tuned.
 Unless the Chicago Bears continue to rack up the wins, the ‘72 Miami Dolphins may not have to wait long in their annual quest to pop the champagne and celebrate being the only undefeated team in NFL history.
Pittsburgh is also 3-0, but playing in the same division as Baltimore and Cincinnati is a sure-fire recipe for at least one loss. The only other undefeated team through three weeks is the Kansas City Chiefs. Let me say that again– -the Kansas City Chiefs. And they say the NFL isn’t amazing?
Conversely, there are five teams flirting with 2008 Detroit Lions territory. Naturally, this year’s Lions are among those 0-3 teams, as are Carolina, Cleveland, Buffalo and of course the biggest head scratcher, San Francisco 49ers.
Without further ado, here’s this week’s NFL power rankings…
Continue reading ‘Our NFL Weekly Power Rankings’
 Buffalo Sabres goalie Ryan Miller traded his mask for a camera lens when he photographed fellow NHLers Patrice Bergeron of the Boston Bruins, Mike Cammalleri of the Montreal Canadiens, Drew Doughty of the Los Angeles Kings, Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers and Steven Stamkos of the Tampa Bay Lightning for an exclusive portfolio and feature for VanityFair.com. The portfolio highlights Miller’s talents and Hockey Fights Cancer, a NHL and NHL Players’ Association (NHLPA) joint charitable initiative, and is available for viewing exclusively at VanityFair.com as part of Hockey Fights Cancer Awareness Month in October.
Continue reading ‘RYAN MILLER GOES BEHIND THE CAMERA FOR VANITY FAIR’
 Nathan Gerbe scored a pair of goals for the Buffalo Sabres, but it wasn’t enough as they lost the rematch to the Maple Leafs in Toronto Monday night, 5-4 in preseason action.
Drew Stafford also scored for Buffalo and defensemen Jordan Leopold notched his first Buffalo goal. Stafford also had a pair of assists while Derek Roy got credit for three assists.
Patrick Lalime and Jhonas Enroth shared goaltending duties for Buffalo as Ryan Miller got the night off. Lalime allowed two goals in just under 30 minutes of action while Enroth surrendered a pair of tallies.
Buffalo had opened their preseason schedule with a 3-1 victory over Toronto Friday night at the HSBC Arena. Their next game is tomorrow night against the Ottawa Senators in Dundas, Ontario.
Earlier today the Sabres returned nine players to their respective junior teams: Riley Boychuk (Portland, WHL), Cedrick Henley (Val d’Or, QMJHL), Steven Shipley (Niagara, OHL), Kevin Sundher (Chilliwack, WHL), Gregg Sutch (Mississauga, OHL), Corey Fienhage (Kamloops, WHL), Jerome Gauthier-Leduc (Rouyn-Noranda, QMJHL), Matt MacKenzie (Calgary, WHL) and Mark Pysyk (Edmonton, WHL).
Pysyk was the team’s first round pick in this year’s draft.
 Exactly one week ago Trent Edwards was benched in favor of Ryan Fitzpatrick. Less than 24 hours after Fitzpatrick nearly led the Buffalo Bills to an upset over New England, Edwards is looking for a job.
The team announced early Monday afternoon that Edwards was being released from the team.
It’s a quick turnaround from just three weeks ago, when an impressive training camp and preseason under the evaluation of head coach Chan Gailey led him to retaining the starting job he began the 2009 season with.
For his career, Edwards finished with 5,739 passing yards; completed 60.9% of his passes and had 25 touchdowns against 27 interceptions. He won’t become a free agent for 24 hours because a team can claim him off waivers.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter is reporting the Bills are interested in bringing back quarterback Levi Brown, who they cut a week before the regular season started.
 We’re now three weeks into the 2010 NFL season and the Buffalo Bills are pretty much where most expected them to be— a sitting lame duck at 0-3. While many will take comfort in the Bills remaining competitive in New England on Sunday, the reality is Buffalo has essentially blown a pair of games already this season that AFC East rivals pretty much gift-wrapped for them to take.
The Patriots defense was terrible and their special teams not much better. Still, someone forgot to set the alarm clock for the Buffalo defense as they slept through almost the entire game. As a result, anyone who held out hope of a season miracle turnaround pioneered by Ryan Fitzpatrick are basically ready to start paying a lot more attention to 2011 college prospects.
The Bills will be overwhelmingly favored to fall to 0-4 after their contest with the New York Jets next Sunday and if they can’t get past Jacksonville the following week, could very easily be staring 0-7 in the face.
Continue reading ‘What We Learned From The Bills – Week 3′
 According to a report Sunday in the Buffalo News by Buffalo Bills beat reporter Mark Gaughan, the team is very close to signing outside linebacker Chris Kelsay to a contract extension that will be worth approximately $24-million.
If you want to get a pulse about how the average fan feels about it, just go visit any Bills message board. Curious to see what kind of reaction this move would draw, I visited several of them and let’s just say after sifting through several dozen responses, not a single one of them were positive.
Or even better—ask Buffalo Rumblings scribe Brian Galliford, who’s typically the ultimate Bills optimist. Even he’s befuddled at the imminent move.
Continue reading ‘The Bills Are Going to Extend Kelsay… Really’
 The Canisius College volleyball team continued its perfect start to the conference schedule with a three-set sweep of the Rider Broncs in the Koessler Athletic Center on Sunday afternoon. The Golden Griffins won 25-14, 25-14, 25-18 to improve to 8-8 overall and 4-0 in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, with the 4-0 start in conference play standing as the first in program history.
Sophomore Emily Elek led all players with 10 kills, hitting .429 on the day. Sophomore Samantha Good added eight kills and three blocks while junior Layne Adams had eight kills and also hit .429 in the match. Sophomore Allyson Severyn led all players with 15 digs while junior Janelle Davis had 25 assists and four kills on six attack attempts.
Continue reading ‘Canisius Volleyball Starts 4-0 in MAAC for First Time Ever’
 At least for the first three quarters, the Buffalo Bills were giving the New England Patriots all they could handle and more as they threatened to put an end to a 13-game losing streak. But as always seems to be the case, the Bills made a few critical errors as the wheels eventually fell off and the Patriots clawed their way to a 38-30 win, dropping the Bills to 0-3 on the season.
The offense performed much better overall with Ryan Fitzpatrick taking over for Trent Edwards as the starter. Fitzpatrick spread the ball around well in going 20-of-28 passing for 247 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
They also ran the ball well in racking up 374 yards of total offense. Marshawn Lynch ran for 79 yards on 13 carries as Buffalo pounded out 134 yards on the ground.
Continue reading ‘Patriots 38, Bills 30: Quick Hits Version’
 With the Trent Edwards error, I mean era over, and the brief round two of the Ryan Fitzpatrick era about to begin, we’ve heard a lot about all the quarterbacks who have played for the Bills since the end of the Jim Kelly era….and how little success they’ve had. (Although Rob Johnson would have actually won a playoff game if the refs hadn’t blown the call….and I still think if we had won that game we would have gone on to lose our fifth Super Bowl….but I digress)
It got me thinking….who’s been the most successful one of the bunch AFTER playing for the Bills? For that matter, has any of them had ANY success after their Bills days?
For arguments sake, I limited it to QB’s who have started a regular season game for the Bills since Kelly’s retirement, and were either cut or traded. Here’s the list: Todd Collins, Alex Van Pelt, Billy Joe Hobert, Rob Johnson, Doug Flutie, Drew Bledsoe, JP Losman, and Kelly Holcomb.
Continue reading ‘Collins Best Among Bad Lot of Former Bills QBs’
 Things went about as good for the Buffalo Sabres as head coach Lindy Ruff could’ve hoped for in their preseason opener Saturday night at the HSBC Arena, defeating the Toronto Maple Leafs 3-1 in front of a crowd of nearly 17,000.
Andrej Sekera, Tyler Ennis and Rob Neidermayer scored the Buffalo goals. 2009 top draft pick Zack Kassian had an excellent Buffalo debut, assisting on Ennis’s goal and throwing his body around all over the place to impress both Ruff and the home fans.
Ryan Miller split goaltending duties with Jhonas Enroth and the two combined to stop all but one of Toronto’s 25 shots on net, with Miller stopping all nine he faced.
The teams play again in a preseason rematch in Toronto Monday. We’ll have much more in this game later.
 Canisius made a strong case Saturday afternoon for being one of the area’s best high school football programs by upending Rochester powerhouse Cathedrall Prep, 30-20. Quarterback Travis Eman was the offensive star for Canisius; throwing a pair of touchdown passes and running for a spectacular 80-yard touchdown run on his own.
Other Saturday highlights included a big 49-21 road win for St. Francis over St. Joes in Monsignor Martin Association league play. Grover Cleveland scored a mild 20-16 upset win Cleveland Hill in the inaugural “Cleveland Bowl”, while Amherst blanked Lafayette 26-0 at All-High Stadium.
Continue reading ‘Canisius, St. Francis Get Big Wins in High School Football’
 The University at Buffalo football team rebounded from an early 14-point deficit but could not continue the momentum in the second half in dropping a 45-21 decision to the Connecticut Huskies at Rentschler Field on Saturday.
The Huskies offense got untracked in the second half, as UConn broke a 14-14 halftime tie and used several big plays on both offense and special teams to pull away. The loss spoiled a career game for junior wide receiver Ed Young, who had a career-best three touchdown receptions in the game – from 60, one and seven yards out.
Continue reading ‘Second-Half Surge Leads UConn Past UB, 45-21′
 Buffalo State (0-3/0-2) overcame a 23-0 halftime deficit, but Justin McLendon ripped off a late 85-yard kick return to reclaim the lead for Kean (2-1/2-1), and the Cougars held on for a 33-29 victory to spoil the Bengals’ Homecoming today at Coyer Field.
Buffalo State climbed all the way back and took its first lead of the game at 29-26 with 5:53 remaining, but McLendon took the ensuing kickoff the distance thwart the Bengals’ comeback bid.
Continue reading ‘Kean Pulls Out Wild Win at Buffalo State Football, 33-29′
 The University at Buffalo football team will play the first of three straight road games and the second straight road contest against a BCS opponent when it travels to Connecticut on Saturday afternoon to take on the Huskies.
Buffalo is 1-2 on the season and is coming off a 24-10 loss to UCF last Saturday. Despite the 14-point loss, the Bulls’ defense continued to play well – holding the Knights to 288 yards of total offense.
Head Coach Jeff Quinn is hoping for more consistent play out of his team and looking to eliminate the critical errors that have hurt the Bulls this season.
Continue reading ‘UB Takes To Road Saturday vs. UConn’
 The ominous time of year when the Buffalo Bills head to Foxboro to face the New England Patriots is finally upon us. Oh, how I dread this Sunday every year, but apparently not as much as Donte Whitner.
Many are already dubbing the Bills as the NFL’s worst team, and rightfully so; they’ve been brutal in nearly every phase of the game through two weeks. It won’t help their cause that the Patriots enter this contest more than a bit agitated after their 28-14 loss to the New York Jets last week.
The Pats have had their way with the Bills, winning the last 13 meetings by a combined 363-113. Buffalo’s last win in Gillette Stadium came on November 5, 2000 when they defeated New England, 16-13.
Continue reading ‘Five Keys to Beating The Patriots’
 It doesn’t take a football authority to critique how much the Buffalo Bills have disappointed; not only thus far in 2010 but for the better part of the past decade. The Bills are 0-2 and look far more like a team ready for a fight to evade having the worst record in the entire NFL than a squad ready to halt a decade long playoff drought. It’s testing enough losing so habitually, but according to one Buffalo player, opponents have taken to (literally) laughing the Bills off the field.
In a post by Bills.com lead journalist Chris Brown, Bills safety Donte Whitner stated that Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers and other players were getting a good chuckle out of the Bills near the conclusion of their 34-7 shellacking last Sunday.
“It happened last week,” Whitner told Brown. ”The Packers were laughing at us. Aaron Rodgers and a lot of those guys were laughing at us toward the end of the football game and that never feels good.”
Continue reading ‘They’re All Going To Laugh At You !’
 Buffalo Bandits Director of Lacrosse Operations Scott Loffler announced the team has signed forwards Brenden Thenhaus and Kyle Clancy to two-year deals.
Thenhaus began his career in Buffalo, appearing in four games for the Bandits in 2007. He returns after two seasons with the Boston Blazers in which he was the team’s third most prolific scorer. In his time with the Blazers, Thenhaus played in 27 regular season games, scoring 88 points (44+44) and collecting 112 loose balls.
Continue reading ‘Bandits Sign Forwards Thenhaus and Clancy’
 Some news & notes regarding the Buffalo Bills from a fairly busy Wednesday.
♦ Many people anticipated the Buffalo Bills would make an attempt to trade for suspended San Diego wide receiver Vincent Jackson, but I’m told that the Bills made no such inquiry. I’m also told the team doesn’t have an interest in trading for Philadelphia quarterback Kevin Kolb either.
♦ Marshawn Lynch started and carried the ball 17 times against the Packers last Sunday, prompting heavy speculation that he was being auditioned for other teams as trade bait. I spoke to an offensive player wishing to remain anonymous on Wednesday, and he told me in no uncertain terms that Lynch isn’t going anywhere. “He started and got the bulk of the carries because coach (Chan Gailey) thought he’d give us the best chance to move the ball,” the player said. “Marshawn isn’t going anywhere and he’ll continue to be an important part of the team as we try collectively to all get better.”
♦ Despite questions surfacing on why the Bills used a third round draft pick on a player (Alex Carrington) who has yet to suit up for a game, it appears Gailey isn’t in any rush to get him on the field and is leaving it up to defensive coordinator George Edwards to determine when he’ll be ready.
Continue reading ‘Buffalo Bills News & Notes’
 The high school football slate for this weekend features a trio of must-see matchups. The most notable game takes place Friday evening, when sixth-ranked Orchard Park (2-1) travels to Hamburg to take on the undefeated fifth-ranked Frontier Falcons (3-0). The battle of the Southtowns could go a long way towards who’ll gain the top Class-AA seed when the Section VI playoffs start.
Also on Friday night, defending Class-AA state champion North Tonawanda travels to All High Stadium to face Riverside. The Lumberjacks were stunned in their first two games against Kenmore West and Lockport before rebounding to upend Niagara Falls last week. Riverside is 2-1 in their first season in Section VI play; losing a defensive battle to Niagara Falls on opening night before running off wins against Williamsville North and Hutch tech. The contest is the “Intense Milk Game of the Week” and and can be heard on the radio Friday night at 7pm by tuning into WJJL-AM (1440am) or clicking here.
In Monsignor Martin Association action, league play gets underway Saturday afternoon as St. Francis pays a visit to St. Joes. Chad Kelly, nephew of Bills quarterbacking great Jim Kelly, is the starting quarterback for St. Joes.
For a complete listing of this weekend’s action, check out the full schedule by visiting this Buffalo News link.
 As we prepare to soon roll out our own coverage of the 2010-11 Buffalo Sabres season, here are a couple of team-related links to wet your appetite as Buffalo prepares to get their preseason started…
♦ Bucky Gleason of the Buffalo News has an excellent column on former first round draft pick Zack Kassian being out to impress Lindy Ruff and make his roster decisions as hard as possible.
♦ Meanwhile, Buffalo News beat reporter John Vogl writes of Cody McCormick’s one-way contract being a huge boost of confidence.
♦ Sabres goaltender Ryan Miller has unveiled plans for his fifth annual “Catwalk for Charity,” which will be held Nov. 21 in Town Ballroom on Main Street.
♦ WGR550 writes of Tyler Myers hoping to avoid the dreaded sophomore slump.
Continue reading ‘Buffalo Sabres Links’
 The University at Buffalo volleyball team finished its non-conference home season undefeated on Wednesday night as the Bulls swept Canisius, 3-0, at Alumni Arena. The Bulls finished the non-conference portion 7-0 at home as they improve to 12-4 overall.
The Bulls took the match 25-22, 25-23, 25-18 as UB outhit Canisius, .235 to .082. The Bulls stormed out to an early 9-3 lead in the first set and led 11-4 when Canisius started to make a run, tying the set up at 14-14. The Golden Griffins went on to take their first lead of the set at 15-14, before UB came back with a 6-1 run to take a 20-16 lead. Canisius would again fight back to tie things up at 22-22, but the Bulls took the last three points of the set to win 25-22.
The second set belonged to Canisius early as the Griffs took a 15-11 advantage. UB came back with a 6-1 run, taking the lead at 17-16. With the set tied up at 18-18, UB recorded four straight points to take a 22-18 advantage. The Griffs then scored four points of their own to tie things up at 22-22. Senior Marisa Hornbaker put the Bulls back on front with a kill and then gave UB a two-point advantage with a service ace. Following a UB service error, senior Kristin Bignell slammed a kill down to end the set.
Continue reading ‘UB Sweeps Canisius in Women’s Volleyball’
 With just a few days of practice left before the Buffalo Sabres commence their 2010-11 NHL preseason, head coach Lindy Ruff has assembled his regular lines. Of course there will be guys (Zack Kassian for one) rotated in and out of the lineup, and while Ruff has a long track record of switching lineups and lines in the middle of periods let alone games, there’s definitely a few groupings that peak some interest.
For starters, it looks like Drew Stafford is going to get every opportunity to put last year’s miserable season behind him. He’ll start off on his familiar line with Thomas Vanek and Derek Roy.
Continue reading ‘Lindy Ruff Rolls Out Early Lines’
 We’re now through the first two weeks of the NFL season and surprise and flop teams are both quickly emerging. Only seven teams are off to 2-0 starts, most notably Kansas City, Tampa Bay and Chicago. On the other end of the spectrum Minnesota, Dallas and San Francisco were considered divisional favorites but all have 0-2 records… You gotta love the NFL.
One thing not surprising is the hometown Buffalo Bills. They better bring it against Jacksonville in week five or they could easily head into the bye week winless at 0-5.
After hitting the drawing board, we present our week three NFL power rankings. As always, feel free to disagree.
Continue reading ‘Week Three NFL Power Rankings’
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