30 Favorites from 30 Different Teams: Cody Hodgson (Buffalo Sabres)

NHL Franchise: Buffalo Sabres

The Buffalo Sabres logo, which looks like it should be a symbol for a matador team in southern Spain rather than a hockey team in upstate New York, but that’s life for you.

Favorite Player: Cody Hodgson

Cody in action.

Since the Buffalo Sabres are the metropolitan area team that I keep the least tabs on because the last time they were relevant was before I was born (and that doesn’t even mark my age as the Sabres never were particularly relevant) and the only way I can imagine the Stanley Cup coming to Buffalo any time soon is when Patrick Kane brings it there after winning with Chicago, it was a bit of a challenge for me to come up with my favorite player from a team that I don’t really follow and no longer boasts Ryan Miller.

However, I have managed to do so because I will finish this series of posts about my favorite players from each NHL franchise even if it takes me until September. Anyway, now that Ryan Miller is no longer a Sabre, my favorite player from the Sabres is Cody Hodgson, who with twenty goals and twenty-four assists was Buffalo’s leading scorer for the 2013-2014 regular season. While being the lead scorer for Buffalo is the hockey equivalent of being king of a dunghill, that doesn’t detract from the fact that Cody had some awesome goals this year, such as his unassisted shorthanded one against the Hurricanes:

He also earned his team an extra point in the standings by beating Niemi and the Sharks with this great shootout goal:

Highlight goals like these are nothing new for Cody, as you’ll see in this collection of his goals from the 2011-2012 season:

As you’ll notice in this montage of goals, Cody used to wear a Canucks sweater before he and Alexander Sulzer were traded to the Buffalo Sabres for Zack Kassian and Marc-Andre Gragnani. The Canucks’ management believed that they were balancing out their team by exchanging Cody’s skill and finesse for Zack’s size and grit, while Canucks fans just wanted to make funny memes to express their feelings:

Vigneault, before being exiled to a different New York team, gives a parting pointer.

The loaded gun states all that needs to be said.

In a nutshell, Cody’s a dynamic player to watch who scores some exciting goals and inspires hilarious memes. What more could a hockey fan want except for him to play for an actual NHL team?