Hey another game in a place where I rather be then right here in Downtown Buffalo. Man Miami must be nice right now. Compared to what is outside right now. Well anyway, the Sabres continue their road trip through the bottom dwellers of the Southeast division and therefore the bottom dwellers of the eastern conference, with a game against the Panthers. With the win last night the Sabres jumped to 11th place in the conference. While the Panthers are now in the 13th spot in the conference. With a game in Atlanta on friday another team right around the Sabres level, its up to them to pick up points here against bad opponents to put themselves back in the thick of things. That means playing 60 minute hockey every night till April.
Whats up with the Panthers?
Well what is up, is they have a neat giveaway this friday, every goal the Panthers score they give away 5 TV's. Oh they are playing Roberto Luongo? Well I guess they don't have to worry about giving away any tv's then. Well the Panthers haven't been playing well of late, going 3-5-2 in their last 10. Plus they haven't played since Thursday, so they might have some rust. And being in Miami, I'm sure none of the players had any fun during their time off. But they do get Jozef Stumpel back in the lineup tonight, which I think is good right? Its like getting Ales Kotalik back, cool, but not like oh man were gonna win some games now cool. Well the Panthers are the Panthers and that means they are usually out of the playoff picture looking up and no one cares about them.
Who does what
The Panthers are led by two guys, Olli "I'm gonna get traded" Jokinen, and Tomas "why can't I play in a real hockey market" Vokoun. Nathan Horton and Stephen Weiss also are big contributers to the offense, but looking at the stat sheet is rather depressing. And Jay Bouwmeester is the big man on the blue line. But this team is lacking offense badly. Can this team not sign free agents? Who wouldn't want to live in Miami? Maybe its the ice conditions and it sucks to actually play there. Who knows. But Tomas Vokoun really is putting up impressive numbers or this team would be in 15th place in the conference easily. He has a 2.78 GAA (average) but a .915 sv%, which is quite good.
Outlook
Well its always tough to predict the outcome of a game after another. The panthers always seem to play the sabres tough, maybe all the young guys played their system. So they know what the Sabres will do when they see it. Or the ice is terrible. But the Sabres the have played well of late and I think they are focused in their goal. But until they show me consistency for more then 2 games. I'll say they'll come out flat tonight.
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