Sabres Split Weekend At Home

Tyler Myers stretches before Sunday's game.
(Photo by Bill Wippert/NHLI via Getty Images)

I hope everyone had a fun and safe St. Patrick's Day weekend.  Happy Monday.  The Buffalo Sabres won Saturday's game against the Atlanta Thrashers in style with a very high scoring output scoring eight goals and only allowing two.  They followed that game up with a disappointing loss at the hands of the Nashville Predators in overtime on Sunday.  Although the Sabres took three of a possible four points this weekend, the focus is on that missed fourth point that could come back to bite them in a close Eastern Conference playoff push.

Saturday's game was Buffalo's highest scoring of the season so far.  The last time Buffalo scored eight or more was a 10-2 win at Edmonton on January 27, 2009.  With the offense playing well, Ryan Miller was able to earn his 30th win of the season.  He looked impressive doing it as he stopped 28 of 30 shots and easily stopped a penalty shot attempt making him 12 for 13 on stopping those attempts in his career.  Jason Pominville opened the scoring early with a goal just 24 seconds into the game on a beautiful one-timer pass from Tim Connolly.  Mark Mancari had a goal, one on the power play, and two assists.  Tyler Myers had three assists.  Rob Neidermayer scored twice.  Brad Boyes and Tim Connolly added power play goals to help the Sabres go three for seven with the man advantage.  After Atlanta's second goal about five minutes into the second, everything went downhill for them as Buffalo scored the next five.  Atlanta forward Anthony Stewart was left saying "We pitched a stinker".  After the game I was left hoping that Buffalo saved some goals for tomorrow when they would be facing a much better team in the Predators.

In Sunday's game against Nashville, the Sabres got off to a slow start falling behind by a goal 6:44 into the first.  Buffalo wouldn't score until Nathan Gerbe stuffed home a rebound seven minutes into the second frame.  Tim Connolly responded less than a minute later with a laser-beam from the left circle to the top right corner of the net.  With a minute remaining in the period, Tyler Ennis would add Buffalo's third goal, this one on the power play.  Nashville would take over the scoring from there with two in the final minutes of the third period; both by Blake Geoffrion.  The Nashville rookie completed a hat-trick making him the third NHL rookie to score a hat-trick against the Sabres at home this season.  In his post-game press conference, Lindy Ruff was stunned talking about the mood after in the locker-room saying "When you get up by two, and you've got a couple minutes left and you give up a point, that one really hurts. It was a quiet room walking in there."

Buffalo is now 8-3-3 since Terry Pegula took over the team.  They are 8-8 in overtime this season.  Playoff odds are down 3.1 to 75.1% after the weekend's action.  HSBC Arena now features a number seven painted behind each net in remembrance of the recent loss of Rick Martin.  Both games this weekend were 100% sell outs.  The Sabres will split their remaining ten games with five home and five on the road.  They will next be in action tomorrow to finish off their season series with the Montreal Canadiens with a 7:30pm EDT puck-drop in the Bell Centre.  The Sabres are 2-3-0 in the series.  The game has the potential to bring up playoff odds by 8.1%.  A Senators win over the Hurricanes tomorrow would bring up odds an additional 7.3%.