Sabres Ducks

Well its the end of the roadtrip tonight, with a 10pm start in Anaheim, against the 6th placed Ducks. Who actually have less points then the Sabres, yet higher in the playoff standings, sometimes life is unfair.

But the continuing injury saga to the blue line continues, with Spacek out. So the recently healthy Mike Weber, makes a cross country trip to Anaheim, from the old Anaheim affiliate Portland. This leaves the starting 6 corp on defense as.

Craig Rivet
Toni Lydman
Nathan Paetsch
Chris Butler
Marc Andre Gragnani
Mike Weber

Oh and Patrick Lalime is probably going to start. Oh boy. They better play like they did in Phoenix, well 2nd and 3rd period Sabres, not First period. Because it maybe 4-1 going into the second period.

The Ducks are a decent group of young players, mixed with older vets. The team isn't the same as the Cup champion team, mainly because JS Giguere isn't what he was. And now is replaced by Jonas Hiller as starter. Who has much better numbers.

The Ducks had a average January going 6-7-1, going 1-4-1 against Eastern teams. So the big bad tough Ducks, aren't that bad for the Eastern conference. And in Phoenix, the Sabres showed they can bang, when they want to bang. And with Peters and Kaleta in the lineup, there will be some toughness. If we are lucky a Peters Parros squareoff. Who doesn't want to see the mustochioed one duke it out with Peters? Well besides Andrew Peters' loved ones.

• Ryan Getzlaf is a beast, with 18 goals and 61 points on the year, and he has 85 penalty minutes. So you don't mess with Getzlaf.
• Corey Perry 16 goals and 44 points and also 72 penalty minutes.
• Scott Niedermayer has 36 points
• Rookie sensation Bobby Ryan has 17 goals on the year
• Teemu Selanne has 28 points on the year
• What has to be a disappointment Brendan Morrison only has 18 points on the year, in 51 games.

So the Ducks have a couple good lines to deal with, after that they are kinda punchless so for the injury riddled Sabres, probably a good matchup. The Ducks are also without two key defenders in Beauchimen and Huskins.

And we may get to see Drew Miller, Ryan's brother and I'm sure might be mentioned on the telecast once or a million times.

Well this is a late one, so I'm probably going to be asleep. So I hope to wake up to a nice win in Anaheim, but if not. They'll end up 2-2 on the roadtrip and 3-3 for the total 6 games. Which is good, because it keeps them in the playoffs, and keeps them climbing on the 3 teams above them.

Sabres Ducks Preview

The Sabres kick off a West Coast Trip tonight against the Cup Champs, Anaheim, last year this game would have been something, and put on Versus or whatever. Now, its a battle of teams trying to battle for a playoff spot. How things have changed in a year. The Sabres are looking to keep hot after winning 6 of 7 and the Ducks are just looking to get on track after going 2-4-1 during the same period.

So whats going on in Anaheim?

This team is definitely struggling after winning the cup last year and losing 3 key players have really hurt this team. No Neidermayer, Selanne and Penner really were a big part of the Ducks. With those 3 players lost they lost a combined 208 points. And you thought losing Drury and Briere was bad. There is a reason the Ducks are 12-12-4 this year and have given up 80 goals on the year. Check out the game notes for way to many stats to digest in one sitting.

Who does what for the Ducks?

The Ducks have one scoring line and Chris Pronger, thats about it. Ryan Getzlaf is leading the team with 28 points (11g 17 assts), Pronger 20 points (3 g 17 assts), Corey Perry with 20 points (13 g 7 assts) and then Chris Kunitz 18 points (9 g 9 assts) Todd Bertuzzi has only 6 points on the season for the Ducks, so you can call him a big bust this year. Sammy Pahlson has only 4 points on the year. Looking through the lineup of the Ducks and you determine this team has some major power outage issues.

And Giguere isn't having some stellar season in net on top of that. With a 2.63 GAA and a .903 Sv%. Pretty average numbers for an elite goaltender like Jiggy. Pronger is obviously on the ice a lot and is currently a -3 and has 67 minutes in penalties so he's off the ice a lot in the box too. Penalty minutes is a stat the Ducks don't lack. This team pounds on you and gets into fights. So the Sabres have to keep to themselves and should be fine.

Fun Tidbits

Well tonights game is a matchup of the Miller Brothers, Drew and Ryan. The story has been written to death already, its cute, and makes this game between a 10th place and 11th place team interesting. Todd Marchant from Amherst also plays for the Ducks and former Sabre Brad May is also still on the Ducks.

Mmm apparently the Ducks have a goal song. Bro Hymn by Pennywise. Nice.