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

Sabres back to winning

The Sabres put together a solid effort (on offence) to beat the New York Islanders 5-3. Lead by Jason Pominville, and Derek Roy, the Sabres gave a huge offensive push that made up for their errors on defence. Buffalo outshot the Islanders 41-31 on the game and 34-26 in the first two periods.

Given the high number of shots, and excellent opportunities for each team, both of the goalies (Ryan Miller and Rick DiPietro) both played pretty well, despite giving up eight goals between them.

Buffalo dominated the faceoff circle this game, winning 58%. This was despite going up against the normally excellent Sillinger, who was only at 47% for the game. The Sabres were lead by Gaustad and Connolly who were at 67 and 64 percent.

As well as Buffalo did on faceoffs, they did even worse on give aways. The Sabres had sixteen giveaways compared to the Islanders two. The refs meanwhile were rather whistle happy this game, as both teams ended up scoring a goal with a two man advantage, and the game was being played at four on three for over a minute at one point. The refs weren't favoring one team over the other, but it was starting to get to the point where it was ruining the flow of the game.

Official Three Stars

Jason Pominville

Ales Kotalik

Derek Roy

My Three Stars

Jason Pominville (three assists on a night he just couldn't score)

Derek Roy (a goal, and on ice for three goals for and none against)

Ales Kotalik (one goal, plus two)