Outworked by Chicago

As the Sabres took on my favorite team in the West, they got off to a good start with an early goal by Kotalik. However poor goaltending and an inability to produce on the powerplay cost Buffalo the game.

Lalime looked very bad in net, and allowed a number of goals by him that he really shouldn't have. While he is the second string guy, this should have been a winnable game for the Sabres and letting in that many soft goals ruined the chances for the team.

Not that the rest of the Sabres were playing all that well either. With the notable exceptions of Henrik Tallinder, and Tim Connolly nobody was willing to shoot the puck. The Sabres were given a six minute powerplay (which is weird in and of itself), but were only able to generate a single shot on net during that entire stretch. While Chicago does have one of the better penalty kill units in the league, that is no excuse for Buffalo to do that poorly.

The game was full of fights and confrontations usually surrounding Gaustad and Stafford. The goose actually had a pretty good game, disrupting the Blackhawks flow and finishing the night plus one with two shots on net.

Instead of the high flying Blackhawks the Sabres get to play the struggling Stars on Thursday night. Hopefully that is enough of a chance that they can actually take advantage of it.

Official Three Stars

Cristobal Huet

Jonathan Toews

Matt Walker

My Three Stars

Jonathan Toews (one goal, one assist, plus two)

Martin Havlat (one goal, plus one)

Ales Kotalik (one goal, plus one in the loss)