I continued to watch the Sabres on Tuesday night, after the score was already 5-1. I was interested — partly because Toronto has had such a good power play against Buffalo this season, and partly because I wanted to hear the interstitial comments about Regier’s trades from the usual MSG crew. Given that Elijah has been keeping us up, I should have gone to bed earlier, but this was one bright spot in a long day.
Buffalo got into penalty trouble early, but managed to hold off the Leafs. Tallinder and Lydman both had strong blocks on good shooting chances in the first period to keep Toronto off the scoreboard.
I was treated to a great wraparound goal by Stafford. It gives me hope for the near and far future … the Sabres are still eight players down and Stafford looks like he’ll be around for quite some time. Adding to that, the other captain didn’t suit up — Briere went home with the flu.
There were a few really nice chances by Vanek but it seems that everyone else but him scored.
RJ: [Describing a Toronto pass] “I didn’t make that up folks, that was Green to White.”
As for the trades … I think I saw that Zubrus was a minus player, despite his goals, and Conklin has won about two of his last eleven starts, so I hope these moves have brought improvement.
The final score was 6-1.