Missing a Point

The Buffalo Sabres played one of three periods well against the Atlanta Thrashers to get one point in a shootout loss. After the refs called a lopsided first period, Buffalo came back to control the second period and take a 3-1 lead. However Buffalo then gave up a shorthanded goal, and then allowed a last second goal to tie the game up after being unable to clear the zone for a full minute.

Pominville was all around bad in this game. He was hardly ever moving his feet, and passed it right to the other team to allow the game tying goal. Afinogenov on the contrary actually had a really good game. After taking a dumb penalty due to laziness in the beginning of the game, he was flying through the rest of the night, and finished plus two with a goal. Paille who also scored a goal, had a real good game, and was defensively responsible throughout the night.

Lalime played ok. None of the goal were real bad, and he had no help in the shootout. With four shots, Buffalo was unable to score a single time. Having Kotalik would have helped, as would at least seeing Stafford try the backhand himself. Still credit Kari Lehtonen for saving all of the shots, and for keeping the outshot Thrashers in this game.

Official Three Stars

Kari Lehtonen

Maxim Afinogenov

Derek Roy

My Three Stars

Daniel Paille (one goal, plus two)

Maxim Afinogenov (one goal, plus two, three shots)

Derek Roy (one goal, one assist, five shots)

Buffalo back on track

The Buffalo Sabre returned to their winning ways in a very important game against the Florida Panthers who are just above them in the standings. Buffalo ended the first period with a 2-1 lead, and was able to hold onto it until Vanek got a fluke goal towards the end of the third to put the game away for good. Still the Sabres had far more chances then the Panthers throughout the game and especially in the scoreless second period and deserved to win.

Florida's best chance at coming back was during a solid powerplay opportunity at the beginning of the third period, where they had over a minute of five on three hockey. The Sabres, especially Lalime, were able to shut them down.

The one goal that Lalime did let in was a bit soft, but he more than made up for it, making many big saves throughout the rest of the game.

Furthermore, not everything went right for Buffalo's opponents Thursday night. Besides the Florida Panthers' loss, the Flyers and Hurricanes also lost, while the Penguins and Canadians both only earned one point. Of the teams close to Buffalo in the standings only the Rangers won their game.

Official Three Stars

Patrick Lalime

Jaroslav Spacek

Henrik Tallinder

My Three Stars

Daniel Paille (one goal, plus one)

Patrick Lalime (30 saves, one goal against)

Michal Repik (one goal, plus one, three shots)

A Win mitigated by the possibility of injury

The Buffalo Sabres soundly beat the New York Rangers on Saturday night 4-2. The Sabres may be in trouble as a whole though as Ryan Miller had to leave the game injured. Currently it isn't clear how bad it is, but Buffalo needs its starting goaltender going into the playoffs.

Buffalo soundly outplayed the Rangers for the first two periods. Then following Miller's injury at the beginning of the third, they started to allow the Rangers to get some shots on net. Still after allowing a powerplay goal right after going in Lalime played well enough to give Buffalo the win.

Tallinder returned for this game, and the defense was all around better as a result. The Rangers first goal where two players were on the guy with the puck looked like the only real defensive mistake that was made all game, and Buffalo is now doing better as far as injuries go, although having Miller and Vanek out isn't exactly ideal.

Official Three Stars

Derek Roy

Daniel Paille

Tim Connolly

My Three Stars

Derek Roy (one goal, two assists, plus two)

Daniel Paille (one goalthree shots)

Ryan Miller (zero goals against, 20 saves)

A Solid Win against the Leafs

The Sabres won a 4-1 game against the Maple Leafs on Tuesday night, but still looked a bit shaky at times.

While the game was pretty well decided after the Sabres ended the first period with a 3-0 lead, things did not go perfect. Two of the goals were a bit soft and Justin Pogge did not play great in what was only his third NHL start ever. Also the Sabres were outworked in the first ten minutes of the game, and allowed a powerplay goal against, when just a month ago, the penalty kill was a highlight for this team.

Stafford played well scoring two powerplay goals, while the team also got bailed out by Miller most of the night. Ellis also had a good game filling in the role traditionally done by Gaustad.

Pominville had one of his goals discounted after it bounced off of his chest. The goal should have been good, but the game was pretty well decided by that point anyhow. Buffalo beat a team that they were supposed to, while Carolina lost giving the Sabres a bit more separation.

Official Three Stars

Ryan Miller

Drew Stafford

Niklas Hagman

My Three Stars

Ryan Miller (27 saves, .964SV%)

Drew Stafford (two goals)

Daniel Paille (one goal, one assist, three shots, plus two)

Slow and Steady wins the game

Buffalo earned a boring but solid 2-0 win over the Phoenix Coyotes Saturday night. The Sabres were in control for most of the night, but were unable to really pull away at any point.

Kaleta returned to the line up for this game after being gone for some time, while Adam Mair once again sat out with a minor injury. Injuries are still a serious concern on the defense, with things getting worse and Spacek not playing past the first period. We are honestly running out of defensemen and would be greatly benefited from getting one or two back. Pominville may be on defense for next game.

Tim Connolly scored again in this game, making this his third straight game with a goal. He has played real well as of late. The other goal came from Paille, who hasn't been as reliable in the past month, but who hopefully gets things going again.

Official Three Stars

Ryan Miller

Derek Roy

Tim Connolly

My Three Stars

Ryan Miller (shutout, 28 saves)

Tim Connolly (one goal, four shots)

Daniel Paille (one goal)

Paille (and MacArthur) resigned

Restricted free agent, Danial Paille has resigned for two more years with the Buffalo Sabres for an average of $1.125 million a season. The Sabres other restricted free agent Clarke MacArthur has also resigned, by accepting a qualifying offer.

With these two signings the Sabres have more or less set their team for next season. The only question remaining at this point is if Numminen will be coming back for another season or not.

The NHL's schedules are released today, more on that tomorrow.

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)

Memories of 2006

All of these injuries to the defense is starting to bring back memories of the Sabres collapse in the 2006 playoffs where Campbell was our one and only healthy defenseman. I'm not talking about the injures to make excuses for the team, but rather because the 7-3 loss to the Penguins was so bad I don't want to talk about it.

The Sabres flat out played very poorly in the game. Miller didn't mess up huge, but probably could have played better. Adam Mair, Andrej Sekera, and Nolan Pratt were all -3 on the game. Given the insane number of goals given up while shorthanded, that is even worse. Sekera and Pratt have been pretty bad all year and I have no idea why we are giving these two any ice time at all. Both finished the game with more minutes then Tallinder.

On the other side Mike Webber played very well. He was plus two in the game with a primary assist. If the rest of the defense played that well the Sabres would make the post season no problem. Lydman and Tallinder were also both plus one, but need to put in ten more minutes a game if they really want to help carry this team.

The other Sabres with respectable stats were the ones known for working hard. Hecht, Roy, Gaustad, and Bernier all had decent or good games, and Paille also picked up two goals for Buffalo. Lindy needs to start adjusting the playing time accordingly.

Back to the original topic the Sabres are very short on defensemen. Currently they have to do without Paetsch, Kalinin, Spacek, Numminen, and the traded Campbell. That's five defensemen out of our line up. All who came into the season as our top seven. I don't even know who the next defensemen in the system is. Rumour is that it may even be Pominville.

Official Three Stars

Sergei Gonchar

Tyler Kennedy

Darryl Sydor

My Three Stars

Tyler Kennedy (one goal, two assists)

Kristopher Letang (two points, plus three)

Danial Paille (two goals, plus two)

Sabres win goaltending battle

The Buffalo Sabres beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 1-0 in a game where the two goaltenders had far more impact on the game than the position players on the ice did.

For the games 51 first minutes neither team was able to score. Both sides were getting a good share of chances, but both Ryan Miller and Vesa Toskala came up big for their teams and didn't let anything by. Toskala ended the game with 19 saves (.950 SV%) while Miller saved all 35 shots that came his way.

The game's lone goal finally came when Danial Paille made a few cut backs behind the net, before finding Paul Gaustad wide open at the side of the net. Gaustad then knocked the puck off the side of the goalie and in.

The Sabres actually got outshot, and owe alot of this win the Miller. Ryan has been playing great in goal all month, and has only allowed more than two goals once, since January 19th.

For some reason, they only picked two stars for this game instead of the usual three, while not even going for obvious picks such as the games only goal scorer, or the second really really good goalie in this game. The Sabres have off until an afternoon game against the Rangers on Saturday.

Official Three Stars

Ryan Miller

Daniel Paille

My Three Stars

Ryan Miller (for the shutout)

Paul Gaustad (the game's only goal)

Vesa Toskala (only let one past him)

Sabres beat the Bruins

Led once again by the line of Paille, Pominville and the returning captain Hecht, the Sabres beat their divisional opponent the Boston Bruins 4-2.

This was a game that the team really needed, and they play Boston once again later in the week, to really get a good shot at moving up the standings. Buffalo is in about eight to ninth place in the east, but too many of the teams that they are ahead of are in the southeast. Buffalo needs to keep moving up and getting wins against the Northeast and Atlantic teams, such as when they play the New Jersey Devils tonight.

Pominville, Paille and Hecht set Buffalo up for an early lead in this game, only to see it get tied up before the end of the first period. Vanek then got an easy goal at the beginning of the second off of great passes from Stafford, and Campbell. The Sabres carried their one nothing lead into the third period.

In the final period of play, the line of Paille, Hecht, and Pominville managed to score another goal to secure the win. Soon after on the powerplay, Lydman rocketed in a shoot from the blue line to go up 4-1. The Sabres then held onto that lead before giving up a meaningless goal with under a second left in the game.

Patrick Kaleta had a very noticeable presence in the first two periods, picking up five hits in the game, and even drawing some retaliatory penalties. While Kaleta is always known for his big hits, they really stood out early in this game.

Official Three Stars

Ryan Miller

Daniel Paille

Jochen Hecht

My Three Stars

Daniel Paille (two goals)

Jochen Hecht (set up Paille's two goals)

Per Johan Axelsson (scored the Bruin's meaningful goal, had an assist on the other)

Sabres can't break the streak

The Sabres posted their ninth loss in a row, dropping a game to the Devils in overtime. This was the fifth loss in the streak to come in the shootout. While it took until late December for the Sabres to get into a shootout it hasn't seemed to help them much as they have lost far more than they have won.

The Sabres got off to a quick start with Paille netting two goals within the first 12 minutes, but played poorly in the second to allow New Jersey to come back within one goal. The Devils then tied the game with a minute remaining in the third. Both of the Devils goals came on delayed penalties, which is odd because the Sabres did a good job killing of their actual shorthanded situations.

The real problem is the Sabres inability to win a shootout. A few things they need to do to fix it. First Miller needs to stop trying to poke check every single attempt, it makes him predictable, and unable to recover if his initial try doesn't work. Ales Kotalik has to go back to his backhand move. He has scored every time this season when he has gone to it, but is like one for seven trying other moves. Finally Thomas Vanek needs to stay on the bench. He's a good player, but should never be used in a shootout. Either Paille or Stafford need to be the go to guy instead. In fact I'd even rather see Peters take the shot, no one knows what to expect there, and that's better than knowing that Vanek is going to mess up.

Official Three Stars

Danial Paille

Zach Parise

Brian Campbell

My Three Stars

Danial Paille (two goals)

Paul Martin (goal)

Paul Gaustad (an assist)

Preferring Paille Plays Prior Peters

The question still exists as to if Peters is really helping the team all that much. To most perspectives the Sabres would be better off if they brought up somebody else instead.

Peters has been in the lineup for five straight games now, but has only been playing around 2-3 minutes each night. In fact the most ice time he has had in a single game in that stretch is 3:37, and hasn't played for more than 6:33 all year.

Yet besides Peters the rest of his line including Mair is given more ice time than that, and when Peters is scratched in favour of Paille or Ryan then the fourth line gets around the same amount of time as the third. Now that the Sabres are healthy there is no reason for him to be in the lineup, as I would rather see MacArthur or Kaleta be brought up, let alone not needing to have either Ryan or Paille as a healthy scratch.

On the defensive side of things I think it was the right move to keep Sekera up and to scratch Pratt. Sekera has played very well in the last few games and will be sent to the AHL soon enough with Kalinin due to return soon...

Sabres beat Ottawa

The Buffalo Sabres have now won two straight (both 4-2), and now that they are scoring, look like a decent team.

Buffalo benefited from getting Connolly back for this game. Furthermore they kept MacArthur up with the team, and scratched Peters instead. MacArthur deserved that spot, and played well this game even though he didn't get on the score sheet. Mike Ryan is suddenly in danger of losing his spot, but he did get himself onto the scoring sheet as he got the first goal of the game.

Stafford got the night's final goal, and Paille got an assist on Ryan's so the Sabres are really starting to rely on their younger players. Combine that with MacArthur's recent success and almost all of the Sabres points are reliant upon players who were not on the roster to start last season.

Miller played good enough this game, and deserved the win. He even got an assist on Kotalik's powerplay goal.

Official Three Stars

Thomas Vanek

Ryan Miller

Mike Ryan

My Three Stars

Mike Ryan (first goal of the game)

Daniel Alfredsson (first goal for Ottawa)

Ryan Miller (the win in net)

46 shots, yet only 1 goal

The Sabres had plenty of shots in this game, but nothing to show for it. Paille finally scored a shorthanded goal on what was around the 40th shot of the night for Buffalo. The Sabres did decent on the defensive end of things, but that doesn't count if you can't score.

The Sabres were pretty bad on the powerplay, getting no goals and not to many shots either. At one point the Sabres got 40 seconds of five on three time, and did not register a single shot on net.

The penalty kill was better only allowing one against, killing a full minute of five on three, and getting a short handed goal.

It's been five games since the Sabres have scored a 5v5 goal. They lead the league in this last year. They need to get doing it again.

Official Three Stars

Tim Thomas

Chuch Kobasew

Jochan Hecht

My Three Stars

Tim Thomas (45 saves)

Jason Pominville (ten shots on goal all by himself)

Chuch Kobasew (game winning goal)

Sabres score four to beat Florida

The Sabres have been falling apart in the third period the last couple of games, but came through this time to score three goals for the win. It's about time Buffalo shows up for the comeback rather than letting in four like they did last game. Hecht and Pominville both had awesome games, with Pominville having an absolutely beautiful pass to set up Hecht for the Sabres second goal of the game.

The Sabres penalty kill ended up excellent on the night. After letting in a soft goal early on the first shot on their first penalty kill, the Sabres shut down Florida for the rest of the six penalties taken and then Paille scored shorthanded on the final penalty kill of the game.

On the powerplay Buffalo was not nearly as good. They scored on the tail end of a minute long five on three chance in the first, but were unable to convert on a later minute long five on three chance in the second and in fact only got one shot on goal in that whole time.

This is Buffalo's first win with under five goals scored, but there is no reason that a team should ever lose if it can get one shorthanded. The team looked a bit iffy in the first two periods but put together a solid effort in the final twenty minutes to earn the win. Hopefully they can do the same again Saturday night against Tampa Bay.

Official Three Stars

Jason Pominville

Ryan Miller

Daniel Paille

My Three Stars

Jason Pominville (two primary assists and an awesome overall game)

Jochen Hecht (a goal and an awesome overall game)

Daniel Paille (a shorthanded goal for the win)