Sabres embarrassed in Beantown

How many times do you score four times in the first period and lose by three?  Answer, not very often.  The Buffalo Sabres managed to accomplish that unbelievable feat tonight.  Buffalo held a two goal lead twice in the first period but the Bruins scored five unanswered goals to beat Buffalo 7-4.

There was a question as to whether Buffalo could score enough goals with Tim Connolly and Ales Kotalik out of the lineup and it was a resounding yes.  The problem is they can't keep teams off the scoreboard.  Buffalo has allowed at least five goals in each of their last three games, all losses of course.

This game was comedy of errors for the Blue & Gold.  Miller has to take some of the blame for allowing seven goals but the team deserves much more.  The defensemen gave the puck away, they were caught standing around on more than one occasion and they basically left Miller out to dry.  The forwards deserve just as much blame for a lackluster effort.  One goal was scored because Thomas Vanek was too slow on the backcheck and another was scored when Daniel Paille failed to get back in time.

In addition to the terrible defensive play, the Sabres took too many bad penalties.  Adam Mair found himself in the box with a couple of dumb penalties that cost his team.  Andrew Peters and Derek Roy can not be absolved for their penalties either.  Patrick Kaleta got away with a hit on Scott Thorton that should have been called as well.  This team is not good enough to give teams opportunities and that is exactly what they did tonight.

The only good thing that came out of this game was the play of the newly formed top line in the offensive zone.  Jason Pomminville started the scoring early in the game on a pretty feed from Thomas Vanek.  Pominville returned the favor for Vanek in front of the net and Vanek added another goal on the power play.  The move seemed to pay off for Roy as well, he had a goal and an assist in his first game after being demoted from the top line. 

I wish I had more to say but this game has me in a really bad mood.  The only good thing is that Buffalo will be back in action on Friday and better yet...they get another shot at Boston next Wednesday.  All we can hope for is that the team is as embarrassed as the fans are and use it as motivation.