Thursday, November 20, 2008

No effort in third straight game

I understand that Boston has a decent team this year, and that not every game can be won, but after three straight bad losses, something is just fundementally wrong with this team. After losing to the Bruins 7-4 the team has now allowed 18 goals against in their past three games for an average of six goals against per game. There is no way to win like that. In fact Buffalo has lost five of their last six games, allowing an average of 4.7 goals against per game.

When you score four goals in the first period you should not lose, especially if you have a two goal lead. Even as Boston caught up, Buffalo should have been able to continue to take advantage of the Bruin's mistakes, but instead they just gave up. As soon as Boston was up 5-4 most of the Sabres stopped skating hard despite there still being half of a game left to play.

Mair and Peters both hurt the team by taking some bad penalties. Over the last weekend they were two of our best guys, but now they are even hurting us. The refs really were trying to hurt the team as they called a number of rediculous trips that never should have been penalties. Also there was the diving call on Gaustad. Paul Gaustad does not take dives. He simply does not. If it was Roy I'd give it the benefit of the doubt, but to call that a dive on Gaustad is just insane.

Miller looked really bad this game, and finished the first period with a .571 save percentage. Lalime on the other hand looked good, alowing nothing past him in over 18 minutes of play. He should have gotten in the game much sooner, as some of the goals that Miller had allowed against in this game were really bad, and completly his fault.

The Hecht, Pominville Vanek line actually played well in this game and finished with a combined for three goals, four assists, and a plus two rating. Rivet also had a good game plus two with an assist for a team that was all around bad. One line can not carry a team though, and the others need to play hard as well.

Chara had a good game for Boston, putting in two powerplay goals from the blueline. The Sabres should know better than to let his blasts get through. Marc Savard also had a good game getting four assists, including both of Chara's goals and getting himself a goal as well.

Official Three Stars
  • Marc Savard
  • Zdeno Chara
  • David Krejci

  • My Three Stars
  • Chuck Kobasew (two goals, plus three)
  • Thomas Vanek (two goals, one assist)
  • Marc Savard (one goal, three assists)
  • No comments: