Buffalo Sabres: Things We Know This Week

April Showers are here today.

J. P. Dumont was born on April 1, 1977. Excited?  It’s a birthday of a Sabre I really valued on that 05/06 dream team season. Enthralled? uh uh, no. I would entertain that April Fools Day is much more intriguing than a birthday. It’s not like he’s having a party at Chuck E. Cheese and is leaving me home on Coronavirus lockdown.

One can never forget April Fools Day in 1992 when a non hockey event went down. Billy Idol was fined and mandated to make public service announcements against drugs and booze. Put the MD 20/20 down and step away. I did not say the Rebel-who-yelled could not participate in drug usage or hitting the sauce. He guilelessly had to tell the kiddos to JUST-SAY-NO. Oh, the crime. Silly me. All he did was punch a woman in the face.  Nothing worthy of hoarding toilet paper. Billy.Hey. Billy.We must refrain from punching females in the face. Bad Billy. Since we are dialed in to music, April 1 also had David Bowie record his very first song solo under his name in 1966. Excited yet? Tough crowd.

In 1919, the Stanley Cup Finals were canceled with the games locked at two a piece. The series were best of five at that time. The Spanish Flu got a grip on North America, but especially the players on the Montreal Canadiens and Seattle Metropolitans. A Five game series for Lord Stanley’s Cup tied at two games each cancelled? No championship was awarded that season. If you are over 101 years old, you certainly recall that series. If you were at that game, chime in and tell us how your seats were. Unbelievable. If Rocky and Apollo found a way for an off the record rematch, I would think anything goes to proclaim a champ. Maybe the Habs and expansion Seattle team can play that game for the honor of the 1919 Cup. An outdoor Christmas Day game in Siberia sounds delightful. Moving on.

Things we know about the Buffalo Sabres this week:

• Still no announcement with President Trump’s 30 day extension of social distancing about the rest of the NHL season. The Sabres had 13 games left and were far off from a playoff berth. Eichel had insisted that those games are important to build off of. I think it’s great to simply start the playoffs as soon as manageable. It’s a heck of alot better than playing meaningless games and sustaining a serious injury.