Unanswered Again & Again

"Seven unanswered goals."

That is one quote you don't hear a color commentator say all too often as he's calling an ice-hockey game.  Not even when the Sabres embarrassed the Flyers in Buffalo back during the early goings of the '06-'07 season.  Remember when they started 10-0-0 that year?  Their sixth win came against the Flyers.  The Sabres posted six second-period goals that night as they won by a final score of 9-1.  But they only had six consecutive goals that game.  Rick Jeanneret never had a chance to say there were "seven unanswered."  There's a theme this season in Buffalo.  "Unanswered."  From the trampling of Miller in Boston to games like we saw tonight... the theme sticks.

(Al Bello/Getty Images)

Talk about a complete reversal of franchises since those days.  Buffalo took home the President's Trophy that year, finishing a league-best 53-22-7 with 113 points.  The Sabres also led the league with 308 goals scored and a positive sixty-six goal differential.  The Flyers on the other hand finished last in the league with 56 points and a 22-48-12 record.  They netted 214 goals and had a negative eighty-nine goal differential.

"I'm sure that again we'll finish the year around 240 goals."

-Lindy Ruff (Dec. 15, 2011)

Where do we stand now?  While the '11-'12 Sabres are not quite as offbeat as the '06-'07 Flyers, there are all too many similarities.  As of today, the Sabres are 24-27-6 with 54 points.  They have tallied 139 goals through 57 games and carry a negative thirty goal differential.  At this scoring rate, the Sabres are on pace to finish the season with precisely 200 goals.  That would be the franchise's second worst in history behind the '02-'03 season which saw only 190 goals.  While the '06-'07 Flyers may have had a worse record, they finished that season with 214 goals.  Let's put this in a chart for easier comparison.

'06-'07 Flyers '11-'12 Sabres (current) '11-'12 Sabres (proj.)

22-48-12 (56 pts) 24-27-6 (54 pts) 33-38-11 (77 pts)

214 goals 139 goals 200 goals

They key point I'm trying to stress is goal scoring, as seen in the far right column.  If you take out the 6-0 win at home over the Bruins last week, I mean pretend it never even happened, the Sabres have scored 26 goals in their last 17 games.  Allow yours truly to do the math for you.  That's 1.53 goals per game!  Even with a star goaltender (yes I said star) like Ryan Miller defending your cage, a team simply cannot see victories with that low of a scoring rate.  The league-leading GAA by a goaltender as of right now is 1.63 (Brian Elliot - STL).  Sadly 1.53 is less than 1.63; which means we'd still be losing games with Ryan posting numbers as spectacular as Brian Elliot.  Sadly.

“The big thing for us is getting a lead, pushing the other team out of their game.  We haven’t had the edge in the power-play situation in quite some time.  I think if you work hard enough and you draw some penalties, you can push ahead that way.  I think they will.  They always do.  It never stays at one level. You’ll have your weeks where you’re going to score goals.”
-Lindy Ruff (Feb. 10, 2012)

The Sabres had the lead tonight.  First period goals coming from Jason Pominville and Thomas Vanek had them entering the second period with a 2-0 lead.  Things were looking up.  Before tonight, the Sabres were 12-2-4 when leading after one period.  The Flyers were 5-10-1 when trailing after one period.  I actually thought we had ourselves a game.  But the Sabres just couldn't keep it together and "push the other team out of their game" as Lindy mentioned above.  The second period opened the floodgates as the Flyers poured on four goals followed by three more in the third en route to a 7-2 victory.  More salt on an already salty season.  Worst game of the season so far?  Maybe.

Lindy also mentioned power-plays in the above quote.  As expected, the Sabres were given plenty of power-plays from an undisciplined Philadelphia team, but failed to score a goal on six opportunities.  So much for "push[ing] ahead that way", Lindy.  The power-play was atrocious again tonight.  The slumping unit has one goal on twenty-three power-play opportunities (4.3%) over the last nine games.  I apologize for stating the obvious, but no team is going to see any sort of success without goal scoring.  Games aren't won 0-0.  Goals need to be scored.  Yes?

The Sabres currently stand 14th place in the Eastern Conference ahead of Carolina by one point.  Sports Club Stats has their chances of making the playoffs at 0.4%.  In order to have a greater than 50% chance at making the cut this year, the Sabres need to finish at least 17-5-3.  With Pittsburgh in town on Sunday and again on March 30th, along with five more games remaining against the Bruins and Rangers, losing only five contests the rest of the way seems near impossible.

Time to sell off some assets with the trade deadline approaching?  Voice your opinion to me in a comment below, the poll on your right or on Twitter (@DSims3).