Month: October 2023

Sabres Slay Tampa Bay with Dylan Cozens OT goal

Buffalo wins in overtime beginning a four-game home stand by beating Tampa Bay for the third consecutive meeting between these Eastern Conference teams, but not before Buffalo’s 2016 sixth-round 159^th pick the Lightning’s Mr. Hagel scored twice the second goal tying the game with seven seconds remaining.

Buffalo’s Girgensons opened the scoring by receiving a nifty pass from his center Mr. Jost and even a better pass from defenseman Mr. Power gave Mr. Skinner time and a gapping net to place the puck top shelf where Momma hides the cookies building a two-goal lead.

ESPN FHL

A solid night for the goaltender and with good offense overall Buffalo Winter has earned the third-highest point production after two days for a decent early score this weekly match-up versus the number-one team.

WHAT THE REFS SAW

Nine games were played last night with four home teams winning, the referees whistled 112 penalties resulting in 73 power plays the home team receiving one less at 36-37 with one game garnishing 24 penalties and 13 power plays highlighted by the visitors scoring five special teams (3PP, 2SH) goals.

AROUND THE NHL

The Colorado Avalanche over the past two seasons have tied the NHL record set by the Buffalo Sabres during their 2005-06 and 2006-2007 seasons of 14 consecutive road victories by beating Seattle last night.

Detroit Debut Shut Out & Buffalo Begins Home Stand

For the third time in Red Wings history, once last season and initially in 1953, last night witnessed a goaltender’s first game with Detroit ends in a shut-out.

ESPN FHL

Another sluggish beginning for BW in this week’s match-up versus the East Division leader Team Bailey, I have confidence with Buffalo commencing a four-game home stand tonight, that Thompson, Tuch, and Levi in the net are ready to break open with their first victory of the season.

OUR OFFICIALS

Five games in the NHL last night and the home team won twice with one having to be decided in a shoot-out and the other a close game that saw the visitors awarded a 5-on-3 man advantage and penalty shot but failed both attempts.

The referees whistled 63 penalties (22 in one game) that resulted in 41 power plays favoring the visitors 23 to 18, during the third period of one of the home victories there were 13 penalties at the 20:00 minute mark at the end of the game.

Ironically there were no fights in that game just roughing penalties with five misconducts handed out, and one goalie leaving the crease infraction.

TUESDAY TRIVIA

In last week’s question, “How many Buffalo Sabres have scored 50 or more goals?” the correct answer was four, Ricard Martin (52, 52 consecutively) and Danny Gare (50, 56) both scored 50 or more times twice for the Sabres and Alexander Mogilny (76) and Pat LaFontaine (53) each scored over 50 goals once for Buffalo.

Both Mogilny and LaFontaine also scored over 50 goals one other time in their careers, for Mogilny it was his first season after he left Buffalo for Vancouver (55) and LaFontaine (54) with his original New York team.

You are an Old School Fan if you knew all four right off the bat, and this week’s inquiry is a bit tougher.

AROUND THE NHL

Buffalo endeavors to bottle lightning for the season’s first victory, Seattle with the Avalanche ex-goaltender hosting Colorado, and Dallas in Nevada should be an entertaining forecast of Western Conference playoff hopefuls.

Too two tough tries versus New York teams

Sabres Mr. Benson earns two assists versus the Islanders

Buffalo begins a four-game home stand that should go a long way in reversing this sluggish start with the fourth game hosting the Islanders in our brawny black & red sweaters for repayment.

ESPN FHL

After the first weekly match-up, five teams are undefeated and five teams are winless, fortunately, BW is one of three teams in the East Division to be in the win column.

Two teams have utilized the waiver wire to their advantage in the past two days, notice BW dropped a goaltender keeping one on the roster, perhaps too much trust in these two unproven goalies but it is too early to give up on Mr. Levi.

Referees first week

During the first week of play, there were 41 games and the referees whistled 338 penalties that resulted in 259 power plays with the home team getting 133 (7 more overall) favorable calls and 24 (7 more) victories, a negligible advantage.

The average was 8.2 penalties and 6.3 power plays per game with the home team getting 2.54 power plays versus 2.05 power plays for the visiting team, after one week the home team enjoys a slight advantage in calls.

NHL Tonight

In the first game, all eyes will be on Awesome Matthews to see if he can score his third consecutive Hat Trick versus the Blackhawks.

Two NHL games last night 14 on tap tonight

The Arizona Coyotes won big on the road against a very good New Jersey team in a shoot-out and the Penguins dominated the Capitals with a shut-out in last night’s games.

Honorable Referees

In two games both home teams lost and four referees whistled 24 penalties resulting in 18 power plays with one game favoring the visitors but in that same shoot-out game, the home team enjoyed a 5-on-3 man-advantage which they scored with.

ESPN FHL

Another disappointing goaltending performance but gratefully still ahead by a baker’s dozen worth of points over this week’s opponent and with 28 out of 32 teams playing tonight each team manager could have serious roster decisions to make if most of their players can be inserted into the line-up.

Saturday Hockey

The Sabres play their first road game tonight in Long Island before playing these same Islanders next Saturday in Buffalo and an interesting early-season match-up is tonight’s rematch between the Oilers and the high-flying Canucks.

Buffalo, Columbus, and San Jose drop Home Openers

Here along the Lake last night JJ Peterka scored Buffalo’s first goal of the 2023-24 NHL Season, but too many penalties, not enough shots, and not enough goals coupled with average goaltending produced a loss but the Sabres have 81 more games to redeem themselves.

Minnesota and Nashville earned shutouts, Dallas won in a shootout, Philadelphia and Las Vegas won on the road and New Jersey held off Detroit at home.

Counting on the Refs

In seven games the home teams won four times and in six of those games, the home teams had more power plays as the referees whistled 58 penalties for 46 power plays overall.

NHL ESPN FHL

Despite the negative point production from the goaltender BW still has an eight-point lead for the first weekly match-up, and will play newly acquired goaltender Mr. Schmid in net tonight. BW dropped two Detroit players to acquire New Jersey’s goalie and a productive point producer from Columbus.

NHL Games Today

Arizona visits New Jersey as Pittsburgh invades the capital of the United States of America to subdue Washington.