Hackers Overwhelm Outmanned Sabres 14-7

Although their records were identical entering Tuesday’s game, the LAN Hackers appeared to have a decided advantage when the first ball was dropped. Due to a series of unfortunate events, only four forwards showed up for the Sabres. Fortunately, the league’s most eager player, Gian Scalet, was in attendance and accepted a one-game contract with the Sabres.

But the Hackers quickly quelled any thoughts of a Sabres win, scoring the first seven goals of the game. Leading the way for the Hackers was their least movable object, Joe Robson, who netted two first period goals and an assist. A late goal by perennial Sabre Chad Griffin reduced the first intermission lead to 7-1, and gave the Sabres a glimmer of hope, despite being outshot 26-10.

After withstanding another Hacker barrage early in the second period, the Sabres whittled away at the Hacker lead with new found energy. Griffin and Scalet traded goals not once, but twice, surprisingly cutting the margin to 7-5. But the Sabres momentum was halted late in the period when Hacker leading scorer Scott Mulcahy squeezed what turned out to be the game-winning goal past goaltender Chris McMaster to increase the margin to three. Two Hacker screen shot goals by Robson and Terry Davison dashed all Sabres hopes, and made the second intermission lead 10-5.

Things went from bad to worse for the Sabres in the third when Mark Flinn took an early high-sticking penalty, putting the Hackers on the powerplay. And they converted when David Lebreton’s cross-crease pass deflected off a Sabre defenseman’s stick and between the legs of McMaster.

Another Scalet marker was then offset when Lebreton beat McMaster directly with a low shot off the rush. Scalet retaliated with another long goal, before Mulcahy finished the game with two straight tallies, including a nifty deke to McMaster’s glove side.

Third-star Joe Robson led all point-getters with three goals and three assists, while Mulcahy was the game’s leading goal scorer with five. Hacker goaltender Adam Pettigrew was solid in goal, earning the game’s second star. Chris McMaster somehow managed to nab the game’s first-star despite allowing 14 goals, raising eyebrows in disbelief across the league. McMaster, who developed the three-star formula himself, has been accused of unfairly weighting the formula in favour of goalies.

McMaster wasn’t only receiving the dubious accusations after the game, he was also dishing them out. McMaster suggested that Hacker captain Terry Davison was somehow behind the mysterious absences on his team. Shortly before the game, McMaster was anonymously notified that some players were suspiciously stuck far away in Boston and Toronto. Others on the team fell victim to peculiar injuries. However, McMaster was ultimately tipped off when the usually reliable Chris Davison, brother of Terry Davison, emailed McMaster to say he was a victim of a freak case of flooding.

”I have the top programmers at Keane tracing that email,” explained the skeptical McMaster, “if my hunch is correct, it will be traced back to Terry.”