Paul Hamilton on the Sabres hot return from the Olympics

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It's Paul Hamilton.

That's what they called me a college or something.

He has the facts to back up his opinions.

People ask me, well, how the saber's going to, are they going to win tonight?

Oh, cool.

Not WGR.

Sports Radio 550.

It's easy now, just say they're going to win.

You only have been wrong seven times in the last 31 games.

Pretty good.

Glad to have you along here on a Monday, Paul Hamilton coming up here in a moment.

A couple of quick tweets I want to share on the subject I opened up talking about today.

Just how much have things changed for you as a sabers fan.

Now that they're back.

The playoffs are in the window and it feels very real.

This one really, really resonated with me.

Travis writes in, I've been with my wife now for 10 years.

Started watching the sabers again every game in January.

Had to convince her and show her I was actually a fan for a long time before we ever met.

She had no idea that I was ever into the sabers.

Love that.

I'm the other side of things.

An account with a long name here based on teach Thompson says what I really miss now is getting six.

I'm Susie Welch, the host of Becoming You.

A podcast where I help you stop living by default and start living by design.

Listen to Becoming You, wherever you get your podcasts.

Staller tickets on stubble.

You know, yeah, I mean, that's just how it goes.

I'll stand by what I said at the end of last segment.

I'm glad that the free tickets aren't falling out of the sky anymore at work.

Like, that's how it should be.

It should be harder to get them, right?

There should be more involved than it.

You know, quarter to six on a game that hey, you want to go?

Sure.

Six bucks.

You know, it should be a little harder than that.

So, you know, I know financially the six dollar ticket was pretty convenient.

Paul Hamilton on the western hotline joining me, fresh off a road trip to Florida

and another sabers practice today.

Paul, I know it's a job.

And, you know, you're covering practice and you're writing stories and you're covering every game.

And that really doesn't change whether the team is in second place or in 15th place.

But overall, like, does this, does this hot stretch the sabers have had here?

This hot half a season basically is what we're almost talking about.

Does it change anything from your perspective about doing your day to day job?

Yeah, it gives you something different to talk about because it got to the point where

you know, you run out of asking the same question over and over again because you watch the same game over and over again.

And the same players say the same thing over and over again.

I mean, I remember when Jake McCabe said to me, he goes, Paul, I don't know what's telling you anymore.

And I said, Jake, I don't know what to ask you anymore.

I said, seriously.

I said, yes.

It's, you know, we're both in the same boat.

I mean, it's, it's just, but, and I've said this to you before.

I never, ever, ever lose sight of the fact that I cover hockey and football for a living.

No matter how bad the hockey is, people have tweeted me.

They don't, I feel sorry.

You have to watch this bad hockey.

And I said, well, please don't ever feel sorry for me.

I'm not out in two degrees.

Digging ditches are out in 31 degree rain.

Or whatever, whatever that is, you know, I'm watching hockey for a living.

And I understand that there are a lot of people in this world who do not enjoy their jobs at all.

And I do.

So I don't ever feel sorry for me whether the hockey is good, the hockey is bad or whatever.

At the end of the day, I'm still covering hockey for a living.

Right.

And now the phone just probably rings a little more frequently, including for me, right?

I mean, because you know, let's, let's be honest.

The last few years, you know, after every game, it's not like, oh, we got to get Paul on it four o'clock or five o'clock or six o'clock.

We did, we sort of relegated to just the pregame window because like you're saying, how many times can you and myself and Mike have the same conversation over the course of a 14 year drought, where it just looks like we're watching a slideshow from a previous family vacation.

It's like the same pictures year over year over year.

And it's finally different.

And so, you know, I hope you're okay with this bugging you a little bit more often.

Yeah, that's my job.

I mean, everybody knows that I also do a channel two show on Mondays.

And usually I'm in the second segment, almost always.

You know, the bills with the Karuchi will always, you know, and Benini will always be the first segment.

And John Scott and I do the second segment about the Sabers.

And it's back to the bills for the third.

Well, guess what?

Today, I'm leading off with, with both Benini and Scott.

I haven't been with both of them yet.

You know, you know, so, you know, that just shows you right there.

Sabers are leading the show off with the two main folks.

And then the football will be second and third.

So that just shows you right there where, you know, the interest is so much more.

I'm talking here, Paul, in this first segment about like believing in it.

Like, I think, you know, 24, 5 and 2 speaks for itself over a 31 game stretch.

I think that to me, there isn't anything fluky about what we're getting.

I mean, if they had some good fortune here, they're sure.

I mean, every hockey team is going to have that to some extent or another in a season.

And you probably get some bad fortune all on the way too.

But do you, do you believe in this right now?

Like, I said earlier, I'd be stunned if they missed the playoffs with the kind of form that they're in.

I think they're, they're good.

What did I tell you before the season started up again?

They needed to be 12, 12 and 1 to get to the point where the cutoff point.

Well, they've just killed three of those wins.

So what now what?

Was it 9, 12 and 1?

I mean, you can play under three games under 500 if it's still the same numbers moving forward.

And you don't want them to play 9, 12 and 1.

You don't want to limp into the playoffs.

And you really don't even want them to go 500.

I mean, you want them just to be the team that showed up in Tampa the other night.

And, you know, blew the lightning right out the back door.

I mean, that's as bad as I've seen the lightning play and out in the how long since this group that they've put together.

And it's been a long time.

Coach, you're off in headmen and I've never seen that team pass as poorly as they did that night.

Go off side constantly.

Miss the net.

Throw the puck up the middle of the ice twice and wind up with goals against.

I've never seen them do that.

Now, the Buffalo Sabers forced some of this too.

I mean, with the way they played, it wasn't just the lightning making mistakes.

They were making the mistakes because the Sabers were playing fast and they were on them.

You know, and forcing the lightning into quick decisions.

And that was a night where quick decisions weren't going well for them.

And the things were going very well.

The Sabers were playing direct.

They were playing fast.

The goal I loved, probably the best, if I'm looking at a goal that shows you what the Sabers are about.

Now, Owen Power, who I think has played much, much better for the most of this season.

Yeah.

He caused a Sirelli turnover at his own blue line.

Dalline had been up ice.

It powered didn't even blink.

He knew where Dalline was.

He got the puck and immediately put it up.

There were almost two lines up the left wing side to Dalline to get him up into transition.

And he winds up scoring on the play.

But it's power.

Yeah, the turnover is important.

But it's what he did with the turnover.

It was so quick.

It was turnover bang.

Pucks gone.

And it's right on Dalline's stick.

Now, he's into the zone in an outnumbered situation.

And he gives them the lead.

I mean, I thought that right there is a good example of things we haven't seen in a long time.

Yeah.

From this team.

And we're seeing it more and more as this season has gone on.

Paul Hamilton on the Western hotline with us here on WGR Sabers host Vegas tomorrow night in their first game back at home.

Since the 20 or so day Olympic break.

It'll be a Taj Thompson gold medal ceremony.

We'll get to what he had to say about that and Eichel's involvement here in a bit, Paul.

But it strikes me.

I don't know if you were asked this question by myself or Mike at any point when this season started to turn around.

Or if we just never really got to it.

But I'm curious.

Like, what do you think changed?

We know the timing of the general manager.

Kevin Adams being replaced.

We know how it coincided.

I think they won three games before that.

But it was sort of in the wind that something was going to happen before that hot streak started.

And I think it was going to be a lot of time ahead of the holidays in December.

What do you think happened here that this team now looks like they can go toe to toe with some of the best teams in the league?

Well, this is for the most part Kevin Adams team.

He got most of the players.

I mean, Thompson.

You know, he of course was part of the O'Reilly deal, which was a little bit.

Sure.

Yeah, but for the most part, this is his team.

And it wasn't what he was doing.

It was to me what he wasn't doing, which I thought was his weakness of being inexperienced.

Like when you lose 13 in a row and just sit there and do nothing.

You didn't even call somebody up from Rochester.

Nothing.

And then this year, in the beginning of the year, you have won win in nine games.

Again, you just sat there and did nothing.

I think, well, I know actually there were some players in that room.

There was a lot of faith in him at all that he would, that he would do the right thing at the right time to help this team move forward.

And you know, and then income's kept a line and it tells them, look, there's a lot of talent in this room, guys.

And I really like the talent here.

He goes, what I don't like is watching you guys play teams that you're better than and under perform and don't put forth the effort.

And he goes, that changes today.

That's it, basically.

I mean, all the players kind of confirm that.

Yep.

Because they had heard the press conference, he goes, exactly what he told you.

It was short.

It was sweet.

It was direct, which is the way he is.

And I think the players felt, hey, wait.

And we're in the NHL yet.

You know, we got a guy who's done this for 10 years.

He's going to hire a guy who also has done it for over 10 years.

Yeah, let's go.

And then the other thing was too, that, and we saw it with Grinado.

Well, now and then they would play the way Grinado wanted them to.

And then they'd win.

But not much because they're hard headed and they want to do it their way.

Same thing with Lindy last year.

They did it for a bit.

And then they wouldn't, the end of the year, they did.

And then, you know, it started to go well for them.

And I think they finally just said, wait a minute, guys.

What we want to do here isn't working.

We sit in the bottom of the league when we do it our way.

And we win hockey games when we do it Lindy's way.

I got an idea.

Why don't we do it Lindy's way for a while?

See what happens.

Well, you've seen what happens.

Yeah.

It does really speak to how much effort, above and beyond effort,

playing for the guy next to you, all that kind of stuff, very cliche stuff.

It does really tell you how much of a difference it can make when you've got,

on most nights, more guys than not paying the price.

Because the aggressive forecheck, how well they do it,

getting on top of teams in the offensive zone, a lot of that is effort.

Of course, playing defense is almost entirely,

of course there's positional and understanding the system and all that sort of stuff to,

right, the technical aspects of it.

But mostly, you just got to want to get there.

Right.

You want to put forth the effort to get back and break up a pass.

You know, lift a stick, whatever it is.

And when you're not willing to go all out all the time or most of the time,

you just don't get that.

And that, to me, is the biggest change here.

You know, because the players are the same.

The system's not different.

It's just they're dying to make plays now.

And not just pretty offensive plays, but defensive plays too.

Boy, I was looking around the room.

I did not see you there today, but you basically repeated Lindy Ruff's speech.

Oh, really?

Really.

I mean, what started it talking about the Norris play at the end of the first period.

He had scored two goals.

And I had Norris on at the end of the first is my walkoff interview.

And it's one of the things I wanted to get to because maybe two minutes before the period ended,

the Sabers were in a bad place.

I don't remember who had the puck, but he was coming in, I'm looking in with a great chance.

Norris just put his head down and skated as hard and fast as he could to get back.

And he hassled that player enough that he kind of got a shot off,

but it was an easy save for Luke and it wasn't a great a uh-oh type of thing.

And all it was was hustle to get back.

And Lindy Ruff said today, in addition to what you just said,

I would rather in a film room with the players show five of those clips than show five goals.

He goes, I want the players to see that.

He goes because we're doing it now.

He goes, I almost every person on this team, if not everyone, has done that at some point recently.

I've just went all out and he goes, I don't care if you're tired.

He goes, you still should have enough energy for one more burst to get back when you need to be back like that.

And he said, they're doing it.

And he goes, that's so impressive to teammates and coaches, to see players just going all out,

no matter what, to help prevent a goal, to help a teammate.

I talked today to Rasmus Dalyne and Noah Osland about Dalyne goes down.

I don't even know if Osland saw it.

Guess who showed up first, the 21-year-old kid, he weighs about 135 pounds.

And he was there in a shot.

He didn't think about it. He didn't care who it was.

It's not his nature. He doesn't fight.

He just got there as quick as he possibly could to help defend a teammate.

And folks, don't think that doesn't go unnoticed in the locker room.

Tach Thompson, today when we were talking to him, was absolutely giddy about it.

He said that is huge in the locker room to know that that player has always got your back.

And everybody else in the room has your back.

Totally different from the situation that might have turned this team around after it happened.

That, when Tach went down and nobody came in for him, and you know they...

That's New Jersey last year, yeah.

They all got in the locker room and said some things that needed to be said that maybe some ears didn't want to hear.

And all of a sudden now, you got Noah Osland, the 21-year-old kid in the middle of it,

because his captain's laying on the ice.

And that goes a long way.

And it just seems like we're seeing more and more of that.

All right, Paul. I'm being told we're out of time.

So we're going to...

We'll put off the...

I'll run through your Twitter and hopefully dot all the eyes and cross all the tees about what Tach had to say about Eichel

and whether he'll be a part of things and then the injuries and whatnot.

Thanks for this and we'll catch up tomorrow.

Okay, take care.

There you go. That's our dude Paul Hamilton on the West her hotline.

His appearances are brought to you by...

Raylax Honda. Raylax, we got this.

All right, we'll hit a time out and watch more hockey.

Like I said, your calls are welcome to 803-0550 and Joe Yerden on the Sabers and the NHL at large coming up at the top of the hour.

I'm the Bulldog and this is WGR.

I'm Dr. Mary Claire Haver and my new podcast, Unpost,

is the place for bold, unfiltered conversations about what it takes for women to thrive in the second half of life.

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