Comeback

Remember last season, when no matter how many goals the Sabres were down you could count on them to still win the game late in the third period? Well for one night at least the Sabres have gotten that attitude back. The Sabres were down 3-1 with under three minutes left in the game, but managed to get a 4-3 overtime win.

To be honest the Sabres gave up some pretty bad goals to go down in the game in the first place. Over the course of the game the Sabres outshot the Lightning 46-25 so it wasn't like they were really playing that bad, but more like their goalie was good (stopped the first 31 shots), and that massive mistakes were being made in our own end.

The worst was Nolan Pratt who gave up a two or three really bad turnovers that resulted in scoring chances for Tampa Bay. Miller bailed him out each time (although Miller slipped up on two of those goals himself), but there is no reason to have Pratt in the lineup with play like that. We have a very capable Nathan Paetsch sitting around doing nothing, and still have Weber and Sekera if we need more depth. As I've said since before he was even signed we need to do better than having Pratt on the ice.

Vanek got his second hat-trick of the season getting credit for all three of the goals in the final three minutes plus overtime of the game. However Tim Connolly had the primary assist on all three of those goals (despite what the official score sheet says), and was primarily responsible for two of them. Although Vanek has improved lately, and is no longer missing the open nets, and got a powerplay goal for the third or fourth time in a week.

The Sabres play the Toronto Maple Leafs tonight, and who knows, the Sabres may even show up for the first 57 minutes of the game. (Although may I ask the NHL to schedule around Lost for the rest of the season?)

Official Three Stars

Thomas Vanek

Tim Connolly

Jaroslav Spacek

My Three Stars

Tim Connolly (three assists to set up the win)

Thomas Vanek (hat-trick for the final three goals)

Derek Roy (one goal, one assist, plus one)

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...

Needing a stronger back check...

Thomas Vanek is averaging 11.23 min of five on five play for every 60 minutes of even strength play that the Sabres have. It's a good thing that it isn't more. The Sabres opponents are averaging 6.16 goals for every sixty minutes that Vanek is on the ice. This is the third worst in the league among those averaging above 16.67% of 5 v 5 playing time. Linemate Derek Roy isn't far behind, allowing 5.70 goals against making him the fifth worst in this statistic.

Meanwhile Spacek doesn't look so good either. While Spacek has turned around his game on the offensive side of things, he hasn't been too much of a defensive defenceman, allowing 4.47 goals against per every sixty minutes played. Among those averaging significant playing time that makes him the 16th worst in the NHL. Sekera is actually a bit worse than Spacek, while offensively deficient Nolan Pratt is right behind them proving to also be defensively deficient.

Worst still for the Sabres is that Afinogenov and Ryan are not far behind either. While in his limited playing time Peters has yet for the opposing team to score a goal on him, the best defensive players for the team in this regard are Gaustad, Kotalik, and Paille. Hopefully this line starts to get some more playing time. On defense the best players are the injured Kalinin and the rookie Mike Weber, if there was ever a reason to play Weber ahead of Pratt this is it.

The Newest Sabre

About a week ago the Sabres signed Nolan Pratt as a free agent to give a little more depth to their defense. He was signed to a one year low end contract, still it begs the question why? Obviously the Sabres would be best off with a completely healthy blueline, but I'm not sure how this signing is supposed to help that. Although more experienced I'm not sure that he is significantly better than Mike Webber, who looked decent in a limited role, when he was up for a little while.

Pratt had spent the last five years with Tampa Bay, before not returning for this season. He only has eight goals ever, over the past five seasons he has only three goals. To put that in perspective Numminen has scored 26 goals over the same time frame and even Rob Ray scored 8 goals over his final five seasons. Even in his limited role last season Paetsch easily had double the number of assists that Pratt has ever put up. Lets hope Numminen, and even Spacek get healthy soon. Both are expected to still be out tonight against Montreal...

Buffalo hands Panthers a win on a Platter

Theoretically the Sabres are a much better team then the Panthers. Buffalo really should have won this game, but that would require them to actually show up. The Sabres had a few stretches in which they massively outplayed Florida, but they were unable to score on these opportunities, and followed them with catastrophic Defensive breakdowns.

Thibault actually played rather well, but just got no help on the night. A bit more of a back check was really needed in this game, as too often Buffalo's defensive was just outnumbered deep in their zone, for no apparent reason. On the few offensive opportunities the Sabres put far too many pucks wide of the net.

Pratt looked ok in his first game with Buffalo, but was by and large just average in his play. He was in for Spacek who presumably re-aggravated his prior injury in the game last night.

The line of Vanek and Afinogenov was on the ice for were both on the ice for three goals against, and their linemate Roy has been putting up some very poor defensive numbers all season long. You need to play both ways. After leading the league in plus minus last season Vanek is at -4 so far this year.

Official Three Stars

Richard Zednik

Jozef Stumpel

Stephen Weiss

My Three Stars

Richard Zednik (two goals)

Jozef Stumpel (assisted on both the Zednik goals)

Radek Dvorak (got the games first goal)