Sabres only get one

The Sabres outplayed the Carolina Hurricanes through most of their 2-1 shootout loss, but were unable to take a commanding lead at any time. Buffalo outshot Carolina 37-32 and for most of the night were the all around better team. The Sabres real problem in this game is that they only had one goal to show for it, and ended the night with only one point.

Carolina for their part did just enough to hang on, and for the most part rode their goalie Cam Ward to the victory. Ward had 36 saves, plus he stopped all three shots in the shootout.

The Sabres shootout was in trouble this game, with none of the shooters scoring and even Kotalik not being able to get anything right. Buffalo was without Ryan Miller, who has been among the best goaltenders in the shootout this season, but still got a decent showing from Lalime who stopped two of three and had an all around solid game.

Official Three Stars

Cam Ward

Anton Babchuk

Joni Pitkanen

My Three Stars

Cam Ward (36 saves, one goal against, three for three in the shootout)

Patrick Lalime (31 saves, one goal against)

Anton Babchuk (one goal, five shots)

Coming apart against the Hurricanes

The Sabres did not show up in this game at all. They gave no effort all night and failed to score any goals loosing the game 3-0.

Lalime was put in net for the final two periods, and while he played very well, the team in front of him was still bad. The one goal that did get past Lalime should never have counted, but given how bad the rest of the team was that is a minor issue.

The Sabres allowed 47 shots against, allowed an unassisted powerplay goal, and took advantage of none of their own powerplay opportunities.

Official Three Stars

Cam Ward

Eric Staal

Patrick Lalime

My Three Stars

Eric Staal (one goal, two assists, seven shots)

Cam Ward (shutout, 36 saves)

Patrick Lalime (28 saves)

Buffalo handles Carolina

Buffalo earned a 3-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes Saturday night, winning a game that they were supposed to win. Buffalo was in control throughout the game, and Tim Connolly stole the show by netting two goals.

Buffalo returned to form by killing off all five of their penalties in the game. Teppo Numminen also scored a goal, but the downside is that he took a puck to the face and is hurt badly.

Official Three Stars

Tim Connolly

Ryan Miller

Thomas Vanek

My Three Stars

Tim Connolly (two goals, plus two, five shots)

Teppo Numminen (one goal, plus one)

Ryan Miller (36 saves on 37 shots)

Southeast division

The South East division has been the worst in the NHL for quite awhile now. While Carolina did luck into winning the cup a few years ago, the division as a whole is very week, and given that there will be less divisional games this regular season it is unlikely that more than one team gets to the playoffs from the southeast, and guaranteed no more than two.

#1 Washington Capitals
The Capitals, who were good last season, and almost won their playoff series have returned with the core of their team intact. They still have the league's best player in Alexander Ovechkin, and a very solid supporting cast with Mike Green, Nicklas Backstrom, and Sergei Fedorov. The Capitals real problem is in goal, where they forced out Olaf Kolzig, and then lost replacement Cristobal Huet to free agency. They now have veteran Jose Theodore, but he is no longer one of the leagues top goalies.

#2 Carolina Hurricanes
Carolina has a strong team, but has almost no standout players. The one exception is Rod Brind'Amour, but he can't carry the team on his own, and needs more of a supporting cast. Carolina finished just outside of the playoffs last season, and will likely finish just outside again this year.

#3 Tampa Bay Lighting
Tampa has some very talented players, but for a while now has been a very dysfunctional club. Lecavalier and St. Louis are as good as ever, but have no help from their other lines. Rookie Steve Stamkos will do ok, and my even have a shot at winning rookie of the year, but won't do enough to help this team.

#4 Florida Panthers
Not much to say about this team. They have the supporting cast that Carolina and Tampa Bay need, but without the leaders and top of the line players to push them over the edge. Tomas Vokoun is still a bit of a question mark as far as goaltending goes as well.

#5 Atlanta Thrashers
Will be battling with the LA Kings for the top spot in the draft. The team has Ilya Kovalchuk but very few other players. Second year defenseman Tobias Enstrom is really the best that they have on the blueline. The only chance this team has for staying out of the basement is if goalie Johan Hedberg can get lucky and steal some games for them.

See also the review of the Central division

Finally a win

The Sabres finally decided to play hard in a game, and as a result came away with a convincing win, beating the Carolina Hurricanes 7-1.

The Sabres best player was Derek Roy who finished the game with eight shots and two goals. In fact he came very close to getting the hat-trick within the final ten seconds of the game. In fact almost the entire team had a good game, the only real exception being Afinogenov who was minus one and rang one off the post on what should have been an easy wide open goal.

Daniel Paille played well again, like he did last game and has suddenly become a very real scoring threat. Paille had a goal and an assist in this game to give him three goals, and four points over the last two games after what has been mostly a mediocre season for him. Given the massive number of overlapping penalties it's hard to analyze the teams powerplay effectiveness, but they allowed no powerplay goals against (although allowed one shorthanded), and scored a shorthanded goal themselves on a nice breakaway by Roy and Pominville.

The Sabres new defensemen played well this game as well. Sekera, Weber, and Funk all played very well in this game. Weber managed to be plus four with only seven and a half minutes of ice time. Funk only ended even in the plus minus column, but looked very solid especially for his first game up in a long while. Kaleta even got a goal.

Official Three Stars

Adam Mair

Andrej Sekera

Derek Roy

My Three Stars

Derek Roy (two goals, three points, plus three)

Adam Mair (one goal, three points, plus three)

Ryan Miller (only one goal against)

One Point is not enough

The Sabres picked up one point in their 4-3 overtime loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. However one point is not enough. The Sabres are now four points back on Philly, and after giving up two straight losses to the best teams in the southeast the Sabres now need to worry about Washington and Carolina stealing their spot to take put two southeast teams in.

The Sabres looked okay in this game, but needed better play from their defense. The team really misses Tallinder. Paetsch has not been all that good this season, and Pratt and Sekera never really have been. Furthermore the rest of the defense took the game off as well, and a dumb penalty by Spacek lost the Sabres the game in OT. The one exception was Lydman who was reliable in his own end, and even scored a nice looking goal to tie the game.

Hecht was back, which is a huge relief to the team. However this resulted in Bernier being scratched which was a bit odd. While he hasn't been as good as he was in his first game, Bernier hasn't been playing poorly nor has he been reported as being injured.

The real star for the Sabres in this game was Ryan Miller. Despite giving up four goal in the game he was playing really really well. He had two saves that were completely unbelievable. He kept Buffalo in this game despite the poor defense in front of him, and the Sabres taking 8 penalties as opposed to the Hurricanes' two.

Official Three Stars

Scott Walker

Sergei Samsonov

Eric Stall

My Three Stars

Ryan Miller (kept Buffalo in this game)

Sergei Samsonov (one goal, plus two)

Derek Roy (one goal, one assist, plus one in the loss)

The new look of the Senators

The Ottawa Senators will have quite a different looking line up when they face off against the Buffalo Sabres tonight. For only the second game in quite a while the line of Spezza Heatley and Alfredsson will be intact as they are all healthy, plus the Sens have picked up Mike Commodore and Cory Stillman in a trade with the Carolina Hurricanes.

The Sabres haven't done to well historically against the Senators big three. The main task for Buffalo will be to shut down the Spezza-Heatley-Alfredsson line, and work on the assumption that the Sabres are in good position to outplay the Senators on the other shifts.

The other changes in the Senators line up are due to a trade with Carolina. In the deal the Senators sent defenceman Joe Corvo and forward Patrick Eaves to the Hurricanes in exchange for defenceman Mike Commodore and forward Cory Stillman. In the short term (of this season) Ottawa comes out way ahead as a result of this deal. While expiring contracts made this deal worth doing for Carolina, the Senators have improved themselves for this season. Commodore is a real good player and should make a difference for the Sens. Lets just hope that they are still too unadjusted to the team to be any good tonight.

The other (possible) change for the Senators is in net, where Martin Gerber and Ray Emery have been trading starts all season. Neither is the clear number one, but Emery is expected to get the start for his second straight game.

As a follow up, things are continuing to look positive for Richard Zednik after he had his jugular slashed open last game. Last word is that he is still in stable condition, and is expected to be moved out of ICU soon.

Eight is (more than) enough

The Buffalo Sabres embarrassed the Carolina Hurricanes, beating them 8-1 in a game that wasn't even close. Buffalo ran away with this one, only allowing a late power play goal with less than two minutes left in the game.

Kotalik had two goals in the game including the first one at just 1:32 into the first. The Sabres have now scored the first goal of the game in seven straight games after failing to do so the 13 games preceding that.

Mair got a goal in his first game back since the fifth of November. It was a nice goal right of the faceoff where he was feed the puck from Gaustad to pick up the easy goal.

Practically everyone on the Sabres had a good game. Afinogenov played great and was on the ice for half of the Sabres goals for the night. Max had an awesome shot go in, as did many other of the Sabres in this blow out win.

Miller played well, but seems completely unable to get a shutout. No matter how well he plays he has a tendency to blow his shutout bids on easy shots late in the third. Miller has played much better for a few seasons now then his shutout count would seem to indicate.

Official Three Stars

Maxim Afinogenov

Ales Kotalik

Ryan Miller

My Three Stars

Derek Roy (plus three points, one goal, and one assist)

Maxim Afinogenov (on ice for four goals including one of his own)

Jaroslav Spacek (plus three, three points)

Ales Kotalik (two goals, this was a four star game)

Sabres Fall apart in the third lose 6-2

The Sabres came from what had been an even match to lose by four in the third. Buffalo still has yet to win a game in which they have less then five goals. Hopefully in Friday's match in Florida they can do much better.

Unlike previous games the penalty kill was actually a highlight of the game. Although they did let in one powerplay goal late in the third, the Sabres killed off 8 of 9 including one double minor. Early on at least they looked good doing it. The Sabres penalty kill came out very aggressive and that worked for them. Hecht Connolly Pominville and Tallinder all did exceptionally well killing off the penalties. One the other side of things the Sabres scored 23 seconds into a 5 on 3, but were unable to score on any of their other three chances, which included another 26 seconds with a two man advantage.

Official Three Stars

Bret Hedican

Jeffery Hemilton

Eric Stall

My Three Stars

Rod Brind'amour (a goal and an assist)

Bret Hedican (a goal and two assists)

Jason Pominville (two goals)