Sabres Panthers Preview

The Sabres are at again, with a nice Florida trip before the All Star Break, and man anyone in Buffalo could use some warm weather right now. Unfortunately its a business trip and a important one. They could use the 4 points from the next two points, to secure their position at 7 and maybe moving up. But with a rough trip coming out of the break, winning both games would be nice.

But the Panthers aren't a pushover. It will be a tough game, since both teams need it, and with a break looming don't need to conserve energy (so one would think) The Panthers stand 9th in the conference, 2 points behind the Sabres. They give up as many goals as they score (same as Buffalo) and are 5-3-2 in their last 10. The Sabres are 7-3, two points right there.

They would what I call balanced scoring. With 10 guys with 20 points or more. (The Sabres have 7) No one is above 30 points. (The Sabres have 3) David Booth is the leading goal and point scorer with 18 goals and 29 points. Stephen Weiss has 28, Bouwmeester with 26 points and Nathan Horton with 25. Cory Stillman has 22 points in 28 games.

Other potential offensive weapons are Radek Dvorak, Bryan McCabe, Gregory Campbell, and Richard Zednick.

But what makes the Panthers competitive is their goaltending.

It almost looks like a two goalie system. Thomas Vokoun has 918 sv% and a 2.70 GAA. Lots of saves with a lot of shots, over 30 a game. Craig Anderson has a .930 sv% with a 2.47 GAA. If these guys aren't sharp, they don't have the real big time scoring to overcome it.

The Panthers are always tough at home, and with a Break coming up, the nice weather, it may spell L-A-Z-Y for the boys in Blue and gold. But they may come out hard and actually buy into what Lindy is selling them. Of course theres Nathan Paetsch tonight. If he's smart he'll play well to make Butler expendable when the corp is healthy again. If not, its pressbox city for young Nathan.

Anyway only two more before the All Star break, enjoy.

Sabres Panthers Preview

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.