Three Games in Four Nights

With the Sabres’ season over earlier than the last two seasons, I thought I’d take a look at something that seems to happen to the Sabres more than other teams – playing 3 games in 4 nights – and see if there is any reason to fear it.

My unofficial count showed 14 instances of 3 in 4 for the Sabres (may have missed one), for a total of 42 games. They got 53 out of a possible 84 points in those games (63% of possible points). Buffalo’s record in those games? 25-14-3. The record in the other games was 14-17-9. Pretty surprising, isn’t it? Were all the 3in4’s making the team tired for the other games, then? Buffalo won all 3 games of these 3in4’s 4 times, and lost all 3 (in regulation, OT or SO) only once. They went 1-2 5 times (including an OTL in one of those) and 2-1 4 times (again, including an OTL for one of the losses). Didn’t see much correlation between home and away for these either, as some of the 3-0 series had 2 travel days (either home/away/home or away/home/away).

A bit later, I’m going to take a lot at some of the other playoff teams that squeaked into the Eastern Conference playoffs and see if they fared better or worse.