The Sabres cruise into Calgary tonight, riding high after that 10-2 crushing of the Oilers last night. Things are probably not going to be as rosy tonight. As we mentioned in the Oilers review, the Sabres are 2-5-2 in the second half of back to back games. That record goes down to 1-4-2 when that second game is on the road. They face a Flames team that has not played since the all-star break and is in a much better position playoffs wise.
The Flames are leading the Northwest division with 60 points, 9 points ahead of the Wild and Oilers. Jarome Iginla is still the face of the organization in Calgary, leading the team with 53 points which is good for 10th overall. Iginla has some good supplemental support with Mike Cammalleri and Daymond Langkow. On the defensive side of things, Dion Phaneuf leads a fairly suspect defense for the Flames. Besides Phaneuf, there are not a lot of big names on the blueline. Robyn Regehr is back there as well as Adrian Aucoin. Both of them have experience but are well past their primes to be a major factor on defense. In goal, Miikka Kiprusoff should be in net for the Flames just because there really is no other option for them.
The Sabres may be without Adam Mair tonight as he suffered a cut while blocking a shot last night. Do not be surprise to see Lalime in net tonight though it will be a long shot at best. I would expect to see him some time on this road trip, most likely in Phoenix.
Game time is 8 pm on MSG. Your announcers for tonight are going to be the TSN crew which may just be Gord Miller as play by play and Pierre McGuire between the glass. Nothing is more annoying than Pierre McGuire, except for maybe fingernails on a chalkboard but thats about it. At least we get to hear the Hockey Theme again.
As a note, while perusing the TSN website looking for the announcing crew, I came across this clip of Drew Stafford being pestered about the pigeon. Somewhat entertaining but TSN doesn’t have embedding capability so here is the link.
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