Sabre Rattling

A Tale of Two Shots

Link: Buffalo News - Biron's glove is golden.

It was the worst of saves.  It was the best of saves.  Two different 3rd periods, same team losing to the same team by one goal.  The same goaltender caught a puck he should have had no business catching.  The only things different were the name of the shooters,  the times on the clock... and, of course, the outcome. 

On Friday, after video review, Ziggy Palffy scored the tying goal to send the game to OT.  On Saturday, Martin Biron caught the puck on the other side of the goal line with less than a minute to play to preserve the Buffalo Sabres sweep of a home and home series with the Pittsburgh Penguins.   

All I want to say about whether Palffy should have been awarded that goal on Friday is that plays like that should be called consistently.  It's been my experience that the Video Review guys are made of different stuff and don't have the stones to regularly make the right call each time.  And the last thing I want to think is that if the teams had been reversed would the same shot have been called a goal.  For what it's worth, I think it was a goal, if only by a half an inch or so.

I did get out to watch both games this weekend.  The wife and I ate some bad food, couldn't hear the game at all (though I always have a version of Rick Jeanneret's call going through my head) and had a complete blast.  Onto the game recaps:

Buffalo vs. Pittsburgh, Friday December 16th

Marc-Andre Fleury kept this game close, especially in the first, with the Pens taking 5 penalties.  In the end, though,  the Sabres power play would prevail, going 3 for 8 on the night, and win them the game in OT.   It was good to see Daniel Briere get a goal after missing 7 games with an abdominal injury (though that's not completely a thing of the past).  But, in the end, this was Chris Drury's best game this season.  3 points including the Game Winning Goal, 7 SOG, nearly 19 minutes TOI and winninng 14 of 21 faceoffs.  Big Al gets a nod as well for his 3 point evening. 

The fourth line of Goose, Scud and JPom  were a blast all night long, embodying Tom Benjamin's idea that hockey is a game of Puck Position (not possession) constantly hemming the Pens in their own zone.  Scud (Adam Mair) recaptured the Sabres grip on this game after the long review of Palffy's tying goal with a devastating lay-out of Sergei Gonchar the shift after the game resumed. 

Points of Interest:

• All four lines have solidified for 90% of the game.  Briere-Connolly-Kotalik, Hecht-Drury-Grier, Vanek-Roy-Afinogenov, Mair-Gaustad-Pominville
• The Road Penalty killing continues to struggle giving up 2 goals.  Hard to find nits to pick with 8 straight road wins... but, there you go.
• Sidney Crosby needs to shut up and play hockey.  He's too talented to resort to trying to play gamesmanship with the refs.  I know it's tough, Sidney... I know you want to win, but not at any cost.  You're not losing because the refs aren't calling the game right... you're losing b/c your teammates suck.

Buffalo vs. Pittsburgh, Saturday December 17th

Unfortunately I walked into this game just as Sidney Crosby put a relative softie past surprise starter Martin Biron.  I missed Scud and Max's goal (hell, I still haven't seen a replay of Scud's goal).  The Sabres were solid at home against a Pens team that was basically beaten before they took the ice.  The Sabres opened up a 4-1 lead after 2 periods.  The only thing I was worried about was taht they were starting to take this game fro granted in the last few minutes of the 2nd period and was happy that they didn't give the Pens life for the 3rd period. 

That happiness lasted all of 24 seconds after the start of the 3rd.  It was obvious that the Sabres were tired and hoping that they could sleepwalk through the period.  It took until about halfway through the period for them to put together a couple of good, positionally dominant shifts.  By then this was a  one-goal game.  One can argue that maybe Biron should have stopped one of the other shots before having to make that big save with his glove, but the truth is that maybe the Drury line could have actually covered someone on the Pens 3rd goal as well.  Holy Bad Rotation, Batman! 

In the end that save by Biron was a statement about his desire to be the #1 guy in Buffalo.  And, frankly, who can argue with him at this point.  We gave Chris Drury a pass early in the season for his lack of production and horrendous +/- because of all of the 'intangibles' he supposedly brought to the table.  Well, let's see, what kind of intangible quality does Biron bring to a team that has won 13 times in a row when he begins the game between the pipes?  Many of those wins were gritty, come-from-behind nail-biters. 

Personal biases towards or against particular players should not enter into our analysis of the situation.  Results are all that matters.  In economics intentions cannot be measured.  That you intended to spend your last $100 on a teeth-cleaning doesn't mean anything when you actually spent that money on a dinner at a fine restaurant.  The results here are clear, this team, for whatever reason is peaking now with and because of Martin Biron.  Changing that for any reason is stupid.  He definately needs a rest sometime this week.  The depleted Flyers look like a good opportunity to get either Miller or Noronen some work.

Ta,

Big Test in Tampa Tonight

My current schedule is making it hard for me to get in here and post more than 2 to 3 times per week.  So, while I would love to jo down all of my thoughts on the game the next morning, sometimes that is simply not possible.

Now back to our regularly scheduled drivel.

The game monday night against Pittsburgh, all homerism aside, was the most entertaining game I've watched this year.  It had everything except a good scrap.  The boys in the AGH sweaters were flying.  It almost seemed like they were playing to show up the national coming-out party for Sid the Kid (who, in some ways, I feel bad for... but he seems to be handling all the attention just fine so far) and Saint Mario.  Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of Mario's, but it's hard not to give him a little grief for the way he's portrayed (an image he does nothing to dispel, either) by the NHL and their new partners OLN. 

If you didn't catch the game, I'm sorry for you, because it was a great time, in spite of Brian Engblom who is flat-out horrible.  It was great to finally not hear him open his mouth during the end of the game as Emrick took over and it finally felt like a professional hockey broadcast and not a fashion show.  Both teams had me out of my chair at least 9 times (and that's not counting trips to the little hockey-addicts-room).  Overtime was spent standing behind my wife and grabbing hte back of the couch with both hands.  It was close to a playoff game in it's intensity.  Marc-Andre Fleury was amazing as were the pipes which frame the edges of his little world. 

The Sabres hit the post at least 5 times.  Thomas Vanek's first post came after a great little play to bank the puck off the endboards and rifle a shot past Fleury's glove.  Had that particular piece of vulcanized rubber gone in that would have to go down as one of the single most creative first career goals ever.  Fleury's stop on his wrap-around attempt late in the thrid period at the end of a long shift was other-worldly.... Hasek-like, if you will.  It was a tremendous effort by Vanek to see the opportunity to win the game late in his shift, when he could have just dumped it in and gone for his scheudled change.  There's a fire in this kid that Satan will never have, and that difference alone makes the substitution of one for the other a win for Buffalo.

Jochen Hecht's game-winner was payback for a similar chance in the first period.  Fitzie had a strong game as well, confidently eliminating people in his own end, pinching when possible (for the game's first goal, most notably) and later seeing the opportunity to lead a rush or two catching the Pittsburgh defenders flat-footed.  Though, to be fair, the rest of the team did a lot of that to the Pens during the game.  This was a game dominated by Buffalo on home ice and one they deserved to win.  The Pens best players were Fleury and Ziggy Palffy, who, for all of the hyperbole surrounding Crosby and Lemieux, made the best passes and created, alomst single-handedly, the Pens best scoring chances.

Tonight's game in Tampa was one I was planning on attending in person but in the end I decided against for work-related reasons.  The Sabres are 3-0 at home.  Great stat.  In 2003-04 they were 8 games over .500 at home and 5 games under on the road.  Had they played better on the road that year, they might have made the playoffs... of course beating the Isles once wouldn't have hurt either.
This is largely the same cast of characters from that year, so let's see how much 'character' this team has.  Winning on the road against a quality opponent like the 'Ning and then against the best goalie in the league on Saturday will go a long way towards dispelling what reservations I still have about this group of players. 

Ta,