Sabres not looking so good this weekend

The Sabres escaped this weekend with a 1-1 record, and are still among the best teams in the NHL with a 8-2-1 record. Still they didn't look all that great in their past two games against somewhat weak teams.

The Toronto Maple Leafs who only have one win to their name so far this season forced the Sabres to go to overtime on Friday. A second goal in that game by Tim Connolly earned Buffalo the win, but the game was still far closer than it ever should have been.

On Saturday the Sabres then got blown out 5-0 by the New York Islanders of all teams. While they did have former Buffalo goalie Marty Biron in net, the Sabres need to play better against what are the league's weaker teams. Buffalo is starting to show the same mistake of losing the easy games that cost them a playoff spot last season. Hopefully there is still time for them to turn things around.

Back to winning

The Sabres continue to hang on by a thread with a 5-4 overtime victory over the Washington Capitals. Given the free five on threes that the Capitals were given, Buffalo clearly deserved to win this game, and finally did in overtime.

Alexander Ovechkin and Alexander Semin combined for 18 shots on goal, but Washington did not have the goaltending to back it up. Meanwhile Pominville finally had a decent game going plus two in the game, getting an assist, and the game winner in OT. MacArthur got a lucky goal, and Rivet and Afinogenov both put in good performances as well. Lydman and Spacek were the only two Sabres to play poorly in this game.

Official Three Stars

Alex Ovechkin

Jaroslav Spacek

Sergei Federov

My Three Stars

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

Tim Connolly (three assists, plus three)

Alex Ovechkin (one goal, two assists, nine shots)

The Sabres win in a shootout

The Sabres continue to slowly gain on the eight place Canadians, with a 4-3 shootout win over them that leaves Buffalo only four points out of the playoffs. Given the lack of game left that is doubtful to be enough, but at least they are finally trying.

This was a real even back and forth game with each team scoring one goal on the powerplay. Buffalo got goals from MacArthur and Mair who have both been quiet as of late (although MacArthur did get one last game), while Afinogenov was sat out again despite decent play in the last few games.

In the end the game came down to a shootout, and Miller proved once again why he was the Sabres number one goalie. Miller stopped all six shots that he faced, while the Sabres struggled to score on the other end until Lydman of all people got a shootout goal. Stafford needs to go back to being reliable in the shootout, had Miller not returned from injury, this most likely would have been a loss.

Official Three Stars

Alex Kovalev

Tim Connolly

Christopher Higgins

My Three Stars

Tim Connolly (one goal, one assist, four shots)

Alex Kovalev two goals, five shots)

Ryan Miller (32 saves, 6 for 6 in the shootout)

Sabres stay alive with Win

The Sabres continued to pretend that they have a shot at the playoffs with a win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Friday night. Ryan Miller returned in goal for Buffalo, but the real reason for the win was the return of Jochen Hecht who has all but disappeared this season. Hecht got the first goal in the game only 37 seconds in starting what would amount to a 4-0 lead. Hecht would later add an assist on the final goal of the game.

Of course Buffalo almost blew their 4-0 lead, but a third period goal by Paul Gaustad allowed the Sabres to hold onto for a 5-3 win. Toronto actually played ok, outshooting Buffalo 36-24, but saw Curtis Joseph allow four goals on just nine shots.

Official Three Stars

Tim Connolly

Paul Gaustad

Chris Butler

My Three Stars

Tim Connolly (two goals, plus two, four shots)

Paul Gaustad (one goal, one assist)

Matt Stajan (one goal, one assist, plus two, 71% on faceoffs)

The Sabres actually win

After a few long weeks of losses, the Sabres actually came out and won a game against a team that they are chasing in the standings. Furthermore they did so coming back from a 3-1 deficit, and got goals from MacArthur, Afinogenov, and Pominville.

Jason Pominville has been a bit of a disappointment all season long but finally got things together in the third period for this game, getting a goal and two assists. Buffalo has needed him and MacArthur to pick up their games this season, and they both came through against the Panthers. Now Jochen Hecht just needs to get on board.

Max Afinogenov has been doing the same routine lately, where he makes dumb mistakes early on, and then plays full out for the rest of the game in an attempt to make up for them. If he can play like that without the early mistakes he may even be worth keeping for next season. Afinogenov was eventually rewarded for his work with an empty net goal.

Buffalo is still in trouble playoff wise unless they win out, but this game at least proves that they can play if they want to.

Official Three Stars

Jason Pominville

Brett McLean

Patrick Kaleta

My Three Stars

Jason Pominville (one goal, two assists, five shots)

Tim Connolly (one goal, one assist, plus three)

Brett McLean (one goal, one assist, plus two)

Buffalo wins second straight game

The Buffalo Sabres soundly beat the Phoenix Coyotes 5-1, in their second straight win after the trade deadline. New Sabre Dominic Moore was in the line up for this game, but the team was really lead by Tim Connolly who just signed a two year extension.

Connolly scored the first goal of the game, and cleanly won a face off for the primary assist on the Sabres second goal. Once Buffalo got up 2-0 early in this game, it was mostly over as the Coyotes did not appear capable of making a comeback at any point. Connolly went on to score another goal on the powerplay in the second period and earned an assist towards the end.

The refs certainly did not help at all in this game, with many calls being rather unfounded. Buffalo did a good job killing off the penalties though, and only allowed one goal against on the powerplay in the third. Buffalo did get two more powerplay goals of their own in the game's final minutes though.

MacArthur and Numminen sat out of this game, and Tellqvist is expected to get the start in Buffalo's next game Saturday night in Ottawa.

Official Three Stars

Tim Connolly

Andrej Sekera

Patrick Lalime

My Three Stars

Tim Connolly (two goals, two assists, plus two, six shots)

Andrej Sekera (one goal, one assist, plus two)

Patrick Lalime (29 saves, only one goal against)

Connolly sticking around, Tellqvist aquired

The Sabres have signed Tim Connolly to a two year deal worth $4.5 million per year. This should end any trade rumors surrounding Connolly and confirms expectations that this trade deadline was to be a quiet one for the Sabres.

That Connolly is going to be given an increase in his salary is a tad bit surprising, but the good news is that he will continue to play in Buffalo and solidify that position for the team.

If Connolly can stay healthy, then he is easily worth the money. Tim has been doing pretty good for the past few months, and despite a rocky start to the season has been playing game in and game out for a while now. Still Connolly has still played in less games than Afinogenov this season. However the deal is only for two years, so if it turns out that Connolly's health doesn't last, Buffalo is not responsible for him year after year.

Buffalo also traded a fourth round pick for goalie Mikael Tellqvist in Phoenix. There is little danger of him replacing anyone's job in the system, but gives Portland some more flexibility, and a healthy goaltender to work with. Miller will still be the starter, Lalime will still be the back up, and Enroth will still be the future of the team. Still Tellqvist has been in 90 more NHL games than Enroth and will probably take over the backup role for as long as Miller is out. Enroth will then start for Portland, while Denis remains injured.

The Sabres are one of only four teams to be playing tonight as they take on the Montreal Canadians. As far as Buffalo goes, this may be as exciting as the trade deadline gets.

Beating up on the Leafs

The Sabres team has had wild swings between success and failure recently, and solidly destroyed the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-0 Wednesday night. Thomas Vanek lead the way with a natural hat-trick while Tim Connolly scored his fifth goal in the past five games, and Drew Stafford scored another to continue his recent success.

Ryan Miller, who did not play last game against the Ducks, got his second straight shutout, after facing only 16 shots. Toronto has rookie Justin Pogge in net, but the loss was more of a result of the poor showing by those in front of him.

Buffalo has been short on defensemen for some time now. They got some help with the return of Numminen in this game, but Rivet still looks as if he is playing hurt, and did limp off to the dressing room at one point last game, before returning and playing for around 18 minutes in the game. At a few times Buffalo used five offensive players on the powerplay, and this was probably so that they could give their depleted defense as much rest as possible.

Still over the past six games Buffalo has dominated in this 5-0 win over Toronto, a 2-0 win over Phoenix and a 10-2 win over Edmonton, but then struggled in losses to Tampa Bay, Calgary, and Anaheim. It's hard to tell if all of these injuries on defense are actually hurting the team or not.

In an odd occurrence I agree with the three stars selection for this game. Buffalo next play the Canadians at home on Friday.

Official Three Stars

Thomas Vanek

Ryan Miller

Drew Stafford

My Three Stars

Thomas Vanek (three goals, one assist, six shots)

Ryan Miller (shutout, 16 saves)

Drew Stafford (one goal, one assist, plus three)

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)

An opportunity lost

The Sabres lost to Calgary 5-2 but had every opportunity to win the game. Buffalo was done in by their lack of depth on defense, and Mikka Kiprusoff outplaying Ryan Miller.

Buffalo got into a hole early after a bad turnover, but were able to come back from a 2-0 hole to tie up the game going into the third period. Once there they were unable to score again, and watched Miller allow some pretty weak goals to let the game get out of hand.

Mike Cammalleri scored a hat-trick in the game, while Buffalo's best player was Tim Connolly who followed up on his two goals and assist from the day before with another goal and assist in this game.

Official Three Stars

Mike Cammalleri

Todd Bertuzzi

Miikka Kiprusoff

My Three Stars

Mike Cammalleri (three goals, six shots)

Miikka Kiprusoff (25 saves, one assist)

Tim Connolly (one goal, one assist)

10-2

For this game the score really says it all. It wasn't anywhere near being close for the entity of the night. With one goal ten seconds in, and a second goal just 61 seconds later, this game was more or less done at that point.

Still the Sabres poured it on and Roy, Stafford, Connolly, and Vanek all had three points and Spacek put up and impressive plus four. The game as a whole was a complete runaway. Buffalo even scored shorthanded with a little over a minute left to get into the double digits.

Buffalo almost outscored the all star teams in this game, and that was going up against an actual defense. While the Oilers made many mistakes you still have to credit Buffalo for taking advantage of them.

This game was so close to not being shown on television and would have been a real pity to have missed. The announcers were ok, but their comment about Buffalo putting the game away through the third to go up 9-1 seemed a tad bit late. This game was over at the 1:11 mark.

Official Three Stars

Drew Stafford

Thomas Vanek

Derek Roy

My Three Stars

Drew Stafford (three goals)

Tim Connolly (two goals, one assist, plus three)

Thomas Vanek (one goal, two assists, four shots)

The game of ugly goals

The goals that were scored in this game were all around ugly, not a single one of them should have found the back of the net. Still Buffalo was able to prevail in the shootout against a team that is right behind them in the standings.

The scoring opened with David Booth scoring on a penalty shot, which while it doesn't really count was really the right call by the refs. Mid way through the second period it was beginning to look like neither team would score.

The comes in Tim Connolly who finished the game with the fun state line of one goal and zero shots. After nicking the corner of the puck in a failed attempt to control a rebound the Panthers then passed the puck through the crease, off of the defender and the goalie and into the net. Officially it went into the books as a wrist shot which is perhaps what Lydman took when he shot the puck half a minute earlier.

Vanek then gave Buffalo a lead on the powerplay after he hacked at the puck a few to score on his birthday. Horton came back to tie the game on a Florida powerplay with might have been the only goal in the entire game to come off of a legitimate shot.

In the shootout Kotalik did his thing going to the backhand, and Miller stopped both of the attempts at his end including another shoot by Booth. Then true to how the game went Roy messed up just as he was approaching the net, but was able to watch as the puck slowly drifted five hole and into the net to give the Sabres the win.

Official Three Stars

Ales Kotalik

Ryan Miller

David Booth

My Three Stars

David Booth (one goal, one assist, seven shots)

Ryan Miller (27 saves plus both in the shootout)

Tim Connolly (for scoring without shooting)

Buffalo handles Carolina

Buffalo earned a 3-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes Saturday night, winning a game that they were supposed to win. Buffalo was in control throughout the game, and Tim Connolly stole the show by netting two goals.

Buffalo returned to form by killing off all five of their penalties in the game. Teppo Numminen also scored a goal, but the downside is that he took a puck to the face and is hurt badly.

Official Three Stars

Tim Connolly

Ryan Miller

Thomas Vanek

My Three Stars

Tim Connolly (two goals, plus two, five shots)

Teppo Numminen (one goal, plus one)

Ryan Miller (36 saves on 37 shots)

Updates from Portland

The Portland Pirates are leading the AHL with an impressive 11-1-1 record. The team is being lead by Mark Mancari who has 11 goals and 13 assists in just 13 games. The Pirates are undefeated within the month of November, and Mancari has at least one goal in every game so far this month.

The rest of the team isn't doing bad either. Nathan Gerbe has 12 goals and 7 assists. Tim Kennedy has four goals and 15 assists. Mathieu Darche has six goals and six assists with almost all of his points coming within the past six games.

Whenever the Sabres need to recall a player from Portland, they will get someone with plenty of talent who can contribute to the team. They will not be bringing up Matt Ellis again, who after two games in Portland, has zero points and a negative two plus minus rating for a team that won both of it's games.

The Sabres may need to bring up a player soon, as Kotalik is out with a Hamstring issue, and Tim Connolly is also injured once again. Connolly's injury has been described as a "body musculosketal injury", which more or less confirms what we have always known in that he is all around broken and about to completely fall apart at a seconds notice. He is also being listed as week-to-week which indicates that they don't expect his general soreness/concussion/bruised chest/broken vertebra/stretched ligiment/sore groin to get better anytime soon.

The Highs and Lows of Tim Connolly

Tim Connolly is currently injured. He is listed as "day-to-day", which has pretty much been his status for the past three seasons. The team is only calling it an "upper-body injury", but indications are that the issue is with his chest and is not too serious, so any concussion fears at least can be put to rest. Still Connolly has not been the most healthy player. Already this season he is on injury number four.

When he plays however, he is really good. With two goals and four assists in five games, Connolly has more points per game than any other player on the Sabres. The only other player with at least one point per game is Vanek who has 12 goals and three assists in fifteen games. Connolly has been playing decent defense as well, and unlike some injured players has not been afraid to play all out.

Yet if there is any time to sit Connolly it is now. Tonight the Sabres are playing the Columbus Blue Jackets who have a mediocre 7-7-2 record. Buffalo also has no injuries and will have to play without someone. For this game I would expect that Connolly sits with Peters. Even though Tim has been far more effective with his ice time then Stafford has been, there is no reason to risk him getting hurt while he have the depth to sit him out with no real loss.

Holding onto win over the Blues

The Sabres beat the St Louis Blues 4-3, but this game should not have ended up nearly as close. Buffalo went up 3-0 early in the first period, and kept on dominating the play throughout the game. However they were unable to score many more. Vanek had some many opportunities on breakaways, but was unable to find the back of the net on any of them. Kotalik also had a large number of chances, and was unable to capitalize on any of them.

Tim Connolly looked good in this game, scoring the second goal, and getting the primary assist on the third. Connolly did appear to get injured after taking a hit to the head. The game winning goal was scored by Henrik Tallinder, who picked up his first goal of the season. The game's first goal went to Adam Mair, who had a fabulous shot that the goalie really had no chance on.

Peters played in this game, but only saw 1:26 of ice time, all within the first half of the game and used it to get into two fights. Peters actually did decent in his fights, but did not contribute anything to the actual hockey portion of the game. Kaleta and Stafford sat out this game instead. Paille who sat out last game was also back, and had a good night earning an assist and a team leading plus two. Teppo Numminen lead the Sabres in ice time, which given his age comes as a bit of a surprise.

Statistically the best players in the game were all for St. Louis. David Perron lead all players in points with three off of a goal and two assists. He was also a plus three, as was Patrik Berglund who earned a goal and an assist. West Seneca native Lee Stempinak also played well earning a goal and an assist in the loss.

The game had very few penalties besides the fighting majors, and saw very little time that was not even strength. Neither team scored on any of their few powerplays.

Official Three Stars

Henrik Tallinder

David Perron

Daniel Paille

My Three Stars

David Perron (one goal, two assists, plus three)

Tim Connolly (one goal, one assist)

Patrik Berglund (one goal, one assist, plus two)

Once again the Sabres fail to perform

While the game against Atlanta was a disaster because of the lack of a backcheck and incompetent goaltending, the game against the Bruins, added a lack of offense to the problem. The Sabres came out flat in every aspect of the game.

Connolly looked really good in the first period, including the goal he scored along with Pominville, but then was giving no effort on any play by the third.

While Buffalo did generate 33 shots, most were very poor, and they allowed 40 shots against. The Sabres were unwilling to maintain any pressure whatsoever in this game and that hurt them. The game had only three penalties between both teams before the final two minutes of the game, and all of them were killed off minimizing any effect that special teams had in the game.

Stafford was back on the ice for this game, as Paille sat out instead.

Official Three Stars

Chuck Kobasew

Dennis Wideman

Manny Fernandez

My Three Stars

Chuck Kobasew (one goal, one assist, plus two)

Tim Connolly (one goal, plus one)

Dennis Wideman (one goal)

Hecht returns to health

Jochen Hecht will return to the Sabres lineup after being out a few weeks with an injury to his hand. While this is good news, it is also a problem as Hecht coming off of IR will put the Sabres over the roster limit with 24 players.

Only three players can be sent to Portland without needing to clear waivers, and they are Clarke MacArthur, Drew Stafford, and Andre Sekera. In preseason MacArthur would have been sent down, but he has played very well for Buffalo so far and is fifth on the team in points and second in goals to only league leader Thomas Vanek. Sekera has been solid as well, so of those players the one most likely to be sent down is Stafford.

More likely is that one of the team's current scratches will try to clear waivers instead. Paetsch, the team's seventh defenseman is no better then Portland's Mike Weber, but the drop off is a bit steep after that, and the two of them already found themselves both playing already in this early season. Paetsch would almost positively get taken by another team so keeping him is in Buffalo's best interest. Peters may be able to make it through waivers but is clearly better than Matt Ellis. Does anyone really care if the team losses Ellis to waivers? Are we not better off if Gerbe or Kennedy or Mancari get a few occasional starts with Buffalo instead? The obvious solution is to let Ellis go and hope that someone does take him.

It is also possible that nobody will need to be sent to Portland as guess who is injured? While the injury may not be serious enough to put him on IR, it may as well be done now, as it is just going to have to happen by the end of the weekend otherwise. Two straight games already exceed any expectations that anyone had for him.

Sabres turn things around against Washington

After two really bad losses, the Sabre came out firing in their last game to win 5-0 over the Washington Capitals.

Thomas Vanek scored his first goal of the game just 72 seconds in.After receiving the pass on the blueline on a partial breakaway, he single handedly danced around Mike Green who is one of the better defensemen in the league. In the second period Vanek scored another goal on a backhand with only three seconds remaining. These two goals bring Vanek back up to his goal per game pace, as he leads the league with eleven goals in eleven games.

Buffalo outplayed the Capitals all around in this game, and got a very pretty goal midway through the third from Paille and Kaleta. The Capitals were without Ovechkin, but given how the game went it would not have made a difference.

Tim Connolly was back from the dead, and posted 19 minutes of injury free ice time, and also earned an assist. Peters sat out to make room for him on the roster.

Miller earned a shutout for the first time this season, even as the Sabres got slightly outshot in this game. Buffalo also looked very poor on the powerplay only converting one of their many chances.

Official Three Stars

Ryan Miller

Thomas Vanek

Jason Pominville

My Three Stars

Thomas Vanek (two goals, plus two)

Ryan Miller (shutout, 29 saves)

Jason Pominville (one goal, one assist)

Questions for the comming season

The Sabres play their first pre-season game of the year tonight, but still face alot of questions coming into this season. The answers to these questions will determine if Buffalo can win this year or not.

Can Vanek play defense? - two years ago Vanek lead the league with a plus 47 rating. Last year, despite only a slight drop in goal scoring he was minus five. He needs to go back to playing two ways if the Sabres are going to have a chance this year.

Can Connolly stay healthy? - Tim Connolly has only played in 50 games the past two seasons combined. He is a good player, but is off the ice far too often to be considered the cornerstone of this team.

Will Peters use up a roster spot? - Even when he is on the roster Peters only rarely gets more than five minutes of playing time a game. Given Buffalo's depth on offense that is a spot that would be better filled by Kaleta or Gerbe.

Is Sekera for real? - Andrej Sekera has been penciled in as a top six defenseman this season off of only 37 games played last season. In a similar position Paetsch disappointed last year. Granted Mike Weber may be capable of taking this spot as well.

Will Max show up big in his contract year? - there has been some talk about trading Afinogenov this off season, but just three seasons ago he lead the team in points. Last year was a disappointment for him, but does the possibility of him turning his game around still exist?

Can Lalime get enough starts to give Miller some rest? - It was clear that the team did not trust their backup goalie last season, forcing them to play Miller every game. Given how he did last year in Chicago Lalime should be trusted to take a few games.