Sabres finally win, and they do it big

The Sabres snapped their ten game losing streak by scoring ten goals in a huge win over the Atlanta Thrashers. Both Stafford and Roy picked up hat-tricks in the game, and the Sabres had five different players who earned three or more points.

The Sabres started out the game rather well, with Paille scroing within the first two minutes to give the Sabres the early lead. A few minutes later on the powerplay, a shoot in took a funny boucne and left Stafford at the top of the crease with the puck and the goalie behind the net. Than to prove that it wasn't just a fluke Roy scored 23 seconds later from Stafford and Vanek. Roy scored yet again from Stafford and Vanek just three and a half minutes later.

There was nothing that Atlanta could do to slow down the Sabres. They tried changing goalies, and when that didn't work they switched back goalies again (still didn't work). Pratt got into a bit of an unispired fight, which later in the third led to Atlanta giving up a five on three for four minutes. Due to an error on the scoring sheet for a while it looked as if Paille, Stafford, and Roy all had two goals, and the crowd was just waiting for a hat-trick to celebrate. Stafford picked one up, but it turned out that one of Paille's goals was actually Roy's third so he got one as well. Towards the end the crowd couldn't even keep up with the cheers because the numbers were so big, and decided to simply things to just chanting "we want ten!" (they got it).

This was Roy's first game in two weeks and he played very well picking up three goals and an assist to go plus four on the night. Interestingly Peters was scratched to make room for Roy meaning that for the first time ever the team kept Kaleta and MacArthur up instead of Peters which is something that they should have been doing all along.

Thrashers defenceman number 39 Tobias Enstrom was really bad. Looking at the stats after the game he doesn't look so bad as he was third on his team in ice time, and was amazingly plus one (the only one on his team). Yet given repeated chances to shoot at the net on some rather good oppertunities he choose to pass time and time again. He ended the game with zero shots and it was almost comincal with the chances that he was giving up. Even when Atlanta got a five on three, he would sit at the point with the puck, not covered at all, and then he would pass it. It was almost as if the defence had realized that he wasn't going to shoot and just decided not to bother covering him at times.

Despite the blow out the Sabres powerplay was really bad. The Sabres got a powerplay goal early, but that was due to a fluke bounce, and then they struggled the rest of the night. The Sabres had a four minute five on three chance, and barely managed to shoot let alone score. They did eventually get a goal five on three, but only after playing with the two man advantage for a full five minutes first. Furthermore they let the Thrashers get a short handed goal, which ruined their shutout, and in a closer game would have been a lot more devistating.

They play against the Toronto Maple Leafs tonight, lets hope that they can reach double digit scores again...

Official Three Stars

Drew Stafford

Derek Roy

Thomas Vanek

My Three Stars

Drew Stafford (hat-trick, five points)

Derek Roy (hat-trick, four points)

Jochan Hecht (prettiest goal of the night, three points)