Buffalo Sabres Stand Up for Ryan Miller Against the Nashville Predators

Ryan Miller is once again standing between the pipes for the Buffalo Sabres. Let's recap what caused the injury again: Milan Lucic hits Ryan Miller when came far out of net to play the puck. The hit involved a collision with Miller's head. Miller hit the ice hard, and ended up with a neck injury.

           

So of course when he returned for his first game back in Nashville nothing bad would happen, right? Wrong. Predator's forward Jordin Tootoo decided to jump in the air while going hard to the net, and collided with Miller again. At least this time the players reacted properly: Miller immediately got on top of Tootoo and started punching him with a gloved hand. A pileup resulted on top of them, with everyone wanting a piece of Tootoo. When they finally got back to their feet Sabres forward Paul Gaustad tried to fight off a referee to go back after Tootoo.

           

But the greatest difference from the last incident? When he was being skated to the bench, Paul Gaustad could be seen yelling at Nashville goaltender Anders Lindback, presumably threats about retaliation. Rightfully so, Tootoo was given a five minute major for charging and was thrown out of the game. Gaustad was given a double minor plus ten more for his actions, but ended up leaving the game with an upper body injury.

           

Tootoo was supposed to meet with Brendan Shanahan on Monday, but there isn't any news yet on any action that may be taken.

           

Take a look for yourself, is a suspension deserved?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKIf3aYmBoA

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The Buffalo Sabres are still plagued by an endless number of injuries. Added to the list now from the last game are centers Paul Gaustad and Jhochen Hecht. Both suffered upper body injuries, with Gaustad out indefinitely and Hecht labeled day-to-day.

           

In lighter news, Cody McCormick is expected to return to the lineup on Wednesday against Philadelphia. Jordan Leopold appears to be the next player ready for return, but he is not expected for Wednesday.

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Former Buffalo Sabres Matthew Barnaby was charged with a DWI Monday morning (around 3 AM) in Clarence, NY. He was spotted by another driver with his car missing a front tire. After being stopped by police it was found that his car had been greatly damaged from the driving. He failed several sobriety tests at the scene and refused a breathalyzer test. His license has been suspended as a result.

           

Following the news of his arrest ESPN announced they would be terminating their contract with Barnaby, effective immediately.

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Let me know your thoughts and opinions, and let's go Buffalo!

~Adam Singh

A.Singh.Advocate@gmail.com

Twitter: TyMyers57

Injuries Plague Buffalo Sabres

I haven't written anything in a while. I have a few reasons why: college applications, a team that can't win, and a team that can't stay healthy. Mainly the last one. It's really starting to get pathetic. Just for the fun of it, here's the list:

Tyler Ennis (63), Ryan Miller (30), Mike Weber (6), Brad Boyes (22), Patrick Kaleta (36), Cody McCormick (8), Robyn Regehr (24), Tyler Myers (57). And now Mike Harrington of the Buffalo News is reporting an as of yet un-named forward is out as well. That's 9 injuries. That's 9 Amerks playing for the Sabres.

It's getting to be pathetic. How can there possibly be this many injuries? It scares me to see this, I'm not sure if there are many players available for us to call up anymore. Watching the game tonight, the team might as well be wearing the Red, White, and Blue instead of the Blue and Gold. That would probably be more fitting considering who will be on the ice.

I don't have much else to write. We're looking horrible down there on the ice right now, but I can't exactly critique them for the way they're playing right now because it's not the Sabres, it's the Rochester Americans. So I've only got three things to say:

1.      Shanahan declares open season on goaltenders.

2.      I love Nathan Gerbe's play, good to see someone getting physical.

3.      Let's go Amerks!

~Adam Singh

Follow on twitter: TyMyers57

A.Singh.Advocate@gmail.com

Ryan Miller's Goaltending Battle (Part II)

I still remember when Ryan Miller first came into the NHL. I wasn't too happy about it – Martin Biron was my favorite Sabre. I didn't like this new guy getting in the way, I just wanted Biron to keep his spot as starting goaltender. I wasn't happy about it for a while, and it took me up until about two months before Biron was traded when I was finally happy with Ryan Miller as the starting goaltender.

            

Ever since we lost Martin Biron there has been absolutely no doubt that Ryan Miller is our franchise goaltender. Nobody can beat him, he is absolutely amazing. He is the goaltender of Team USA. It also helped that all of our backups couldn't stop a basketball rolling towards then at 2 mph.

Along comes the young Swede, Jhonas Enroth. He comes up from the minors to fill the shoes of countless backups before him who never saw a minute of action, and nobody really expects anything from him. Suddenly he steps in, and 5 games later he has a 5-0 record. He's won back-to-back games when Ryan Miller was expected to start at least one of them. And Miller's been sitting there, putting up poor numbers while Enroth is sitting comfortably with a .956 save percentage and and a mere 1.34 goals against average.

   

This time, I'm incline the support the goaltender who has been given the nickname “Terminator” by some Sabres fans. He is putting up some god-like numbers right now, so why not ride him until he starts to drop? There's no doubt that Miller's numbers are low, at least for the moment. So let's give Enroth a chance, and maybe put up a few W's while we're waiting for the old Miller to come back.

And who knows, maybe Miller may find himself replaced sometime soon?

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For those of you who listen to the local Buffalo sports station, WGR 550, have you been listening to Brian Koziol? Because I have been. Granted, he's never been my favorite – many times I've heard him take what a caller says and immediately flip it to back up his own point, or to make it easier to tear apart. It's always gotten on my nerves.

But now with this goaltending controversy he went from Tuesday night saying that Ryan Miller should undoubtedly be our starting goaltender to preaching Enroth as our savior last night. Well which is it? You flipped completely from one extreme to the other, by saying Enroth needs to play again tonight. I may agree with that point, but come on – don't pretend you weren't arguing the opposite only a few days later.

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Goal scoring is anything but an issue with the Sabres recently – in the past two games they have scored a total of 11 goals. But defensively we may need a bit of an improvement – scoring 5 goals in one game should not be enough to merely send it to overtime. But that may once again go back to the goaltending controversy we're seeing right now – Miller let in 5 goals against the Jets/ex-Thrashers, while Enroth let in only 1 against the Senators. And even that one goal was the defense's fault. So I say give him a chance.

Switching to a more youthful goaltender worked once in the past, whose to say it won't work again?

~Adam Singh

A.Singh.Advocate@gmail.com

Shanabanned ;Patrick Kaleta

Last night, I was extremely disappointed that I would only be able to catch the first five minutes of the Sabres' game against Philadelphia. But in the end, I didn't even watch that – after the second goal got past Miller at 1:56 I turned off the TV, threw on my shoes, and walked out the door to wait for my ride. They looked absolutely pathetic.

But apparently I missed something important, because I got a text from the Buffalo sports radio station, WGR 550 AM, at about 4 PM stating: “Sabres F[orward] Pat Kaleta suspended 4 games for head butt vs. Flyers.” Four games. I figured it must have been pretty bad, something like the incident in the 2006 World Cup between Zinedine Zidane and Marco Materazzi, where the head butt was seemingly pointless and completely out of character for the situation at hand. But then I saw the video with Shanahan's explanation:

http://video.nhl.com/videocenter/console?catid=60&id=132436

It's physical play at it's best right there. Shanahan needs to realize that there's a fine line here, and you have to be careful not to cross it. Kaleta was merely going in to try and play the puck, and the way that should be done is with physical play. That's exactly what Kaleta set out to do, and is what he managed to do.

Lately the NHL's suspensions have been much too severe. Recently, the Chicago Blackhawks' Dan Carcillo has been suspended 2 games for a hit from behind on the Hurricane’s Joni Pitkanen. In the video of the play, it is apparent that there was a push from behind by Carcillo, causing Pitkanen to fall towards the boards. I agree that this is an act that should be penalized.

But take a close look at the play – Carcillo was leaning on Pitkanen from behind as they went towards the puck, so he definitely knew there was a player defending him. Then there's the fact that Pitkanen seems to lose balance a little too easily. It's quite likely that he dove to draw the penalty, in case it was missed.

Then there's the five-game suspension of the Edmonton Oilers' Andy Sutton for an illegal hit to the head. Yes, this play did result in a hit to the head. Yes, I agree this is a suspendable play. But Shanahan is trying to argue that this hit was somehow worth a total of five games? No way. It was deserving of three games at most. The play was a hit to stop the advance of the puck, not to cause injury or harm to an opposing player. In such cases, the punishment to the offending player needs to be reduced.

Brendan Shanahan, you need to realize that hockey is and has always been a physical sport. You're crossing a line here with your numerous suspensions, and if you keep this up we may be heading down a slippery slope headed towards making this a sport where players are afraid to check their opponents.

Watch out, Shanahan, or you may be the next one to be “Shanabanned.”

~Adam Singh

A.Singh.Advocate@gmail.com

Re-Learning Defensive Play - Buffalo Sabres Under the Gun Tonight

The Buffalo Sabres look to be able to keep on winning tonight as they face off against the Florida Panthers on home ice. They've had a great season so far: a record of 6-3 puts them in 4^th place in the Eastern Conference. But in those 9 games, the Sabres have been out-shot 6 times by their opponents. That's 2/3 of their games so far.

Normally, a team being out-shot that often would be pretty low in the standings. But the Sabres have managed to pull out wins where most teams would have endless difficulties: 5 of those 6 games in which they were out-shot, they emerged victorious. That statistic leads the league.

But how much longer can the team coast on abilities of their goaltenders and their forwards? The defense needs to wake up and play stronger. Often times this season we've seen defenders jump up and join the rush, without anyone covering for them so that when the save is made Ryan Miller (or Jhonas Enroth) sees a 3-on-1 headed back in his direction.

I know that this is a part of hockey, but so is good communication between players. Talk to each other so we don't see odd man rushes headed back our way with nobody having any intention of getting back to help.

Andrej Sekera has been especially at fault in this area. He looks like he belongs one of the wings instead of the blue line, with the way he gets involved when he sees a rush develop. While I love having him on the team because we can switch him to play a forward line if necessary, right now that's not where our issues lie.

We have a goal differential of +8; goals aren't hard to come by this year. What we need is a defensive defenseman. Not an offensive defenseman. Give Mike Weber a chance this year, preferably sooner rather than later. Maybe that's the change that will keep another team from duplicating the Blue Jackets' results: getting 43 shots in one game against Buffalo.

Less shots on goal means less pucks finding the back of the net. It's a pretty simple formula, Buffalo, so use it to your advantage.

~Adam Singh

A.Singh.Advocate@gmail.com

The Buffalo Sabres: Battle of the Goaltenders

Watching Thursday night's game as Buffalo seemed to run over the Columbus Blue Jackets, I noticed something: this is some of the finest goaltending this team has seen all year. But it wasn't the $6.25 million Ryan Miller between the pipes. It was $675,000 Jhonas Enroth.

The past few games I haven't been too happy with what I've seen from Ryan Miller. He hasn't been playing at the Vezina quality we once saw from our Team USA Olympic goaltender. It's really been quite depressing. He's given up soft goals and allowed teams to score on the slightest mistakes that we make. That's not what you want in your goaltender, especially when he has the second highest cap hit on your team.

For that reason I'd say we need to play Enroth more often. The Sabres haven't been doing as well as their fans would like to (myself included). Even if their record was unchanged from where it is now, we've seen them play absolutely horribly. Especially in their losses. And in those cases, Miller just hasn't been there to back up the rest of the team like he used to be.

We've got a capable backup, who can win against the best of them. He stopped 41 of 43 shots (whereas Buffalo took only 26) Thursday night. Let's use him more often. Playing Enroth tends to wake up the team, and he doesn't give up soft goals like Miller often does.

You're probably sitting there right now saying “don't blame Miller for our bad play, it's a team game!” Well you're right. But it's not the fault of the offense: going into Thursday, we have out-shot our opponents by a total of three shots (I know, not much, but it's something). And we've had some great chances that have just been stopped by opposing goaltenders. Many of whom are actually earning a lot less than Miller is right now.

As far as the defense, I can't make excuses for you. You haven't been playing too well, I have to say that for sure. It would be nice to see you guys step up and play a little harder so your goaltenders don't have those odd man rushes coming back at them. Maybe try communicating with your forwards to let them know you're joining the rush so someone can cover for you (strange idea. I know).

But the biggest solution that could save the Buffalo defense: bring back Mike Weber. He may not have been my favorite defenseman when he was on the ice instead of in the press box, but he was a lot better than Andrej Sekera is doing right now. I'm tried of seeing Sekera hold onto the puck for too long and cough it up in his own end when there's no Sabres around, causing a scoring opportunity for the opposition. We need to do something, and just taking him off the ice and sitting him for a while may be what he needs to wake him up.

And playing Enroth may be the only thing that can consistently wake this team up.

~Adam Singh