Friday, November 21, 2008

Sabres V Flyers Preview

Blogger: Vance


Well I will be gone this weekend, as soon as I bounce from work I will be on my way to State College, PA to see my alma mater punch its ticket to the Rose Bowl. Hopefully tonight I may be able to catch the Sabres game in a bar. Maybe. Unfortunatey, this is a tale of 2 teams going in opposite directions, hopefully the Sabres right the ship. Some big news outta Buffalo though, read on for more.

TONIGHTS GOALIE MATCHUP

Flyers: Martin Biron 5-5-2 .894 3.13
Sabres: Ryan Miller 8-4-2 .909 2.61

Those numbers LIE. This is a tale of 2 goaltenders going in opposite directions. In his last 4, Marty Biron is 2-1-1 with a 1.97 GAA and .930 in his last 4 games. Ryan Miller though is 1-3 with a GAA of infinity and a save percentage of .815 (holy hell) in his past 5 appearances (relief of Lalime in Cbus). Not very promising eh Sabres fans?



THE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS ON TONIGHT'S MATCH UP

PHILLY PHLYERS

Haven't seen much of the Flyer's since they're blacked out pretty often down here in D.C....Happy to see Simon Gagne fully recover from his concussion and register a point in all but 1 game this year (why can't Connolly recover like that?)...Danny Briere will not suit up tonight, so who will Sabres fans boo? I dunno...Anyone else wonder how many points a line of Gagne, Richards/Carter, Briere would put up? Pretty scary...Ossi Väänänen (I copy pasted that, who knows how to get those crazy letters) will also be out of the lineup tonight for Philly...Look for the Flyers to come out sluggish after the 4 day break...Philly special teams are ranked 3rd (PP%) and 10th (PK%) respectively...Is John Stevens out of the hot seat yet for the piss poor start?...Mike Knuble had an interesting quote about the Flyer's knob gobbling Brenden Shanahan "Would one guy be able to come in and change a lot of things? I don't know." (The link from Puck Daddy) That quote says it all to me, bring in Shanny, you bring down that team from the inside, thank about that B. Clarke...The 8th Phantom makes finds himself shuffled into the Flyer lineup tonight, introducing, Jonathon Kalinski, a 6th rounder in 2007...I would like to see Luca Sbisa in person tonight...that's all I got.

BUFFALO SABRES

Lindy Ruff said it, and when he speaks, you better believe he's gonna f'ing follow through,
It’s going to have to cost guys dearly with ice time,” Ruff said. “If you want to get focus, you want to get desperate, maybe some players will have to miss games… Really, that’s the only choice you have as a coach.”
...Look at that, he followed through, tonight Max and Henrik Tallinder ride pine (Wow, I so called that!) while the AHL's 2nd leading scorer and reigning hardest shot champion, Marc Mancari, gets the call up...Marc Mancari has 11 G and 14 A in just 14 games...He will be playing with Gaustad and Paille...Ryan "Captain Obvious" after the debacle in Boston
We just need to play hockey.
Oh my God Ryan...Let's see if this works, it hasn't really worked with Max in the past, these guys seem to take their spots for granted...Pommer is really starting to heat up, 10 points in the last 8 games, with a 4 game streak...Vanek's potted 3 in the last 2...Connolly, Kotalik still both out of the lineup for an undetermined amount of time...Paestch coming down outta the press box tonight as well.

LINES

Vanek - Hecht - Pominville
Paille - Gaustad - Mancari
MacArthur - Roy - Stafford
Kaleta - Mair - Peters

Spacek - Sekera
Numminem - Lydman
Rivet - Paestch

Miller
Lalime

Gagne - Richards - Knuble
Hartnell - Carter - Nödl
Upshall - Metropolit - Lupul
Gratton - Kalinski - Asham

Sbisa - Timonen
Coburn - Carle
Alberts - Kukkonen

Biron
Niittymäki


PREDICTIONS

I don't really want to predict anything, but, I will. The Sabres typically start off hot and flying in the 1st period, the Flyers are one of the worst 1st period teams in the League. However the Flyers do have 8 SH goals, 4 of those by Gagne, and with the way the Sabres often put a forward on point during PPs, that makes me wary. I think some home cooking does the Sabres well, and they get up early and hold on, a la the victory vs. the Blues last week.

Sabres 5 - Flyers 3

Pommer, Vanek (2), McArthur, Paille
Gagne, Carter (2)

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Fact: BanginPanger is not meant as an insult to the one and only Darren Pang, nor do I claim to be him. The views and opinions presented on BanginPanger are of my own, and no other namesake of the site, the NHL, Buffalo Sabres, Washington Capitals, or anyone else.