The Two-Line Pass

The Lead

It would appear that, in not making any major roster changes (okay he dumped Ales Kotalik and acquired Dominic Moore, who didn’t actually play in this game, but the point remains), Darcy Regier gave the Buffalo Sabres a huge shot in the arm.

All the Sabres, who had been slumping in their last three games, got at the deadline was a brand new contract from Timmy Connolly. And maybe that was all they needed.

They entered the game three points out of a playoff spot in the East, and had just been shut out by the Islanders on Saturday (yeesh), but they beat the absolute crap out of the Habs tonight 5-1.

After a truly, genuinely terrible first 17 minutes or so from his team which the Sabres were lucky to escape at all, Derek Roy simply took over the game, scoring on the power play with just over two minutes to go in the first and adding an even-up goal just under three minutes into the second. From there, the Sabres rolled, capitalizing on every Montreal mistake the shellshocked Canadiens made.

It should be noted that Patrick Lalime, while he made 38 saves and some of them during ridiculous blitzkriegs from the Habs, also got a lot of help from his defense (who kept shots to the outside for decent-sized stretches) and especially Toni Lydman who pulled a puck off the line early in the first that basically set the tone for the game: the Habs would get chances but wouldn’t capitalize. That is until Tomas Plekanec broke up the shutout bid with 1:06 remaining in the game.

Carey Price was once again outdueled by a supposedly inferior netminder. But he was outdueled in such a way that, had this been an actual duel, Price wouldn’t have even cleared leather. I mean, 22 saves on 27 shots against the Sabres, who’d scored three goals in their last three games? Rough night.

That big contract for Connolly, by the way? Bought a secondary assist on Roy’s power play goal and a minus-1 tonight. But at least he didn’t get hurt. Only 182 regular season games to go, Timbo!

Elsewhere…

Detroit 3, Colorado 2

Here are two teams that should have made moves today but didn’t. Well, I mean, I know the Avs offloaded Jordan Leopold and got some scrubs in return, but they should have sold more aggressively. Anyway they lost to the Red Wings (I just typed Red Wangs by accident I’m so crazy lol!) and everyone knew they would and so who cares about this stupid game not me.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 at 2:51 am and is filed under Good night. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.