NHL analysis

Major Additions: Jocelyn Thibeault

Major Subtractions: Daniel Briere, Chris Drury, Dainius Zubrus, Ty Conklin, Martin Biron*

Analysis

Yes, Biron was lost a year ago, not over this summer. However, the first full season for the Sabres without him will place additional pressure on Ryan Miller. While he seems more than capable of handling that pressure, this team now lacks a fail-safe in goal should Miller be injured.

Of course the loss of co-captains and offensive leaders Drury and Briere remain the most obvious change, though the Sabres are perhaps the one team in the league that is well-suited to handle such losses without missing a step. Obviously the team has taken a step backwards, and it’s anyone’s guess how players like Thomas Vanek, Derek Roy and Maxim Afinogenov will handle the pressure of being the main show instead of the supporting cast. No one doubts the farm team can fill the ranks with capable players, but leadership on and off the ice now falls squarely on the shoulders of players without much experience in such roles.

Personally, I barely see this team slowing down, let alone stumbling. Think back to the days just after the lockout, when Buffalo chose to ice what was then considered a weak, inexperienced, sub-par roster because of their unwillingness to spend up to the salary cap. Sure worked out well for the team. There’s a reason that Lindy Ruff is the longest-serving coach in the league, and those predicting a big fall from the Sabres are about to discover what that is.

Ah, the rematch from last year’s playoffs everyone’s been hoping for.  The Sabres have been involved in one easy and boring series versus the Islanders and one surprisingly tough and fun to watch series versus the Rangers, while the Senators mopped up the Penguins faster than almost anyone predicted then eliminated the Devils just as quickly.  The Sabres are the better team on paper and unlike the Sens, they’ve been receiving offence from all throughout their lineup, but we’ve yet to see the A game out of Buffalo, and that will need to change.  On the flip side, the Senators have been churning along due pretty much exclusively to their big guns.

The Sabres will win if their big names can pace the Spezza-Heatley-Alfredsson line, as it’s all but assured the 2nd, 3rd and 4th lines will tilt heavily in favour of the Sabres.  Ryan Miller needs to be good but not necessarily perfect, since the Sabres are going to be just fine if these games turn into shootouts (shootouts as in high-scoring affairs, not actual shootouts).

The Senators need their role players to start performing and they need their top line to dominate, something that will not be easy, no matter who they’re matched up against.  They also need Ray Emery to steal a game or two.  Although the Sens are usually more than happy with high-scoring games, they need to be successful in keeping these games close and tight.  They also need to get off to a good start, because the Sabres so far have been something of a slumbering beast.  When they wake up…

I’ve gone back and forth on this one but I have to go with the Senators.  The Sabres just haven’t looked like the desperate, hungry hockey team that I’ve been looking for.  The Senators, on the other hand, have.  That being said, it’s likely to be a close series, and likely one of the most entertaining to watch, to boot.  The longer the series goes, the more in the air the outcome will be, because as I mentioned earlier, the Sabres still haven’t really woken up and when they do, lookout.

My prediction: Senators in 6

Here are things I’ve noticed about each of the remaining 8 teams:

Buffalo Sabres: Strong, fast, deep, talented - but not very tough.  The Sabres don’t have a particularly gritty team, and the insertion of Tim Connolly onto the fourth line (while obviously the right decision) has only added to that.  I just can’t see the Sabres lasting against a team like San Jose or Anaheim if they were to make the finals.  That being said, I wouldn’t want to be the team to face them or tell them that.

New York Rangers: Just not good enough to beat the Sabre (not that anyone is surprised).  While Henrik Lundqvist has been excellent, and Jaromir Jagr looks like he’s out to prove something, the defence and the second, third and fourth lines simply lack the skill to skate with their opponents.  This is not to say that the Rangers can’t win.  But they’ll have to be very, very patient if they wish to do so.

New Jersey Devils: The Devils are a team that just wins.  Of course it starts with Brodeur, but it continues with everyone from Scott Gomez (10 assists so far in the playoffs) on down.  That being said, they needed overtime to salvage a slit of their opening two home games against the Senators.  As long as Ray Emery can continue to remain within spitting distance of Brodeur’s play, the Devils will be hard pressed to lengthen this series, let alone win it.

Ottawa Senators: So far, the Sens look determined to break their reputation as playoff chokers.  For how long?  They may still fall apart, but it won’t be happening anytime soon.  They still could have used Gary Roberts, but maybe, just maybe, they’ll make do without him.  If I didn’t know any better I’d swear Mike Comrie was playing for a new contract…

Detroit Red Wings: Very nearly went down 2-0 heading to San Jose.  Detroit may just have their hands full with a bigger, faster, strong Sharks team.  The good news is Pavel Datsyuk is playing up to his new contract, Hasek remains one of the best, and the Wings got past the first round.

San Jose Sharks: My current pick for “team to beat” remaining in the playoffs.  The Sharks forwards are so big, so tough, so mean, and so all around goooood it’s almost scary.  Craig Rivet was worth the first round pick the Sharks gave up after all.  And maybe the Sharks should be moving Toskala instead of Nabokov.

Anaheim Ducks: The third and fourth liners are hardly playing.  That’s both the best and worst thing the Ducks could hope for here.  The Ducks have some of the best players in the league on their top two lines and defence pairs, but the rest of their line up is somewhat weaker than that of their opponents.  In long games and long series’, that is potentially worrisome.  Do they have the stamina if they’re only playing half their roster?

Vancouver Canucks: Managed to split the games in Anaheim (which I didn’t think they would) but then dropped game three in Vancouver.  They certainly can’t afford to drop game four, and I’m not sure winning it would be enough, either.  However, I have to give the team credit - how different would the situation be if they hadn’t suffered the injuries to their blueline?

Key players for Buffalo: Ryan Miller, Tim Connolly, Brian Campbell

Key players for New York: Henrik Lundqvist, Sean Avery, Marek Malik

Analysis: The Sabres at first glance seem the obvious favourites, but the Rangers have been one of the better teams since the All-Star break and should cause troubles for Buffalo.  Sean Avery is proving to be the best rental player acquired at the deadline so far.  Lundqvist continues to be among the league’s elite.

The Rangers big weak point is on the blueline.  They have several big, lumbering defencemen, led by Marek Malik, who are likely to be exposed by the fast, skilled, deep forwards of the Sabres.  On the flip side, I’m not convinced the Sabres blueline can handle the likes of Jagr, Nylander and Straka if the series goes longer than a few games.  That will put increased pressure on Ryan Miller, though he should be up to the task.

I have to lean in favour of of the Sabres here, and I doubt it would even be close.  Lundqvist will likely steal a game or two for the Rangers, but unless they absolutely dominate the Sabres on special teams - which is possible if unlikely - the Rangers will be packing their bags pretty darned quick.

Prediction: Sabres in 6

Key players for NY Islanders: Ryan Smyth, Alexei Yashin, Rick DiPietro

Key players for Buffalo: Thomas Vanek, Ryan Miller, Chris Drury

Analysis: Considered the most lopsided matchup by almost all the experts, I can’t find that I disagree. The Sabres outscore their opponents by almost a full goal per game, while the Islanders barely managed to score more goals than they allowed over the season. The Islanders also barely squeaked into the playoffs despite playing in a much easier division than the Sabres.

There are a few things to watch for on the Islanders side, however. First, the Sabres have very ordinary special teams this year. While referees typically swallow their whistles in the post season, the power play and penalty kill could be Buffalo’s Achilles’ Heel. The Islanders can’t hope to keep up with the Sabres 5 on 5, so they will have to absolutely dominate special teams play to have a chance.

The other factor to keep a watch for is the return of Rick DiPietro. Should he return then the Islanders could steal a few games. While “Dubie” has played very well of late, it would be quite a stretch to count on him shutting down the powerful Sabres’ offence for long.

The longer this series goes, the more the Islanders will surprise everyone. Brendan Witt and Sean Hill will lead the charge in wearing down the Sabres; look for small scrums, shoving and a few hacks after every single whistle. The Sabres cannot afford to get caught up in a long, physical series against the Islanders if they have hopes of a long run.

Prediction: Sabres in five games

The Buffalo Sabres have started to show a disturbing trend, namely blowing third period leads. From Buffalo News:

The Sabres have lost four of six, and they had a one-goal lead in the final 20 minutes of three of them. In the other loss, Montreal snapped a tie with 2:53 to go.

Are the Sabres nervous? Tentative? Less desperate than the opponent? Victims of tough luck? Unable to shrug things off?

The answer is yes to all of the above.

It is particularly interesting in Buffalo because the Sabres started the season as a team that caused this sort of problem for other teams. The Sabres have won 12 games when their opponent scores first, good for third best in the league. Their current slide is bad enough, but it’s a disconcerting, at best, to consistently throw away leads late in games.

The Sabres won two games in a row in front of Martin Biron, but still went back to Ryan Miller, who has struggled since around the All-Star break. Though I don’t think it’s fair to blame the slide on Miller, it is true that he has not been as solid as Buffalo would like. It’s also true that Biron made the most of his chances. This could help raise his trade value, but it also makes dealing him a tough choice to make. If Miller doesn’t improve his game before the trade deadline, can the Buffalo organization maintain confidence in their young netminder? Not trading Biron will certainly mean losing him for nothing in the summer, but moving him now could substantially hurt their playoff chances.

Considering that one of Chris Dury and Daniel Briere - and possibly both - will be signing elsewhere this summer, I would say the Sabres cannot afford to lose Biron for nothing. Miller is a good young goalie and he has shown excellent composure in his young career. Look for the Sabres to move Biron, but also look for them to acquire a veteran to fill his spot (though not necessarily in the same trade).

The final score of 7-4 is very misleading, including as it does 2 short-handed empty net goals at the end of the period. Shots favoured the Leafs 36-29, and Ryan Miller was forced to make a number of key saves in the third period.

It was a very fun game to watch, if a little odd. Toronto jumped out to an early lead on a pair of goals scored on 5-on-3 power plays, after which TSN flashed the stats: Buffalo has already won 6 games this year after going down by 2 goals. Better make that 7 games. They just don’t stop coming at you, no matter what happens.

I hope someone grabbed the puck that Michael Ryan put into his own net. That was Ryan’s first NHL game, and you could see the heart-break in his posture after he put it by Miller. Assuming he sticks in the league, someone should wait for him to score his first real goal and present him with tonight’s puck along with that one. Maybe the win tonight will be enough to let him laugh about it.

The good news for the Leafs is so far against Buffalo this year, they’ve got a convincing win and a loss that easily could have gone the other way. This game was that close. While the Leafs certainly didn’t outplay the speedy Sabres, they skated with the best, the fastest team in the league for the entire 60 minutes. Not what we were supposed to be saying a quarter of the way into the season about the Leafs.

Matthew Stajan had a great game. He played over 18 minutes, was strong on the puck, and created numerous chances for himself. I like the way Jeff O’Neill has played this year, but I’m afraid he may be the deadweight on that second line. Alexander Steen is oh-so-close to breaking out. You can see it in the way he skates and dipsey-doodles with the puck. It’s funny. I’m not used to seeing a young kid looking so confident with only a single goal - especially with expectations so high this year. I liked Steen last year but I’m finally starting to get a sense of why JFJ reportedly refused to include Steen in a trade for Chris Pronger.

The Leafs can’t get Mats Sundin back fast enough. Michael Peca has been more than worth his $2.5 million salary this year, but he’s just not a clutch-scorer anymore. Late in the game, pressing for a tying goal, he’s just not who I want out there. Kyle Wellwood, Nikolai Antropov, Alexei Ponikarovsky, Stajan, Steen, even Tomas Kaberle and Bryan McCabe - all great players, all have shown the capacity to score. Not one comes even close to the dominant play of the Leaf’s captain. Given the closeness of the game - if not the score - the Leafs performed well enough for me to say that Sundin’s presence in the lineup could easily have been enough to tilt the scale in favour of the Buds.

If they can play like this every night, they will earn themselves home-ice advantage in the first round. Upcoming games against the Washington Capitals and Boston Bruins are four very winnable points. But neither team will hand them over. We need to see more nights of 60-minute of effort like this.

This entry could also be titled “Teams To Watch Out For.”

Early in the season, as usual, some teams are surprising everyone with their speed - or lack thereof - out of the gate.  Here are a few notes about a few of the surprising teams, and about teams that should become surprising in the near future.

Buffalo Sabres: Due for a slip-up anytime now.  Just don’t tell that to the Philadelphia Flyers, who got hammered 9-1 tonight.  The Sabres have had a very easy scheudle so far but that looks to change soon enough.  While it is still very early for stats to tell us much, the Sabres are the team that is overachieving the most so far, based on their schedule difficulty (past and future) and their success.

Detroit Red Wings: Add the goals the Wings have scored to the shots they’ve taken, take away the shots they’ve allowed and the goals they’ve allowed, and you get a whopping 81, or 16.2 per game.  Even when they’re losing, they’re outplaying their opponents.  They deserve to be doing better than they are (at least until Hasek hurts his groin).

Pittsburgh Penguins: The opposite end of the spectrum.  The same calculations as with Detroit yields an average of minus-15.25.  Ouch.  How long can Marc-Andre Fleury hold this team together?  And no, Evgeni Malkin is not the answer.  Still too many question marks on this team for them to seriously challenge for a playoff position.

Phoenix Coyotes: More bad news for Gretzky and Company.  Assuming every team maintained their current winning percentage, the Coyotes have the most difficult remaining schedule.  Tough break.

Dallas Stars: Here’s a scary one for Pacific Division rivals: The Stars are statistically underperforming so far.  Their first 5 games have been more difficult than the remaining 77 are expected to be.  Yikes.  My money’s still on the Sharks for the division title though.