A Weekend To Forget

By: M. Patton

Baltimore, MD - An embarrassing game Friday night, followed up by another loss on Saturday makes for one weekend the Sabres will want to forget. Coming in to Saturday's game only 3 points up in the conference standings on their opponent, the Sabres were hoping for a performance a lot more inspiring than that on Friday against Minnesota. In the end, the effort was much better and the score was closer but the Sabres, once again, found themselves on the losing end of the scoreboard.

The bright spots of the game were much better skating effort and a barrage of shots. Zubrus, the new guy I referred to last night, finally got his first goal wearing the blue and gold which will hopefully open up the gates for many more. The defensive effort was solid, keeping the New Jersey shot total under 30.

The dark spots were the power play and the inability to finish offensively. The Sabres have had no problems getting shots on goal but the quality of the shots leaves much to be desired and they still cannot seem to capitalize when they do get quality scoring opportunities. The worst missed opportunities were the good scoring set ups that didn't even turn into shots on goal. The Sabres had way too many chances where a player would get a good pass in the slot and proceed to mishandle the puck or fan on it.

The inexcusable stat was Rafalski's game winning goal scored shorthanded with less than a minute left in the second. Once again, the Sabres power play has made a habit of producing more goals for the opposing team with this goal and the late goal in last night's game. It's one thing to have a power play that is ineffective, but it's quite another thing to have one that is counter-productive. This needs to improve, especially in close games like tonight's.

In all, the Sabres squandered a great opportunity to pad their lead in the division, in the conference, and build some momentum going into the final push for home ice, by losing three straight games at home. Now, they must forget about the past three games and hope that their mastery on the road, from the earlier this year, can be reinitialized on Tuesday against a very hot Pittsburgh team.

Lastly, this is no time to panic. We must not forget that this team is, for all intents and purposes, following the same path as last year, and is doing it with a depleted roster. It's not an excuse, and shouldn't be considered as an excuse, but it is a fact that when you compare the rosters from this time last year to this year, this year's roster contains many more Rochester call-ups. So, knowing that Buffalo will only get healthier as the regular season comes to a close, it's not time to start letting the emotions talk, like I have done after the past three games. However, the Sabres should feel a sense of urgency because once again, they are behind the eight ball to not allow a season high 4 game losing streak. We all remember how torturous it was last March when they dropped 8 of 10 in the final push, so let's hope we can avoid that this year, for the sake of all of our mental health.