Sabres fall in Chi-Town

For an opposing perspective: Second City Hockey

I woke up this morning and I still have a sour taste in my mouth.  It may be from my bout with the flu but more than likely it was the pathetic display of hockey put forth by the Sabres.  It has been a frustrating year and a half of hockey but it culminated with three shots on a six minute power play.  Yep you read that right.  The Sabres had three shots on a six minute power play.

It's pretty obvious that this team is not confident in their ability to play hockey.  They played pretty good hockey for 20 minutes than it started to crumble.  Buffalo took a 1-0 lead on a goal by Ales Kotalik and seemed to be rolling at that point.  The Blackhawks scored twice to take a 2-1 lead on a couple of bad bounces.  The first two goals the Hawks scored would not be considered highlight reel goals, although one would argue that good teams find ways to score those type of goals.

After what I would consider a pretty good 20 minutes the Sabres came out flat in the second.  They were out-worked for just about every loose puck and than came the pathetic display of a power play.  When was the last time the Sabres had a good power play?  I'll tell you when...it was when Scott Arniel was coaching the power play.  Brian McCutcheon has never been a good power play coach and yet he continues to coach the power play.  If you head over to Buffalo Rumblings, you'll find plenty of people that are calling for the head of Turk Schonert and yet we never hear anything about the assistant coaches in hockey.

Key Stats

• Sabres were 0-for-7 on the power play and managed a total of three shots on goal.
• The Sabres managed only 23 shots-on-goal...just one more than their 22 against the Red Wings on Saturday night.
• The Sabres have scored just one goal in each of their last three games.  They scored first in the last two games, both losses.
• The line of Hecht-Connolly-Pominville was a minus two in the game.
• The Sabres actually held the face-off advantage in the game 26-25.  They were led by Derek Roy who won 11-of-18.

Roll Call

It never fails that when I'm in the room it is a slow night.  In fairness to everyone else, I didn't hold up my end of the bargain because of a pounding headache.  Thanks to those that did comment and hopefully tonight will be a better showing.

Roll Call: BenAllen, D.O., stopplayinglikesissies, Joan O., qdloser, JonHaven
Total Users: 6
Total Posts: 35

Up Next

There is no time to sulk about the loss to Chicago on Wednesday because the Sabres are right back at it.  It's been almost 10 years since the "NO GOAL" game but it always comes up when these two teams meet.  It's great that just yesterday SB Nation has added a Stars blog to the mix of hockey blogs.  Oh yeah and there may be another new hockey blog really soon too.  But make sure to head over to Defending Big D and let them know who is going to win tonight.  Just be nice because we have a reputation to uphold.

You make the Call

Second City Hockey is claiming that the hit delivered by Drew Stafford was an elbow and a dirty hit.  Obviously we are a bit biased here but you make the call...was it dirty?

Please vote in the poll but also comment so we get an idea of your reasoning for voting the way uou did.  In my opinion it was not a dirty hit at all.  It didn't look like he brought his elbow up, it looked like Keith was skating with his head down and hunched over which allowed the head contact.