Preseason Fiesta

For one night hockey was again king in Buffalo. Thanks to cheap tickets and a Saturday night the Sabres faithful packed the house for their first look at their hometeam in almost a year and a half. This was a preseason that meant nothing. It's an encouraging for the franchise that the fans do love hockey and will support the product if it is affordable and entertaining.
Affordable means different things to different people but I don't think $5.50 was beyond many fans definition of affordable. Even more importantly the product on the ice was entertaining. With no offseason transactions to get the fans excited the team needs to start strong or risk getting washed away by Buffalo Bills hysteria. A preseason game is usually not where strong starts are made, that is usually dedicated to the regular season, but a poor showing before an almost full house on Saturday night could have brought out the boo-birds and certainly could have lost some fans that might have considered buying tickets. Nobody wants to see the same old Sabres of the past three seasons that missed the playoffs. Sabres fans want a winner and will only pay to see a winner.
This was possibly one of the most important preseason games in Sabres history. Thankfully Thomas Vanek rose to the occasion, scoring both the game tying and game winning goals. A win is a win but who scored was even more important. Vanek is the future of the franchise. He represents the build from within policy that Darcy Reiger has been using for the past few years. If only for one night Vanek vindicated that policy. He may have even sold a few more seats for the boss upstairs. Vanek is the player the fans will pay to see.