Sabres continue to play well

After a dominating 6-2 win over the traditionally very good Detroit Red Wings, the Sabres went on to beat the traditionally not so good New York Islanders by a score of 6-3.

Tyler Myers got the first goal of his NHL career in this game, after pick up two assists already this season. At this point Myers has proven himself, and his ability to play on this team. The weak line on the Sabres defense at this point appears to by Lydman and Montador, although neither of them are likely to get bumped when Sekera gets healthy again.

Clarke MacArthur and Hecht both played well against the Islanders. MacArthur got rewarded for his hard with with a penalty shot, that he masterfully used to get the second goal of the game. With that play MacArthur made a very serious argument to be used in the shootout for the Kotalik less Sabres. MacArthur than picked up an assist on Connolly's goal. Hecht got his own goal in the Second Period after blasting in a takeaway.

Kaleta also scored well, getting his second goal in two games. If he can continue to put up points in addition to his physical presence this year, that will do alot to help this Sabres team.

Former Sabres goalie Marty Biron was brought in mid-way through the second period for the Islanders and received a large cheer from the crowd. Biron was always a favorite here, and is one of a few former Sabres still loved by most. The Islanders other goalie, Dwayne Roloson is also a former Sabre, who played two playoff games against the Maple Leafs back in 1999.

Shutout by Philadelphia

The Buffalo Sabres played better in this game, but once again were unable to win. However, while they finally turned their game around defensively they were unable to score at all. Statistically they looked good outshooting the Flyers 40-25, but most of these were low quality shots, or an absolute inability to score with the two man advantage.

Buffalo had two longish five on three opportunities, but were unable to score one both of them. Had they turned both of these chances into goals then they at least would have made it to overtime. At least the Sabres generated chances and had a good penalty kill.

The two goals that did not go into an empty net both were the result of careless mistakes by the defense. On the first goal both Numminen and Rivet should have gotten back and had Hartnell covered. The second goal was the result of a failed clearing attempt and Roy and Stafford refusing to play any defense.

Lindy Ruff mixed up the lines a lot for this game, putting Paetsch in on defense for Tallinder, and benching Afinogenov. Also by putting Kotalik on IR the team was able to bring up Mark Mancari from the AHL. Why Afinogenov was sat out instead of Peters, Roy and Stafford is beyond me. Why Roy keeps getting ice time is beyond me. That should instead go to players that are having a good season like Mair, Kaleta, and MacArthur.

Mancari played very well in his first NHL game of the season, and drew a large number of penalties and was tied for the highest number of shots in the game. Buffalo had a solid second line whenever Mancari and Gaustad were on the ice together.

Buffalo has another chance to stage their comeback tonight against the struggling Islanders.

Official Three Stars

Marty Biron

Jeff Carter

Mark Mancari

My Three Stars

Marty Biron (shutout, 40 saves)

Mark Mancari (five shots, three drawn penalties, no goals against)

Jeff Carter (two goals, plus two)

Ranking the top 41 NHL goalies

Below is a ranking of the top 41 goalies league wide. This also shows why some teams, such as Los Angles, do not have a chance at all this season. Buffalo came out ok, with Miller at number 8 and Lalime doing respectable at number 32. The most stacked team is obviously Chicago with both Huet (#10) and Khabibulin (#18). The top ten show and even split between the east and the west although both of the top two are in the Pacific division, and numbers three and four both play in the Atlantic division. A few of these are a little uncertain such as #17 Carey Price who has seen very few starts, as well as Curtis Joseph (#37) who has been out of the spotlight for a while now. Also half of the top six (numbers one, four, and six) are all named Marty, which is a bit unusual. Chris is the only other name repeated at numbers 14 and 21.

#1 Marty Turco
#2 Evgeni Nabokov
#3 Rick DiPietro
#4 Martin Brodeur
#5 Dan Ellis
#6 Martin Biron
#7 Roberto Luongo
#8 Ryan Miller
#9 Henrik Lundqvist
#10 Cristobal Huet
#11 Jean-Sebastien Giguere
#12 Marc-Andre Fleury
#13 Miikka Kiprusoff
#14 Chris Osgood
#15 Tim Thomas
#16 Tomáš Vokoun
#17 Carey Price
#18 Nikolai Khabibulin
#19 Niklas Bäckström
#20 Ilya Bryzgalov
#21 Chris Mason
#22 Martin Gerber
#23 Pascal Leclaire
#24 Manny Legacé
#25 Johan Holmqvist
#26 Peter Budaj
#27 Mathieu Garon
#28 Cam Ward
#29 Jose Theodore
#30 Alex Auld
#31 Vesa Toskala
#32 Patrick Lalime
#33 Kari Lehtonen
#34 Dwayne Roloson
#35 Andrew Raycroft
#36 Jason LaBarbera
#37 Curtis Joseph
#38 Olaf Kolzig
#39 Johan Hedberg
#40 Manny Fernandez
#41 Fredrik Norrena

Possible Upsets

Both the Dallas Stars and the Philadelphia Flyers are up in their second round series. While slightly unexpected, the fact that both teams beat out their opponents in round one was not too out of the ordinary. The fact that they are both doing so in round two as well is.

The San Jose Sharks have been a favorite pick to win the cup, but are now down 2-0 to the Dallas Stars and look to be on the way out. Montreal who was also expected to have an easy time beating Boston is now down 2-1 to the Flyers. The other two series are of course currently 2-0 in favor of the favorites so no surprises there.

Both the Stars and the Flyers are relying upon their goaltenders to get them through. While Turco does not need a shutout every game like he did last year, the Stars would not be going anywhere without him. The Flyers meanwhile have gotten excellent play out of Marty Biron in both of their series so far. This is actually Biron's first time playing in the post season, and is a very good 6-4 so far. Both of these teams are helping their goalies though, and I would even pick Dallas to beat the Red Wings if they have to match up against each other.

Additionally NHL.com has an excelent article on Marty Biron.

Playoff Beard?

The NHL has a tradition of growing a "playoff beard" throughout the post season, and it is something that is done by most of the players. Sidney Crosby is trying to grow a playoff beard of his own, but things are not going so well. The picture to the right is three weeks in. That is absolutely pathetic. Even baby faced Danny Briere did better last season. Most players have bigger beards after the three days of not shaving, let alone three weeks. (Visit Going Five Hole to track Crosby's (lack of) progress).

Also the stats for this season are starting to back up what a few Sabres fans have thought all along, which is that we should have kept Martin Biron. While he had always beat out Miller in terms of humour and consistency, Miller had come through big alot last season, and there was little reason to second guess the decision. Now though, Biron has put up phenomenal five on five numbers, while Miller has had a sub par season. Still I like Marty so it's good to see him doing so well.

Also, back in round one the Flyers and the Capitals played an afternoon game on NBC. Where were the ratings the highest? Right here in Buffalo. Even beating out Philadelphia, and Washington. This only confirms what I've said all along, that Buffalo is the most hockey friendly city in the US. Too bad the Sabres aren't still playing...

Is a shutout needed?

Marty Turco won a playoff game last Saturday and it was amazing. There is nothing special about simply winning a playoff game, but for Turco the fact that he won without earning himself a shutout is something extra special.

For the nine previous playoff games Turco had earned himself four shutouts, yet only had four wins. Last season he had managed to get three shutouts in a single series, and yet still not move on. Although the Stars have made the playoffs every season since the lockout, this was only the second time since then that Turco has won on a night he wasn't perfect himself.

Even when the Sabres rode Hasek all the way to the cup finals they were not as reliant on him for wins as Dallas has been the last few years. In those four playoff series in 99 Hasek only had two shutouts.

It is possible of course that Turco has just passed the curse on. Marty Biron now has two playoff games under his belt and one shutout, and only one win. If the FLyers think they can shutout Ovechkin for four out of seven games they are going to be in trouble...

Max is back

The Buffalo Sabres beat the Philadelphia Flyers 5-2 and Maxim Afinogenov showed up for this game and played great. Afinogenov set himself up for a breakaway that resulted in a nice goal, set up Derek Roy for a breakaway that resulted in a goal, and then managed to squeeze a shot through for another goal that Biron looked to have pretty well covered.

At one point the Sabres were looking as if they were going to blow their lead like they did the last time they played the Flyers, but instead came away with three goals early in the third period to take the win.

While neither team scored (or even looked good) with the man advantage the game saw a high amount of four on four play, and three goals scored in those situations (two for Buffalo). On Roy's goal the Flyers have claimed the Sabres had five on the ice but I'm not quite buying that, and think they probably should have thought about covering Roy anyhow.

The game saw a few line changes as Sekera was brought up for Kalinin and Peters for Paille. I still think Paille should be playing ahead of Peters, but perhaps they felt bad benching Peters for two games after he finally scores a goal, or else assumed there would be some more fights against Flyers. Speaking of fights, with a bit of a brawl behind Buffalo's net Marty Biron drifted out to center ice to consider taking part. As much as I like Biron, I don't want to see him fighting against the Sabres. Against other teams I'm all for it, but he is supposed to like Buffalo.

The big news though is that Tallinder got himself injured. This could be really bad. He (along with the also injured Hecht) is key to the Sabres game, and their best defenceman. While I wasn't worried playing the Capitals before, that was based on the idea that Tallinder and Lydman could double shift to shut down Ovechkin and the rest of the Sabres could outplay the rest of the Capitals. Suddenly this next game isn't looking so good. Also suddenly the absence of Brian Campbell is starting to hurt. Fortunetly Sekera looked good last game.

Back to Campbell, he had an awesome spin-o-rama goal for San Jose the other night. I've never seen him score off of that before, but then again the goalie probably should have had that. Of course that's Montreal's fault for trading away Huet.

A few more thoughts on the game. Vanek was the only Sabre to have a minus plus/minus, but didn't play to poorly. Kaleta had zero hits, but probably didn't deserve the ten minute game misconduct he got, and finished the game with only 3 min of ice time. Peters ended with even less ice time and no fights to show for it. Bernier looked good, picking up two assists while picking up two shots and two hits as well. He also looked good in the corners as a Gaustad like scraper.

Official Three Stars

Maxim Afinogenov

Jason Pominville

Steve Bernier

My Three Stars

Maxim Afinogenov (two goals, one assist, plus three)

Jason Pominville (two goals)

Henrik Tallinder (two assists, possibly should have had credit for Pominville's first goal, and in only 7 min of ice time)

Sabres Beat Flyers

The Buffalo Sabres defeated the Flyers 3-2. Former Sabre Daniel Briere was minus two in the game and held without any points. Buffalo was lead by the increasingly dependable Jochan Hecht who scored the game winning goal with only 2:51 remaining in the game. The other Sabres goal were by Drew Stafford and Ales Kotalik. Both Miller and former Sabres Marty Biron played well throughout the game.

Rematch Saturday night back down in Philly...

Official Three Stars

Jaroslav Spacek

Brian Campbell

Daniel Paille

My Three Stars

Jochan Hecht (game winning goal)

Jaroslav Spacek (two assists and a big hit on Briere)

Jeff Carter (plus one with a goal in the loss)