The Sabres righted the ship in a big way this weekend, shutting out the Florida Panthers at home and following with a stellar 3-1 win the following day in Winnipeg.
The wins put the Sabres at 3-3-2 on the season and squarely at .500 in points percentage. The latter fact being of particular importance given the absence of Jack Eichel and Evander Kane. Getting out of October at or near .500 was a goal I was personally hoping to see the Sabres achieve. It was looking grim after the third period collapse against Philadelphia that was followed by a lifeless home loss to Minnesota. It’s a shame to think that the team simply needed to stay afloat, especially in a season where the goal prior to training camp was to become a playoff contender, but the timing and impact of those injuries really couldn’t have been much worse.
As November begins the Sabres are yet another week closer to filling out their top six once again and have managed to keep from floating to the bottom of the league standings where making up ground would be nearly impossible.
The play of Anders Nilsson and Robin Lehner had a lot to do with this weekend’s pair of victories. Nilsson’s 33-save performance on Saturday looked much more like the strong performance in Philly than it did the bumpy start against Minnesota. Nilsson again played to his size and controlled the game beautifully. He hasn’t gotten himself in trouble with rebounds this season – a common complaint of his partner, as it would be – as he’s shown an impressive ability to swallow up pucks from nearly any location.
Lehner followed Nilsson with an equally impressive outing that would have been a shutout as well had Buffalo not been victimized by a fortunate bounce off the end boards. Lehner’s play on Sunday was hardly his first strong game of the season. He was steady in Buffalo’s win against Edmonton and he carried that on to Vancouver later in that same road trip. A couple of ugly goals against Calgary and the entire team’s lack of effort against Montreal have skewed his play so far, but I feel confident in saying Lehner has been better than many would have you believe in this young season. Continue reading →
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