Shutdown Pair

Author: TheTick

  • Gameday 2011-2012 – Senators at Sabres

    The moderately disliked Ottawa Senators visit Buffalo tonight for a 7pm game against the Sabres.  The Senators currently sit in 12th place in the East, though that’s only 2 points behind Buffalo.  Ottawa has lost 3 straight games, giving up 14 goals in the process.  Buffalo, of course, has been treading water of late, alternating wins and losses while dealing with a ton of injuries.  There are some improvements in that regard, with Gaustad, Kaleta and Weber all practicing and possibly playing tonight.

    Paul Szczechura has been a good story over the past few games, and John Vogl at the Buffalo News has it laid out here.  He gets to center the top line again most likely, which is nice work for a callup to get.  I may not be able to watch tonight as I may be looking at a new vehicle, but I’ll be checking Twitter (as usual).

  • Gameday LIVE – Rangers at Sabres

    Getting set up in the pressbox for tonight’s visit from Martin Biron and the New York Rangers.  It’s the Sabres’ first game against the Rangers, and Jhonas Enroth gets the call after Miller played in the win last night.  Leino comes back from his suspension, but Hecht (‘lower body’) and Corey Tropp (concussion) are both out, so Colin Stuart gets the recall from Rochester.  The wheel turns, does it not?  Eventually all of this focus on head hits might mean you don’t have a new player concussed every night.

    Some notes from the Sabres’ gameday crew:  Vanek has only been held scoreless in consecutive games twice, gaining a point or more in 20 of 28 games.  Stafford has 1+1 in the past two games.  Ehrhoff leads the team in ice time with 24:33 per game on average.

    I’ll be updating this post after each period with my thoughts.

    1st Period:

    Buffalo begins the game by taking a high-sticking penalty, Robyn Regehr 9 seconds in.  PK is no big deal for this team, and with some help the lineseman’s leg, they get a break.  Biron almost mishandled the puck right in front of him.  The penalty was killed.  Beautiful play from Kassian to Adam but it didn’t go in.  Enroth is absorbing shots, good sign.  Ehrhoff joins Gragnani with early giveaways.  The Sabres aren’t generating zone time or chances, though Drew Stafford is working hard.  Excellent opportunity from Chewie/Vanek/Pominville, then another partial break by Vanek afterwards.  Play picked up after the 8 minute mark, with the top three lines finally getting some chances.  Enroth had a big save on Brad Richards.  Cody took a number after getting knocked down in front of the net shortly after.  Rangers and Sabres trade interference penalties.  Vanek with a near-beauty out of the box.  Buffalo got a little scrambly at the end but managed to avoid the late goal being allowed.  Scoreless after one.

    2nd Period:

    Stafford/Ennis/Roy some solid work to start the period.  Seems to be more balanced early, Buffalo making some plays.  Not so many stoppages.  Good steal by Roy, and save by Biron.  Nice breakup by Ehrhoff coming back on a Rangers rush.  On the power play Vanek seems to forget how to puckhandle for a minute.  The Rangers score on a short handed rush when Hagelin picks his corner on Enroth.  Vanek answers not long after on a ‘fuck you I’m scoring’ blast from between the circles.  Brandon Prust took exception to Vanek giving old friend Marty Biron a show shower.  This is fun.  Not so fun when Callahan scores another shorty.  Ehrhoff has to knock him down there.  The crowd let’s the Sabres hear it at the end of the second for that second shorthanded goal.  2-1 Rangers.

    3rd Period:

    A few good chances to start the period.  Adam just missed on a great pass from behind the net.  And then Enroth lets in another softy.  Just a killer, that one.  Not even sure what really happened.  Ennis and Stafford had some great chances not long after that but to no avail.  Just don’t seem to be making good decisions when the puck.  Vanek has 2 great chances, then Kassian decks a dude along the boards and gets a penalty.  PK letting too many Rangers stand in front of the net.  Puck possession is a problem.  The Rangers ice the game on the power play, whistling a shot past Enroth’s glove hand.  It’s Gaborik.  There is a baby crying nearby, I don’t blame him or her.  4-1 Rangers.  Your three stars:  3 – Callahan, 2 – Biron, 1 – Hagelin.  Biron got a big cheer.

    Postgame Thoughts:

    Lindy felt the powerplay was too stationary, not making the defenders change their angle of attack.  He also felt that they had more and better chances than last night, but made more mistakes.  There were a lot of shots missed high, he noted that they had discussed shooting high on Biron, but they couldn’t make it happen.  Marc-Andre Gragnani had been coached to join the rush more, but he still made some tough plays.

    I’m honestly not sure where to go with this tonight.  They weren’t terrible, though maybe Enroth was in the second and third.  Some blame can be laid on his teammates on a couple of the goals, but none of them were impossible stops.  It’ll be interesting to see if Miller starts to get more starts or if Lindy sticks with The Schedule.

  • Gameday 2011-2012 – Panthers at Sabres

    These guys again.  I was in the pressbox for the last home game against Florida, and that didn’t go so well.  It will be hard to say what the game will look like tonight, as the Sabres’ lineup is a disjointed mess of guys getting injured (Gerbe), guys returning (Commander Cody, maybe some others this weekend) and guys suspended (Leino).  Will we see the world-beating team that seemed to cruise through period one of the last game?  Probably, but for how long?  20 minutes ain’t enough.  Dineen has the Panthers leading the Southeast division by a wide margin, they’ve won three in a row including a 2-0 shutout of the defending champs by Jose Theodore of all people last night.  I’d say at least the Sabres are rested since Florida just played but somehow I doubt it will matter.

    We’ll know more about the potential lineup soon as the morning skate should be underway soon.  I’m thinking Enroth tonight as I’d rather have Miller in the marquee matchup with the Rangers, but then, I don’t have The Schedule in front of me.  It’s a 7:30pm start.  Need to start piling up those home wins.

  • Pain and Suffering

    I’ll admit it, I quit watching this game after the second period, listening to it in the background.  I picked it back up partway through the third, just in time to see Stafford tie it.  This game went from an easy win for Buffalo after the first, even if they give up that late goal, to a performance so bad that I don’t even think they deserve the loser point.  I mean, Leino, Kassian and Vanek scoring in one period is basically a fan’s dream.

    Ryan Miller.  He’s got all the eyes on him still, after all the hits he’s taken (a few more last night, including the puck when his helmet came off), and to see 5 goals given up might give you pause.  Shitty defense is to blame here, though, and not Miller.  Maybe he could’ve saved a goal here or there, but when your D is giving up odd man rushes and breakaways with wild abandon, not to mention passing the puck straight to the Flyers’ best players (Gragnani to Giroux), there’s only so much he could do.

    Were there positives?  Zack Kassian seems legit, both with the sick passing with Adam on the Leino goal to start things, and his own snipe.  Corey Tropp handled Rinaldo (I’m reading that they have a history, have to check that out).  The boys sticking up for Ennis and Gerbe was great, I don’t think we have to worry about that anymore.  That’s about it, though.

    I was impressed with Jaromir Jagr, that was the first time I had really seen him play since coming back.

    If there’s one person I’ll feel bad for today, it’s Brendan Shanahan.  He’ll be forced to watch swaths of this game to look at the hit on Gerbe and the elbow by Leino, and hopefully whoever hit Ennis in the head.  The Sabres host Florida tomorrow, let’s hope they play like the first period for oh, say, the whole game.

  • Gameday 2011-2012 – Flyers at Sabres

    The Flyers visit the Sabres tonight, for a 7:30pm Versus game.  Ilya Bryzgalov gets the start for Philly, and I haven’t been following Twitter closely today, but I’m assuming there’s been at least three snide weather/city remarks by Philly beat reporters.  I haven’t seen any lines/practice notes for Buffalo today but with the way injuries are, I don’t think it’s nailed down until the puck is dropped.  Will we see Miller again?  Yeah, I bet we do, as there are (surprise!) back to back games this weekend, though both are at home.  Enroth Friday against the Panthers makes sense to me.

    The other bit of news is Jordin Tootoo’s 2 game suspension for bowling over Miller.  I am not surprised, though I thought it might go 3-4 games.  At least he’s established as a repeat offender for the next time he doesn’t mean to take a stroll right through a goal crease, I didn’t mean to, honest!

  • Realignment!

    You know, when the Thrashers moved to Winnipeg, and the talk of realignment started, I was SURE the league would take the easy way out.  Move one team here, one there, and call it a day.  As time went on and some big-time changes were talked up, I still scoffed.  It’s easy to talk about big changes, harder to get everyone to agree on them.  But then the past few days you kept hearing that the four conference plan was the favored one, and I couldn’t ignore it anymore.  Imagine my surprise when the tweets came down that it was the one that was approved.  You can get full details here, but the important thing for us is, we add Tampa and Florida to our current ‘division’, now a conference, and play them all 6 times a year.  Everyone else, home and home.  The eight team divisions have a bit more math for the conference games but thems the breaks.

    This idea is growing on me the more I think of it.  The key for me is not so much the new conferences but the playoff format.  It’s going to accentuate rivalries to an even greater extent.  Imagine Pittsburgh and Boston battling for six regular season games, only to meet in the playoffs for 7 more.  I wouldn’t be surprised at a whole new rivalry forming out of this.  I can’t wait to hear when it’s going to be put in to play.

  • Open Season – Tootoo Phone Hearing Today at 1PM

    The title says it all.  The fact it’s a phone hearing usually means 5 games or less (3 or 4 seems most likely).  We’ll know in a few hours.  At the very least Shanny can establish a baseline for this clown to be a ‘repeat offender’ later in the year when he cheapshots or sucker punches someone else.

    It’ll be interesting to see what happens with Booth for his Kipper crashing in light of this also.

  • Sabres Win; Miller Gets Tootoo’d

    What a wild affair in Nashville, as the Sabres beat the Predators 3-2.  Luke Adam, Zack Kassian and Tyler Ennis scored, but the real story will again be Miller getting flattened.  This time, the team came to his aid like he owed them money, though Ryan tried to fight his own battle by punching whoever came near.  Jordin Tootoo was the culprit, and though he was being gently touched by Ehrhoff at the time, he practically leaped into Miller’s chest like a linebacker making a tackle.  Gaustad dove in to take care of business and it basically seemed like exactly what we should see when that happens.

    Kassian’s goal was sweet, there was some hard work, but the team was severely outshot.  Miller made some huge saves, before and after getting mauled.  We all now wait to hear what Tootoo will get for a suspension, if any.  He’s no boy scout though I don’t know how much of that would count for Shanny’s repeat offender status.  Lindy Ruff was outraged after the game, and this might be the first time I would wish we could play Nashville again in a season.

  • Catching Up

    So while I was gone (Disney with the kids) it looks like…

    • We killed Bruce Boudreau’s career for about a day
    • Miller is getting healthier
    • A whole mess of Amerks came up and did some stuff
    • The Legend of Joe Finley became a thing
    • INJURIES

    What else did I miss?

  • Myers To Miss A Month

    Multiple Twitter reports from the Sabres beat writers have Tyler Myers out for about a month with a broken wrist.  This is a huge blow for the big guy, who I thought had responded well after his benching and might’ve been rounding into form.  TJ Brennan is back up with the club and may see some time as Weber is also on the shelf (he practiced today with Ehrhoff).

    The Sabres need to pull together and play a team game from here on out.  One might even suggest a strong adherence to The System (I guarantee Roy or Pominville mention The System several times in their next few interviews).  They can keep winning games here – they do play Columbus after Boston – and it’s worth remembering that no team has more wins than Buffalo right now.  The ones ahead of them in the standings all have more loser points.  Even a dip in the standings now will not spell doom for the season.  Let’s see if the boys can dig in and keep getting points in front of a patchwork D and the backup goalie.

    By the way, I would apparently be remiss in blogging today if I did not mention Sidney Crosby at least once, so:  Sidney Crosby.