Ask me why the Buffalo Sabres lost to the Dallas Stars on Saturday night and I will tell you special teams.
It's patently unfair to blame the Buffalo PK for the 3-0 loss in Dallas.
I blame the boneheaded penalties from frequent offenders that broke the backs of the Pkers.
In their two games against the swashbuckling Stars this week, the Sabres more than held their own during 5-v-5 hockey.
Where the ice tilted towards Dallas was in special teams efficiency.
The Stars know how to kill opponents by burying their chances. The Sabres are still learning how to do that.
The Stars are the #2 rated power play unit in the NHL. They boast of two groups of natural born killers. On Saturday night, the Sabres played with fire and suffered burns as a result.
While trailing 1-0 after 40 minutes, the Sabres were looking to get their mojo working in the third period.
Then, all hell broke loose when Tyler Ennis took another ill advised penalty, a holding infraction at the 6:21 mark of the third period. Tyler Seguin did Tyler Seguin things when he intercepted an attempt by Ryan O'Reilly to flush the puck out of the Buffalo zone and completed a pass to Jason Spezza, who shot from the right faceoff dot. The NHL leading goal scorer, Jamie Benn, attacked and deposited the Chad Johnson rebound in the trash bin. Down 2-0 early in the second period the Sabres opted to open up their game to create more chances and puck possession. Benn sealed Buffalo's fate when he scored again just 2:03 later. Seguin to Sharp to Benn.
Good night. Drive safely. Happy Thanksgiving.
Before allowing the Benn PPG, the Sabres PKers pretty much smothered the #2 PP unit in the NHL by killing off four second period penalties, one of which was Evander Kane's four minute high stick infracction.
Credit to the Buffalo PKers who were given the unenviable task of killing off four penalties in the second period while trailing 1-0. Kudos for killing off Evander Kane's four minute high sticking infraction at the 8:54 of the second period. The Sabres PKers denied the Stars clean looks and limited them to only two shots on goal during their four minute man advantage. The Stars PP unit is like watching a video game. So many super skilled players just ripping the puck around in dizzying fashion is a terror for opposing PKers to defend against. Credit to the Sabres for holding their own against the special teams stars of the Stars.
In so far as the Buffalo PK did yeoman's work in the second period in Dallas, it depleted and sucked the energy levels out of each penalty killer.
The lactic acid built up in the muscles of all of the PKers, or so it appeared, and eventually Benn, Seguin, Sharp, Spezza and the super novas wore down the Buffalo special teams with their 200 mph power play that resembles a video game.
Captain Brain Gionta said as much after Buffalo's first shutout loss of the season.
“You’re taxing the guys that are killing, putting a lot of pressure on them and the flip-side you’ve got some guys that are sitting there waiting to go.”
“A lot of things happen there, you tire out some guys and you flatten out others."
It would have been nice if the fourth ranked Buffalo PP could have done their PK bros a solid by lighting the lamp on the glorious 5 on 3 PP opportunity. For the fourth time in their last four games the Sabres PPG blew another 5 on 3 all-you-can-eat buffer-power-play.
Buffalo started the second period two-man advantage for 51 seconds, however, shot blanks at Antii Niemi. As we learned four times this week, Western powers like San Jose, Dallas, and St. Louis love to live on the edge with their physicality. Maybe their game plans called for them to be ultra-aggressive against the Sabres who finished 30th overall the past two seasons.
It didn't help the Sabres that the scouting report on Buffalo is to take penalties, especially when they are the road team. The Sabres entered Saturday night's game the fourth ranked PP in the NHL with 14 PPGs. However, Eichel and company have only scored four PPGs away from their rink. The scouting report on the Buffalo 5 on 3 PP: They love to go high to low, low to high, high to low, low to high; D to D, high to low, low to high, high to low, then bury a point shot into the PKers shin guards. Buffalo exhausts a lot of its resources trying to find the perfect play on the 5 on 3 PP which has become easy to defend by packing the three PKers between the dots and blocking shots, clearing pucks so that the Buffalo PP has to skate down, retrieve and travel 200 feet north to try again.
“It’s tough, a couple of bounces, obviously it’s something we need to work on,” Eichel said after the Dallas loss. “We had two against St. Louis, we could have used that one tonight, could have tied the game up. 5-on-3 (PP) is a chance where you need to capitalize and for us it’s frustrating knowing we weren’t able to get it done.”
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I'm expecting lineup changes for when the Blues play in Buffalo on Monday night.
Tyler Ennis was demoted to the fourth line after Benn's third period power play goal on Saturday night.
Jamie McGinn moved up and Ennis moved down to L4.
For some unknown reason Ennis has been a defensive nightmare for the past ten games.
He is -5 in his past 10 games. His frequent untimely trips to the sin bin led to PPGs against the Sabres in Dallas and St. Louis.
In his defense, Ennis was dealing with an injury earlier this month.
Offensively, Ennis is fine. He has scored one goals and has chipped in five assists in his past ten games. He has generated only 19 goals in his past 10 games. However, his two offside calls nullified goals against the Sharks and Stars in a five day span last week. He has been turning the puck over in alarming fashion lately. Dan Bylsma preaches a "North" game where the D feed the forwards with quick-ups and the forwards attack the opponent through the neutral zone with speed. Ennis seems to be soloing far too much for Bylsma's liking and he is not using his line mates in the o-zone which leads to poor decisions with the puck. And turnovers.
I'm a big believer in making players accountable. Ennis is a 26 year old veteran. He is no longer a prospect.The 19 and 20 year old kids in the lineup look to their veteran teammates for leadership by example. Ennis' water bug style lent itself to the Ted Nolan tank motif because frankly, Ennis was the only Buffalo player who could be counted to create any type of consistent offense. Nolan's system and Bylsma's structured formations are polar opposites. Bylsma doesn't play river hockey, nor does he encourage his players to break the rules to play outside of the structure.
Perhaps a seat in the press box on Monday night against St. Loo will give Ennis a new perspective on his overall game. Sitting in the press box allows one to see the entire 200 x 85 ice surface and all players performing on it. The game is less water buggy from up top.
The Sabres are 5-3-2 in their past 10 games. They host the big, tough Blues on Monday. They play two tough games with Nashville and a home game vs. Carolina on Black Friday.
What is the harm is sitting Ennis on Monday, sending Tim Schaller to Rochester and recalling Evan Rodrigues or Justin Bailey for a game?
Bylsma has stated that he wants his team to go 6-4 or 7-3 on its 10 game segments this season.
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