A couple of interesting Youtubes featuring Sabres prospects surfaced this weekend. First, we direct you to Corey Tropp (drafted by the Sabres in the 3rd round of the 2007 Draft). Tropp clubbed a Michigan player during the Michigan State/Michigan game over the weekend.
Second Youtube comes from a Lethbridge/Medicine Hat game featuring first round selection Tyler Ennis. Ennis is the one you see throwing his stick at Lethbridge player Kyle Beach admiring his empty netter:
The Sabres travel to Edmonton for the first time since 2006. A lot has happened since 2006 for both of these teams. The major one though is Kevin Lowe. We all remember Lowe very well as the GM who tried to steal Vanek away from us, forcing us to pay way too much money for him. Honestly, can we thank him now? Is anyone taking a look at the three signings we could have had that summer and grateful for the one we do have:
Briere: 9 GP, 5 Goals, 9 Points, $888,888.88/point
Drury: 48 GP, 15 Goals, 31 Points, $229,032.25/point
Vanek: 47 GP, 28 Goals, 43 Points, $186,046.51/point
Now it would have never been possible for the Sabres to sign all three of these players at the rates they are at. It would kill their cap and they wouldn’t field a team. But it is nice to see we were force to the right player.
On to the current team, the Sabres head into this game down another defensemen, Tallinder was injured during the Tampa game, so the Sabres bring up Marc Andre Gragnani. Which means that Portland is completely tapped of defensemen themselves. On the Edmonton side, it looks that Sam Gagner is going to miss this game with a bum ankle. The Oilers are in the same position as the Sabres, clinging onto the 6th position in the Western Conference, two points behind the Coyotes in 5th and two points behind the Wild in 9th. The Sabres need to keep winning as the Hurricanes and Panthers are poised to gain ground in the weak Southeast Conference. The Sabres are 6 points behind the Flyers who are in a slump of their own.
Game time is 9pm from Rexall and is on MSG. Seriously it really is.
1st Period
- At least the fanfare behind the AHL All-Star game is not as crazy as it is with the NHL All-Star game. This might actually be an entertaining game instead of people floating. Sort of.
18:49 – First goal scored by the Canadians. Corey Locke from the Houston Aeros scores a nifty goal.
16:17 - Mike Brodeur of the Rochester Americans makes the first save of the game. Hope he enjoyed it.
15:19 – As I said, I hope Brodeur enjoyed it, Planet USA ties the game up at 1.
13:21 – Ok, so I lied, this is like every other All-Star game. Except there isn’t enough scoring. I like though in the intro they showed about every bone crushing hit trying to entice you to watch a bunch of young stars float around.
11:26 – Ryan Vesce from the Worcester Sharks scores for a 2-1 Planet USA lead. This would be Vesce’s first all-star goal. The Worcester Sharks are obviously affiliated with the San Jose Sharks. Hence, the Sharks.
- At least the AHL All-Star game has announcers that call the game. Even the bench reporter is cuter than Chris Simpson on Versus. Hmm…everything could be made better by not being on Versus. Poor Indy Racing League.
9:04 – A goalie actually tried and made a pretty good save. Shocking. Cory Schneider from the Manitoba Moose is actually playing like he wants to win. Must not have been given the memo.
6:47 – Both goalies making good saves as Brodeur on the other end stuffs a 2-1 breakaway. Game is still 2-1 and its been 5 minutes since either team has scored. Something must be wrong here.
4:49 – AHL leading scorer, Alexander Giroux from the Hershey Bears, scores to tie the game at 2. Giroux’s rights belong to the Washington Capitals and Giroux could be a very dangerous player in the NHL. At 6’2, Giroux has a wicked shot.
- AHL sideline reporter is stuttering through her questions now. At least she still looks good.
2:47 – This game is somewhat entertaining due to the fact that these guys look like they actually care. Mike Ryan gets stuffed on a breakaway, shocking. A total of 22 shots so far in the first with only 4 goals. The goalies are making them look bad.
14.3 – Team Canada takes the lead on a Brett Palin shot to finish off the first period. Both goalies, Mike Brodeur and Cory Schneider, played really well to stop 26 of 31 shots on goal.
2nd Period
- Back to game time. The AHL jerseys don’t look half bad. Goalies in net now are Barry Brust and Daniel Larsson. Hopefully they can keep it competitive.
16:50 – Corey Locke scores his second of the night to take Team Canada to 4-2. Poor Brett MacLean has been jipped on two goals tonight. First he was late to tip in the Palin goal and Locke cleaned up the rebound on his initial shot.
15:56 – Bryan Helmer scores his first goal of the season, yes season, for a 5-2 Team Canada lead.
15:32 – Stay in your seats for this one, Mike Ryan scores to cut the Team Canada lead down to 5-3. Was it Ryan that scored on his own net or was it Funk. I honestly can’t remember.
14:30 – For what became a goalie battle in the first is now a scoring fest in the second. There is some defense going on but nothing to write home about. A lack of AHL defense is a sight to see.
Alright, back to real life. There is only so much all-star game a person can watch. Sabres in Calgary tomorrow and actually on TV. More stuff coming tomorrow.
So after taking a week off from blogging due to the fact that my life is just too busy to blog, here are some thoughts from the past week.
- The Sabres always seem to get too much sun while going on the Florida road trip. Usually though, they lose in Sunrise while kicking the crap out of Tampa. This time it was the other way around. Considering the Tampa game was the second game of the two, it makes sense.
- The West coast swing as officially been announced as not on TV. Also, the radio feed is going to seem odd with Rick Jeanneret not being on the mike for the four games. He is being replaced by a trio of announcers: Curt Keilback, Kevin Sylvester, and Paul Hamilton. Keilback I am not familiar with, but Sylvester and Hamilton are somewhat solid picks. Sylvester will grow into the role while Hamilton has the experience calling Niagara games but this will be his first Sabres game.
- Mark Steenhuis and Ken Montour are named players of the week for Offense and Defense. After their performances against Rochester, it should not be surprising. Speaking of Rochester, according to the Democrat and Chronicle, the Knighthawks are expecting Pat O’Toole back in net for them against the Titans. Also, the Wings are expecting Athan Iannucci back this weekend against the Blazers. Both additions will make those teams that much better.
- In other Bandits news, Rich Kilgour has announced that this will be his final season with the Bandits. This comes after being hired by Niagara County Community College as their men’s lacrosse coach. Kilgour has said he will leave the Bandits to focus on recruiting and coaching for NCCC. Best of luck to him and here’s to raising another banner in his honor. His number will most likely be retired next to his brother’s on the Bandits floor.
Bandits/Swarm preview coming later today and most posts coming after that.
The Sabres continued their home winning streak against the Hurricanes on Saturday beating them 3-1. Playing a predictable type of Sabres game, the team ended up holding on to the 3-1 lead by allowing Ryan Miller to do most of the work.
Miller stopped 36 of 37 including a barrage of shots in the third period. It looked that the Sabres just ran out of steam after making the quick stop home from the Midwest. Thankfully, they got off to a quick start. Tim Connolly put in two and Teppo scored his second of the year.
For the Hurricanes, Ray Whitney scored 17 seconds in the third on the typical Miller softie to ruin the shutout. The Hurricanes have now lost five straight and still sit in 10th position while the Sabres still sit in 7th with 51 points. They are 6 points behind the Flyers and one point ahead of the Penguins.
Unfortunately for the Sabres, not all the news coming out of the game was good. Numminen ended up taking a puck off the face in the middle of the second period. While he took his next shift, he ended up missing the third period and it was announced that he has a fractured jaw and will miss a considerable amount of time. That leaves the Sabres down to six defensemen from the eight they had on the roster at one point. More on that later this week. Next up for the Sabres they head out on the road six games. They will make the Florida Swing and a West Coast Swing before finally coming home February 4th.
It is really hard to write about this Sabres team when of the last two games you have seen a total of twenty minutes of game play. The Sabres are coming off their comeback win against the Stars while the Hurricanes are on a four-game losing streak. Lindy Ruff had this quote about the ‘Canes
"One that's going well or one that's desperate to win a game," Ruff said today at HSBC Arena. "We've got one tonight that's desperate to win a game. We need to exceed that desperation."
This is the first meeting between the Sabres and Hurricanes this season. The Hurricanes are in the 10th spot in the Conference, one point behind 8th place and two points behind the Sabres in 7th place. Both of these teams are desperate for wins and they have both been streaky teams.
The Sabres are now dropping the seven defenseman rotation due to the injury to Andrej Sekera. Sekera will be out for a few weeks due to an ankle injury he suffered against the Stars. Much of the lineup should stay the same with Butler replacing Sekera.
Game time is 7pm at the Bank which has a good history for the Sabres. The Sabres swept the series at home against the Hurricanes last year, beating them 7-1 and 8-1. With the history between these teams, it should be interesting.
The Bandits/Knighthawks game last night was an absolute blowout. The Knighthawks showed they are a bigger mess last night and need something to come together if this team is going to be competitive at all. The Bandits won 23-6 last night at the Bank and the main reason for the collapse by the Knighthawks was just their lack of defense.
This 17 goal difference was the worst loss in Knighthawk history and the 23 goals scored also set a Knighthawk record. For the Bandits, this game does not quite make the record books in goal differential, that is held by the Charlotte Cobras in 1996.
In terms of the offense of this game, the Bandits brought it first and basically all night. Mark Steenhuis was the leader of the offense scoring 8 goals of his own and ending up with 13 points on the night. Steenhuis now leads the league in goals with 15 and points with 25. The secondary scorers also showed up with Vyse scoring 5 times and Sean Greenhalgh scoring his first goal as a Bandit on his way to a hat trick. This Bandits offense is starting to hit its stride after looking somewhat shaky in the first two games. 23 goals is a good way to make your mark on a night. The special teams for the Bandits was good as well, scoring twice shorthanded and also picking up one on the powerplay. For a team that scored 87% of their goals heading into this game on even strength, it is good to see the special teams contribute.
An overlooked part of a 23 goal game was how well Ken Montour played. Mike Thompson was supposed to start the game last night, but was not feeling well with a case of the flu. So Montour stepped in and looked amazing again allowing 6 goals on 54 shots. Even though Kilgour has said that he will use a goalie rotation, you would have to think that Montour has the hold on the starting job as of now with as well as he has been playing. For the season, Montour has a 6.00 GAA with an .871 SV% which leads the league. The Bandit defense themselves played really well in the first half when the game was still close allowing only three goals per half. Gary Gait was shut out of the score sheet only registering three assists on the night.
For the Knighthawks, nothing looked good and the defense ended up quitting towards the end of the 4th quarter. Shawn Evans was the major player for the Hawks all night. Evans scored three goals, assisted on another, and then drew a fighting major out of Brandon Francis by turtling, and then actually dropping the gloves with Ian Llord. Evans ended up drawing an aggressor penalty which then drew the game misconduct. The Hawks were outmanned physically all night, getting beat up and outworked on the floor. When they did draw penalties though, they were able to capitalize on them, going 4 for 10 on the powerplay. Although, they also gave up two shorthanded goals as well.
If I were a Knighthawk fan, one thing I could take out of this game was if Pat O’Toole was in this game, it would not have been this out of control. Derek Collins and Phil Wetherup looked very, very average out there. Their defense did them no favors, but they also gave up some very weak goals on the floor as well. When O’Toole comes back, this team will be more dangerous, but they will also be out of the playoff hunt. Next up for the Knighthawks is a cross country flight to play the San Jose Stealth on Sunday. The Stealth are weak themselves so this could be a good rebound game for the Hawks. For Buffalo, it is a three game road trip that starts on Thursday against the Minnesota Swarm and then on Saturday against the Edmonton Rush. The Bandits need to keep playing the type of game that they are playing right now and also need to keep playing as a team and they will be a very hard team to beat.
