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)

A win to finish out the year

After no effort in so many important games, the Sabres showed up to collect a meaningless win over the Boston Bruins. Vanek got a hat-trick, and Thibault got a shutout to give Buffalo a 3-0 victory.

The powerplay finally looked good for Buffalo, with the Sabres scoring on two of their three powerplay chances. Vanek's hat-trick was the fourth of the season (and his career).

Teppo Numminen played his first (and last) game of the season, and finished the year with just over 16 minutes of ice time. Hopefully he is more healthy next year.

Thibault got his second shutout of the year, despite only playing in nine games. Based on his play a few of the times he has been in, I have no idea how this happens.

The Capitals won their game meaning that they secured the last playoff spot for this season. I guess I have to root for Ovechkin to win at least the East.

My Three Stars

Thomas Vanek (three goals)

Derek Roy (two assists)

Jocelyn Thibault (shutout)

Third Period Is good enough for Buffalo

Well, the Sabres managed to win that one. At the end of two periods Buffalo was down 4-1 and got booed off of the ice. The team had been mostly outplaying Tampa Bay, but had allowed countless wide open shots and other defensive meltdowns to hand over this game to the Lightning. The population of Pominville had ticked up by one, but there was little reason to believe that the Sabres were going to make a serious run at a comeback. Well come back they did, and Buffalo won the game 7-4.

Jason Pominville was an all-star in this game, and after scoring the only Buffalo goal in the first two periods, scored an early one in the third. Then sixteen seconds later he assisted on Hecht's twentieth goal of the season. Thomas Vanek also had a good game earning himself a natural hat-trick on some rather odd goals, including one where he swatted a puck out of the air from behind the goaltender. All three of those goals were assisted by Derek Roy and Drew Stafford. With the Hecht, Gaustad, Pominville line responsible for the other four goals, not everyone had that great of a game. Maxim Afinogenov, was a team worst minus two, with a penalty, a giveaway, and two shots on net.

On Defense, Lydman was surprisingly weak, giving up the puck five times, and being on the ice for one goal against. On the other hand Sekera and Weber both played very well and were plus five each, with Weber leading the team with five hits. Funk and Pratt both saw limited ice time, and were a combined minus three in the game.

Tampa Bay's goals came with no surprises as Lecavalier scored two, with St. Louis picking up another. While the two of them combined for five points on the night, they also had a combined plus minus of negative three.

Official Three Stars

Jason Pominville

Derek Roy

Paul Gaustad

My Three Stars

Jason Pominville (two goals, two assists, plus four)

Jochen Hecht (seven shots, two goals, one assist, plus four)

Thomas Vanek (hat-trick)

Lack of a penalty kill buries Sabres

The Montreal Candaians have the best penalty play team in the league, and scored on all three of their chances to beat the Sabres 6-2. The Sabres also managed two powerplay goals (on six oppertunities), but more or less got outplayed all game long.

The Sabres still need ten more wins to make the post season, and get thier next chance on Sunday against the injured Red Wings.

Official Three Stars

Tomas Plekanec

Alex Kovalev

Mark Streit

My Three Stars

Tomas Plekanec (hat-trick and four points)

Alex Kovalev (setting up Plekanec, four assists)

Thomas Vanek (one goal, played well along with Roy and Bernier)

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)

Vanek nets three against the Sens

Thomas Vanek got his first career hat-trick in a 5-1 win over Ottawa. The Sabres outplayed the Senators all game, and outshot them by a wide margin in the first two periods.

Vanek's first career hat-trick was boosted by two goals of of the powerplay. After having a poor powerplay all season the Sabres scored two against Ottawa, and were three for four last game against the Florida Panthers. Apparently having Connolly back in the line really is helping things out.

As for the Spezza-Heatley-Alfredsson line as good as they were expected to be, they were completly blanked. It was awesome to see this "big three" get outscored by Clarke MacArthur.

The Sabres have been on a bit of a hot streak lately, but need to keep winning to secure their spot in the playoffs. They face the Maple Leafs at home on Wednesday night, but have not fared too well against the struggling leafs so far this season.

Official Three Stars

Thomas Vanek

Brian Campbell

Clarke MacArthur

My Three Stars

Thomas Vanek (first career hat-trick)

Ryan Miller (only let one past him)

Jason Pominville (two points, one goal, plus two)

Sabres finally win, and they do it big

The Sabres snapped their ten game losing streak by scoring ten goals in a huge win over the Atlanta Thrashers. Both Stafford and Roy picked up hat-tricks in the game, and the Sabres had five different players who earned three or more points.

The Sabres started out the game rather well, with Paille scroing within the first two minutes to give the Sabres the early lead. A few minutes later on the powerplay, a shoot in took a funny boucne and left Stafford at the top of the crease with the puck and the goalie behind the net. Than to prove that it wasn't just a fluke Roy scored 23 seconds later from Stafford and Vanek. Roy scored yet again from Stafford and Vanek just three and a half minutes later.

There was nothing that Atlanta could do to slow down the Sabres. They tried changing goalies, and when that didn't work they switched back goalies again (still didn't work). Pratt got into a bit of an unispired fight, which later in the third led to Atlanta giving up a five on three for four minutes. Due to an error on the scoring sheet for a while it looked as if Paille, Stafford, and Roy all had two goals, and the crowd was just waiting for a hat-trick to celebrate. Stafford picked one up, but it turned out that one of Paille's goals was actually Roy's third so he got one as well. Towards the end the crowd couldn't even keep up with the cheers because the numbers were so big, and decided to simply things to just chanting "we want ten!" (they got it).

This was Roy's first game in two weeks and he played very well picking up three goals and an assist to go plus four on the night. Interestingly Peters was scratched to make room for Roy meaning that for the first time ever the team kept Kaleta and MacArthur up instead of Peters which is something that they should have been doing all along.

Thrashers defenceman number 39 Tobias Enstrom was really bad. Looking at the stats after the game he doesn't look so bad as he was third on his team in ice time, and was amazingly plus one (the only one on his team). Yet given repeated chances to shoot at the net on some rather good oppertunities he choose to pass time and time again. He ended the game with zero shots and it was almost comincal with the chances that he was giving up. Even when Atlanta got a five on three, he would sit at the point with the puck, not covered at all, and then he would pass it. It was almost as if the defence had realized that he wasn't going to shoot and just decided not to bother covering him at times.

Despite the blow out the Sabres powerplay was really bad. The Sabres got a powerplay goal early, but that was due to a fluke bounce, and then they struggled the rest of the night. The Sabres had a four minute five on three chance, and barely managed to shoot let alone score. They did eventually get a goal five on three, but only after playing with the two man advantage for a full five minutes first. Furthermore they let the Thrashers get a short handed goal, which ruined their shutout, and in a closer game would have been a lot more devistating.

They play against the Toronto Maple Leafs tonight, lets hope that they can reach double digit scores again...

Official Three Stars

Drew Stafford

Derek Roy

Thomas Vanek

My Three Stars

Drew Stafford (hat-trick, five points)

Derek Roy (hat-trick, four points)

Jochan Hecht (prettiest goal of the night, three points)

The Season Starts

Buffalo is one of the last teams have it's season opener tonight, when they play the New York Islanders. Kotalik is still not expected to play in either game this weekend, but the Sabres should be favorites to win both matches.

Elsewhere the Ducks have already played three games this season, and have come out with a win, a loss, and an OT/SO loss. One tally in each category to start the season, and not looking as good as they did last year already.

The Senators are the league leaders in the early going, after twice beating the Toronto Maple Leafs. As long as the Sabres can sweep the leafs themselves, this really shouldn't put Buffalo back in the standings any.

Second year forward Paul Stastny who should have won the Calder last year, had a hat-trick in the Avalanche's season opener against Dallas, but saw his team shutout yesterday against Nashville.

Buffalo's former captains are getting off to a fast start this season. Briere has already scored twice for Philadelphia, and Drury has a game winner for the Rangers.

Roy and the Sabres crush Toronto

Ok, so it's still preseason, but seeing a 7 - 2 victory is still fun. The final 3 goals of the night all came from Derek Roy, who also had three assists on the earlier goals, not a bad day at all. Vanek also did decent with a goal and three assists.

The powerplay was a mixed bag. Buffalo scored twice with a two man advantage, and killed all three of their penalties. However, they allowed two shorthanded goals, although Roy would get a short handed goal himself towards the end of the game. Glad to see them successfully kill the penalties, but on the power play they still need some work...

The role of captain continued to rotate around as Lydman was captain with Tallinder and Hecht as the alternates...

Next preseason game is Friday down in Pittsburgh...