Sabres 3 – Hurricanes 6 (en x2) Buffalo’s (D) Power scored his second of the season to tie the game at one during the first period, and both (C) Thompson and (RW) Tuch each scored their sixth of the season to get the Sabres within one at 4-3 early in the third period, but Carolina finished with two empty net goals for the 6-3 win.
Game Two of Buffalo’s five-game road trip is not until Wednesday night at 9 pm versus the Utah Mammoth a team the Sabres are playing twice this season and the two games are within eight days of each other, Buffalo dropped the initial meeting in overtime on the 4th of November.
Sabres 0 – Blues 3 (en) Buffalo played a decent game with enough shots to win and killed off both St. Louis power plays but getting tagged in the first period with a shorthanded goal by St. Louis hurt, going forward the Sabres continued to increase their shots on goal each period, alas to no avail as it was the Blues that scored in the second period for the 2-0 lead.
As the game was winding down and the goaltender pulled the St. Louis Blues scored with 62 seconds remaining in the game for the 3-0 lead and the win.
Buffalo begins a four-game road trip tomorrow night versus the Carolina Hurricanes then three days off until playing the last three games in four nights.
Sabres 1 – Mammoth 2 (OT) Buffalo gets beat in overtime for the fourth time in the previous five games, I know the Sabres are earning points and I am grateful that Buffalo is above 500%, but last night’s shot output effort was paltry at best.
In net, (G) Lyon was fantastic earning a .943% save percentage while stopping 33 of 34 regulation shots giving Buffalo a great opportunity to win the game but getting outshot 15-5 during the second period and 12-3 during the third period is not going to get the job done.
Sabres Swedish (C) Ostlund scored his first NHL goal in his fifth game this season in what could be a preview of plenty more goals to come, especially with the line of Ostlund, Quinn, and Rosen.
The Sabres host the Blues Thursday night at 7 pm for the last of this three-game home stand before embarking on a four-game road trip.
After four weekly matchups there is one undefeated team followed by three 3-1 teams including yours truly, it is too early to predict playoff seedings, yet ESPN FHL does and again I sit with an incredibly low 10% chance of making the playoffs and the winless team has more of a percentage chance to make the playoffs than me.
In the West there are three playoff contenders, and in the East, there seems to be just one team earning a playoff seeding.
This week’s matchup I am pitted against asher1961-1, my division rival/leader the one undefeated team in our league that I can share first place in our division with if I win this current weekly matchup.
Goaltenders Use Them or Not
Here is one team manager that has four goaltenders on the roster, and all four of them were starting which creates the pressure of which two would not play and hoping the two that are played win and collect positive points.
As you can see the team manager had two goaltenders producing negative points, as we know, goalies are a high-risk, high-reward type of player, for myself I avoid them all together.
Today’s Transactions
Three team managers including myself made at least one transaction today where Mike’s Magnificent Team made six moves in four minutes, probably well thought out before coming online and purging non-productive players.
Remember to check your roster daily before first face off so as to get every eligible player on the roster into the line-up, also the waiver wire can possibly provide more productive players for your team, so take the time to build a watch list and maintain that daily as well to watch trending players.
Sabres 4 – Capitals 3 (SO) I had to answer the door right after the National Anthems and when I sat down to watch the game less than three minutes after opening faceoff, it was 2-1 Capitals.
For the fourth consecutive game Buffalo had to play in overtime and this time it was pushed to a shootout and after each team had five opportunities the Sabres (D) Byram scores the only shootout goal on Buffalo’s fifth attempt for the win.
Buffalo has now beaten Washington 100 times during the regular season, last night (C) Thompson and (RW) Tuch each scored their fifth goal of the season and (RW) Rosen scored his first NHL goal with (D) Byram sealing the victory with his shootout goal.
The Sabres will play their second game of this three-game homestand Wednesday night at 7 pm versus the Utah Mammoth.
Buffalo Winter 