Sabres Lightning Preview

The Lightning come into town tonight, after a win on Tuesday versus the Leafs. The Sabres are licking their wounds from a 5-2 drubbing by the Senators on Monday. The Sabres owned the Lightning last year, especially Thomas Vanek who had 7 goals against the Lightning last year, including 2 hat tricks. Both teams will be looking for a win, but Buffalo looking to redeem themselves after a bad Monday night.

The Lightning

The Lightning sure haven't been electric on the scoreboard this year for sure. Their top Scorers, Prospal and Lecavalier both have 6 points. Which rather low for Vinny. Martin St Louis has 5 points and a bunch others have 3. They appear to have scrapped the run and gun style they had. Which led to some fun high scoring games, and also led to them being awful. I guess Barry Melrose saw they had no defense and made everyone play back a bit. Steven Stamkos isn't off to a Calder season quite yet, with 1 point in 8 games and is a -3. I guess the NHL is quite the jump from Sarnia.

But lucky for them they have Mike Smith in net, who has stellar numbers for seeing a lot of rubber. He is seeing about 37 shots a game. And has a 2.11 GAa and a .942 Sv%. He is the one in the Saw Mask. I haven't seen corporate synergy like that since Disney owned the Ducks. It would be like if Tom Golisano had Ryan Miller wear a Joe Mesi mask, for the upcoming election. And sure he came to the owner about it. RIIIIIGHT.

The fact that 2 defensemen have played 8 games this far, would concern me if I were a lightning fan. And who I have back there would also concern me.

Sabres

Well the Sabres suffered their first regulation loss on Monday. But its not the cause of concern, rather their players going after the other team in the locker room might be more of a concern. They get Gaustad back tonight and Rivet and Tallinder are back skating, so the days of Nathan Paetsch are numbered, who hasn't played bad, but I'd rather have Tallinder in there. So the team is getting healthier heading into november, where they need to stock up points before the eventual 10 games where they are downright terrible.



Well it should be an interesting game, the Lightning are giving up shots, but Mike Smith is keeping them in the game. I don't think Kolzig will play, but if he does, look out Thomas Vanek might go off again and put himself in the double digit goal totals.