Shutdown Pair

Tag: NHL

  • Sabres at Ducks and Derek Roy

    A west coast swing with late start times, just when we get a new toy to play with??  UGH.  I can’t wait to see how Cody Hodgson does tonight, even if I might fall asleep by the third period.  The first game with a new player is always fun, even if it sometimes goes downhill after that (*cough*Bernier*cough).  Hodgson will start out on a line with Ennis and Stafford, but we’ll see how that goes as the game wears on.

    On the Miller comments.  Sounds like a guy tired of being asked about personnel decisions he has no say in.  Mountain out of a molehill, indeed.  Kind of wish Miller was Russian so he could only give quotes when a Russian reporter rolls through town.

    Speaking of the Buffalo News…I read a comment there again.  STUPID.  It’s this:

    I have been silent for awhile. I can’t believe I am reading the comments by Lindy. He stated Roy will now be his last minute center. Roy is the WORST defensive center in the league.

    *facepalm*  I know there are those of you not happy that Roy is still here, but let’s see if this is actually true.  Of players that Behind the Net registers as centers, with more than 40 games played, Roy is 36th as far as Quality of Competition (Sami Pahlsson, another C coveted at the deadline, is right below him).  That’s out of 148, by the way.  He’s not getting nutty zone starts either, with offensive zone starts about 51% of the time.  That’s on par with Henrik Zetterberg and Brad Richards.  To contrast, Henrik Sedin starts in the offensive zone a staggering 77.5% of the time!  It’s obvious that Buffalo doesn’t ‘optimize’ zone starts the way some teams do.   Looking pretty good for Roy, whose stats are colored by his low offensive output this year (possibly still recovering from his injury early).

    As I look at the stats, it’s clear that Roy has grown into being at least a solid defensive player, middle of the road to a bit better in most areas.  You may not like him as a person, or just think ‘he sucks’, but it’s really not true.

  • Feeling Relevant

    These were my thoughts as the NHL Trade Deadline coverage got rolling this morning.  Gaustad and Roy had both been involved in the rumors, so no huge surprise when that broke.  The return was surprising, even with the 4th rounder going the other way, but still, we knew he was the sort of guy playoff teams love to add at the deadline.  You know, that intangible-laden 3rd-liner, to win face-offs and ‘battles’ and all that other stuff pundits like to say.  When the official deadline was passing, though, people were disappointed.  “That’s it?” you heard.  Then you started to hear “Vancouver has another deal yet to come”, and then “They’re getting Kassian”.  We all sat up and took notice, and then when we heard Cody Hodgson was the guy coming back…wow.  That’s a great return, giving up Kassian and Gragnani, and getting Hodgson and Alexander Sulzer.  I love these deals.

    As I was thinking about these since they went down, I decided this is basically a win-win-win for the teams involved.  Buffalo is a win both for now – Hodgson has more offensive upside than Goose, and is a lot younger – and in the future, getting Nashville’s first rounder next year in addition to the players from Vancouver.  Nashville gets the vet C that teams love for the playoffs, and Vancouver gets a couple of guys that might fit better on their team than ours.  Kassian needs to prove himself in the NHL, and Gragnani might work best for the Canucks where he can just be a power play QB and get the softest minutes otherwise.

    I’m genuinely interested in seeing what Hodgson can do for Buffalo.  I’m sorry to see Gaustad go, as I had hopes for him…but it was pretty obvious that what he is now, is all he’ll ever be.  And if you turn Goose and a 4th into a 1st, you do it.  Gragnani was expendable…McNabb, and soon, other D-men in Rochester were pushing him from below, but he couldn’t move up any higher than 7th on the depth chart when everyone is healthy.  And all of this happened without crippling the Sabres’ cap situation any more than it already is.  Good job, Darcy.  Is it Wednesday yet?

  • Buffalo Sabres Official App

    For the longest time, I used SportsTap to get scoring updates on Bills and Sabres games on my Android phone.  At some point, though, the Sabres games stopped working completely.  I could still view the score, but it wouldn’t alert.  Removed completely, reinstalled, no change.  I switched to Yahoo’s Sportacular, an oddly named and somewhat ugly app that nevertheless worked quite well for updates.  However, the Sabres released their own official app yesterday, so I gave it a whirl with the Yahoo app still installed to easily compare and contrast.

    Pros for the Sabres Official App:

    • Integrates video, media and news from Sabres.com
    • Scoring alerts include details like who got the goal/assists
    • Alerts came just before or simultaneously with the Yahoo! app
    • Many helpful extras, such as a map of FNC, a map of parking options around FNC, and special promotions for tickets or at the Sabres store

    Pros for Yahoo! Sportacular:

    • Yahoo! blog integration (Puck Daddy)
    • Other sports available

    I found myself uninstalling Sportacular in pretty short order.  If I was a big fan of another sp0rt, I might want to stick with the Yahoo! app, but I don’t need the Bills score that badly, and they only overlap part of the Sabres season anyway.  I hope future releases can pretty up the Sabres app a bit, and possibly make some of the menu choices bigger or easier to click on for those of us on phones with a smaller screen, but I was very happy with the experience using it last night.

  • Gameday 2011-2012 – Stars at Sabres

    It’s a game night tonight, and a good time to get back in the bloggin’ swing.  There’s actual positive stuff that’s happened, and I got to see some of it.  Even though I had to put up with NBC Sports Network and their love of the Bruins.  The Stars come to town tonight, and my favorite stat of the say (from Mike Heika I believe) is that Dallas is 0-8-1 on the back end of a back to back set of games, of which this is one.  Pretty good odds Buffalo extends their home winning ways.  Thomas Vanek should be back, with Luke Adam the most likely to sit.  I agree with the Twitter consensus that if he’s not going to play, let him get his minutes with the Amerks.  Get straight, and come back when the next inevitable injury occurs.

    7:30pm tonight.  I’ll be radio only.

  • Beatings Literal and Figurative

    The Buffalo Sabres beat the Boston Bruins.  Badly.  They tried two goalies, both of who allowed 3 goals.  The Bruins took a bunch of stupid penalties.  When they couldn’t solve Ryan Miller, they tried to get dirty.  That didn’t work, either.  Buffalo stood in and took the physical pounding, and won the game.  My positives:

    Ville Leino.  What a game he had last night.  He’s a puck possession beast, and we might finally be seeing what we hoped to see from him.  Great fun watching him right now.

    Patrick Kaleta.  That was about as close to a perfect Kaleta game as we’ve seen in a long time.  Scored, fought (well, mostly held on for dear life), and was a prime agitator.  Bruins were after him all night, including Chara trying to elbow him in the head.  This is what we expect when he’s in the lineup.

    Ryan Miller.  His stellar goaltending performance could almost get lost in the shuffle, with all of the other stuff going on.  But we won’t let it, because it was awesome.  It seemed like there were long stretches where he wasn’t challenged, but he made 36 saves anyway.

    Tyler Ennis.  The only guy above 50% at the faceoff dot (other than Luke Adam’s single faceoff win), he had a goal and an assist to boot.

    Negatives:

    The officiating.  I think that the Boston goal probably should’ve counted, that was a reputation call based on the previous games in this series.  I’m glad it didn’t count, though.  The refs also didn’t seem to have a good feel for the rough stuff and how to control it.

    NBC Sports Network.  I love Doc Emrick, so I don’t think it’s his fault, but it seemed as if the broadcast and studio show were ready with all sorts of stats and facts and video to show how awesome the Bruins are…and had no idea what to do when the Sabres dominated them.  Milbury was an idiot again (no surprise), and as mentioned on Twitter last night, I find it really funny that someone who once beat a fan with a shoe would think that someone fighting on the ice with a visor on is some terrible person.

    What’s next:

    Buffalo currently sits 9 points back of Ottawa for the eighth and final playoff spot in the East, but they have to leapfrog a few other teams to get there.  The Senators have lost seven straight, though, so a run by the Sabres now might just get them back into contention.  Still, I think the focus should be on getting past the Islanders (who they are tied with) and Winnipeg (4 points up).  Then we’ll talk about 8th place.

  • Hitting the reset button

    I’ve been quiet for a while, and for good reason.  Beyond hitting FNC for one of the viewing parties, an NBCSN game, and a grainy feed here and there, I haven’t seen the Sabres much at all in the past few weeks.  I don’t feel right commenting on the play of the team or individual players when my sample size is this small.  But I’m still a fan, and I follow what I can.  I’m using this break to wipe the slate clean, as it were.  No bad feelings from stupid losing streaks.  I want the team to make the playoffs, as they seem to think they still can, and if not, making some deals to be better next year is A-OK by me, too.  I don’t think this team is really this bad, but there’s been injuries (with particularly poor timing), lack of chemistry and good players having bad years.  I don’t see any reason to go nuclear.  Move who you can, get who you can fit under the cap, and let’s go.

  • Gameday 2011-2012 – Sabres at Hurricanes

    We get Tyler Myers back tonight!  For a guy who had struggled as much as he did before getting hurt, I’m pretty excited to see him tonight.  Even when not scoring, he should be an upgrade in front of Miller.  In beating Edmonton last game, Buffalo FINALLY scored more than two goals, something they’d only done once in the previous seven games.

    The news that Ruff plans to play Miller more here on out is not really surprising.  When Enroth started to struggle just as much as Ryan, there really is no downside to seeing if more PT helps Miller get rolling.  He can always go back to the Schedule later if it doesn’t help. *shrug*

    I am 80% certain I’ll be attending the viewing party at FNC tonight, with one or two of my kids.  Should be fun, even if my son is just in it for the hot dogs and popcorn.

  • What constitutes a ‘Blockbuster’ trade?

    [poll id=”6″]

    Just what it says.  Would you consider it a ‘blockbuster’ deal if, say, Roy and a pick went to Anaheim for one of the big three names bandied about?  Would that be enough to shake up the team, in your mind?  Or do multiple core guys need to go?  Not sure where I am on this scale.

  • Duck Season

    Much more exciting than the Sabres’ recent games, at least for fans, is the fact that the GM of the Ducks has declared their roster open for business, with only Selanne and Koivu off limits.  They’ve already tried a coaching change, and are still only 1 point away from being the worst team in the NHL, so now it’s roster shakeup time.  We’ve talked about Bobby Ryan before (blast from the past there – remember when Kaberle had trade value?) and Ryan Getzlaf would be the center everyone dreams of.  That’s not even mentioning Corey Perry.  And hey, maybe we could get Toni Lydman back.  That would be kind of fun.

    Interesting that Bob Murray wants ‘core players’ in return for his core players if he trades them, not picks or prospects.  That creates an atmosphere where an actual blockbuster trade might really happen.  As for who can go from the Sabres…well, I’ve had ‘Untouchables’ the past few years, but not anymore.  There are two players I would be upset over if they got traded, Myers and Vanek, but if Darcy got a good return, I could probably be brought over to his side.  I just don’t think you trade your best goal-scorer when goal-scoring has been a problem at times.  I like a lot of the other guys, but I like a lot of the Ducks too.  There’s never been a better time for a roster shake-up.  Get it done, Darcy

  • Woo, I guess

    Seems like the Sabres won last night.  They even got some secondary scoring from Gerbe and Stafford.  Huh.  Wish I had seen it.  In the battle of two banged-up teams, the one that hadn’t travelled from Long Island to Chicago to Buffalo for 3 in 4 won.  Amazing.  It would be just like this team to start winning during a stretch where a good portion of people can’t easily see them.

    Bright spots would be Stafford (1G 2A), Gerbe (1G 1A) as above, and I’d toss in Brayden McNabb who picked up two assists.  Buffalo is 4 points out of 7th in the East with that win.

    By the way, the Edmonton media is a bunch of whiny annoying bitches.  Whether declaring that Kaleta is worse than Matt Cooke, or lamenting a quiet arena on a weekday for an underachieving team with a Western opponent, they all came off as super lame last night.  Cover the game, man.