Gameday - Flyers at Sabres
Feb 25, 2008 NHL
After an ugly (for both teams) loss to the Rangers this weekend, the Sabres try to regroup tonight against the freefalling Flyers. Hecht will most likely miss tonight’s game, and the lineup will be the same as against the Rangers (including the second NHL game for prospect Marc-Andre Gragnani). The Flyers will be without the services of leading scorer Mike Richards after he tore his hammy in a crushing OT loss to the Panthers.
7pm Versus game tonight, so make sure you have your radios ready (if you are within reach of Rick and Harry) if you can’t stomach the VS announcing crew.
Tags: B-Lo Sports, flyers, gragnani, hecht, Hockey, NHL, philadelphia, richards, sabres
Sabres Build Early Lead to Beat Lightning
Jan 30, 2008 NHL
Ryan Miller weathered an early barrage from the Tampa Bay Lightning, then MacArthur, Hecht and Pominville took over from there to lead Buffalo to the 4-2 win. Pominville made a nice pass on the break to MacArthur for his 6th goal of the year, and Clarke returned the favor later in the first to build the 2-0 lead. Halfway through the second, Lydman shot from the point, the puck ricocheted off Stafford in front for the third goal. Roy followed that with a rebound score that Holmqvist really needed to stop to make it 4-0.
Penalties gave the Lightning a shot to come back late in the second, with Brad Richards scoring on a 5-3 opportunity, and tradebait Vinny Prospal scored in the third. Still, I liked a lot of what I saw in the game, it seemed to me that the Sabres were working extremely hard, and got the bounces to go their way because of it. One scary moment when Vanek went down awkwardly after a hit, but after a bit of wincing for the camera, he came back out and looked none the worse for it.
The Sabres continue on to play the Panthers tonight at 7:30pm. They are 4 points out of a playoff spot heading into this game.
Tags: B-Lo Sports, Drew Stafford, hecht, Hockey, holmqvist, lightning, lydman, macarthur, NHL, pominville, prospal, richards, roy, Ryan Miller, sabres, tampa bay, Thomas Vanek
Rivalry Renewed
Dec 23, 2007 NHL
The Sabres and Flyers have played two games in two nights, and both were smashmouth affairs won by Buffalo. Friday’s game at HSBC Arena was the first visit of Danny Briere, and he got the normal chorus of boos. The scoring started on a rebound sent in by Drew Stafford that had to be reviewed. Earlier Biron had stopped a shot that was batted out from in front of the net by his D, Stafford’s crossed the goal line first though. Philly scored the next two to take the lead in the second period, but Kotalik scored on the power play to tie it up early in the third. Jochen Hecht scored the game winner for the 3-2 victory. Yo-yo has been clutch lately, he’s been one of my favorite Sabres this year (Spacek is a close second).
Speaking of Spacek, he had two thundering hits (including leveling Danny Briere) as well as two assists. He really symbolized the challenge Lindy Ruff laid before his team for these games: take the physical play to the Flyers. Don’t react to it, initiate it. They did, and it showed.
Saturday’s game was even more rough-and-tumble if that is possible, 4 fighting majors and 6 roughing penalties for example. It was a back and forth affair, with Maxim Afinogenov putting the Sabres on the board first on the power play early in the first, with the Flyers’ Jeff carter tying things at the end of the first.
Things blew wide open in the second period however, with Buffalo scoring 2 goals in the first 8 minutes (Kotalik and Pominville). ‘lik’s goal came with him winning the draw and cleaning up the rebound from Goose’s wraparound attempt. Philly then tied it up with 2 quick shorthanded goals from Carter and Richards. The teams then traded power play goals (Spacek’s 8th of the season, Richards’s second of the night). Timonen gave Philly the lead early in the third, but Philly iced the puck with 14 seconds left in the game. After the game, their coach would complain loudly about the call on that, but Kotalik wins that draw next to Biron and the puck goes to Jochen Hecht, who rips it short-side where Vanek redirects it into the net to tie the game with less than 8 seconds to go.
OT was owned by the Flyers after Buffalo took two penalties, but they managed to keep the puck out of the net to reach the shootout. Miller stopped all three Flyers (including one on a pretty sick poke-check) but Ales Kotalik netted one on Marty Biron to get the win for Buffalo. I’d go into more detail but my PVR cut off the shootout thanks to all the penalties, I guess I need to have it record more than an extra 30 minutes from now on. What a great way to go into Christmas break. The Sabres return to action on Boxing Day, which is the day after Christmas for you folks who don’t live quite so close to the Canadian border, with a game against the Ottawa Senators.
Tags: B-Lo Sports, briere, carter, Drew Stafford, flyers, hecht, Hockey, kotalik, Martin Biron, Maxim Afinogenov, NHL, philadelphia, pominville, richards, ruff, Ryan Miller, sabres, Spacek, timonen
