All Posts

Buffalo (G) Lyon ties Sabres 1976-77 record

Sabres 5 – Islanders 0 (en) The Buffalo Sabres continue their torrid pace by shutting out the New York Islanders as Sabres (G) Lyon tied a Sabres 1976-77 season goaltending record of nine consecutive victories with his second shutout of the season yesterday afternoon.

Buffalo (G) Lyon was penalized in the first period, and if you look on the NHL web site you will see that the NHL “officially” recorded his penalty as a “hooking” infraction, the initial and correct call was “interference”, and as a former goaltender I can assure you how difficult it would be to “hook” someone with your catching glove.

Buffalo announcers for the game were surprised at the interference call on Sabres (G) Lyon with Rob Ray pointing out all the actual interference happening at center ice that does not get called and even Dan Dunlevy chimed in with a sarcastic remark about Sabres (G) Lyon’s vicious interference call.

Head Coach of the Islanders Patrick Roy pulled his goaltender with six and a half minutes remaining in a game when his team was down by three goals, this is a tactic of HC Roy who has his team “practice” 6-on-5 drills and he utilizes this strategy consistently, but to no avail as Buffalo Captain (D) Dahlin scored the empty net with (C) Krebs who has scored four empty net goals this season earned the assist on last night’s empty net score.

The Sabres premier penalty killers staved off all three New York powerplays, and the team as a whole scored five goals for the 14th time this season creating a solid +17 goal differential, and with the win and Boston beating Montreal last night, Buffalo is now in sole possession of third place in the Atlantic Division becoming a playoff contender and not a “wild card”.

The last game of the Buffalo Sabres current five-game road trip ends this Tuesday night in Toronto at 7 pm EST.

Sabres Close Out Canadiens

Sabres 4 – Canadiens 2 (en) Buffalo wingers skated quickly into Montreal’s end and before the Canadiens could react Sabres (RW) Quinn carried the puck into the zone, dished it off to Sabres (LW) Zucker who scored his 11th giving Buffalo a 1-0 lead just 44 seconds into the first period.

With five minutes remaining in the first period and the Canadiens on a power play, Sabres (LW) Malenstyn skated hard down the side along the boards into the Montreal zone fending off his defender and skated across and leapt in front of Montreal’s crease backhanding a beauty into the net for a Buffalo 2-0 lead.

An exciting second period with Buffalo leading 2-0 as a “scramble” ensued in front of the Canadiens net as Sabres rookie (C) Helenius backhanded a shot that Sabres (LW) Benson got his stick on but the puck hit the post, then the other post and as (LW) Benson stayed with the puck he was able to smack it home and Buffalo had itself a 3-0 lead 2:44 into the second period.

Give Montreal credit because they did not cave and responded with a goal a minute and a half later for the 3-1 score and once more for the 3-2 score but with nine and a half minutes remaining in the second period Buffalo (G) Luukkonen became a wall of ice.

During the third period Buffalo (G) Luukkonen became even more frosty as he stopped all nine third period Montreal SOG forcing the Canadiens to pull their goaltender affording Sabres (C) Krebs the opportunity to score the empty net goal for the 4-2 lead and victory.

The Buffalo Sabres travel to Elmont, NY to play the New York Islanders this Saturday afternoon at 1 pm EST in game four of the Sabres five-game road trip.

Road Victory Improves Wild Card Standing

Sabres 5 – Predators 3 (en) Buffalo Sabres rookie (C) Konsta Helenius scored his first goal and earned two assists for his first multi-point game in his second NHL game, additionally, the 19 years old Finnish standout played 17 shifts, blocked a shot, dished out two hits, and took four shots on net.

When Buffalo’s (C) Thompson scored his 26th of the year to increase the Sabres lead to 4-0 four and a half minutes into the second period you could almost hear a funeral dirge for Nashville.

But Nashville’s and former Buffalo (C) O’Reilly channeling his younger self beginning halfway through the second period scored when Nashville had six skaters in Buffalo’s end then assisted on another before scoring again halfway through the third period to get the Predators within one goal of tying the game at 4-3 with 10:30 remaining.

Buffalo (G) Lyon allowed only three goals on 34 Nashville shots earning himself a .912% save percentage while stopping 13 of 14 Predators SOG during the third period to assist in preserving the victory.

The Buffalo Sabres visit the Montreal Canadiens this Thursday evening for game three of the Sabres current five-game road trip at 7 pm EST.

San Jose and Florida goaltenders duke it out

Here along the Lake Last week I wrote about goaltenders fighting decades ago, well history repeats itself as the Panthers continue on a downward spiral away from the playoffs.

Arguably the Panther’s goaltender was doing what he thought was just after watching the Shark’s goaltender leave his crease and attack one of the Panthers skaters who had taken a cheap shot on a Sharks player low into his back giving the San Jose’s netminder justification to jump in the ensuing scrum to go after the offending Panthers player.

Four officials on the ice and one of them could have prevented this as the Florida goaltender had to skate 200 feet to join in the fracas, they seen him coming and allowed it to happen, hopefully neither goaltender was seriously injured.

Buffalo Beaten by officials once more

Sabres 1 – Hurricanes 2 In a nationally televised game the announcers at TNT declared that both teams were playing like this was a playoff game, and it felt like it, but once again officiating has to be involved.

Even though the goonish tactics against our Captain was ridiculous Buffalo’s Captain (D) Dahlin still scored the game’s first goal, the Hurricanes (RW) Svechnikov was whistled for roughing the Sabres Captain no less than three times with our Captain responding only once.

The referees called the first two periods evenly but two minutes into the third period of a 1-1 playoff type game the officials hand the home team a man advantage that the Hurricanes were successful with and then the only other whistle came with three minutes remaining in the game with offsetting penalties, effectively halting Buffalo’s opportunity to pull the goalie until there was little time left to work with.

The Buffalo Sabres continue tonight versus the Predators in Nashville at 8 pm EST as the Sabres play the second game of a back-to-back in what is the second game of a five-game road trip.