70. Buffalo Sabres at Boston Bruins. No Need For The Irish Luck Tonight.

Ah the Buffalo Sabres. The shit stains of the NHL. The Bruins and Sabres used to have a nice rivalry. It wasn’t anything to write home to Ma about. It wasn’t Bruins/Canadiens or Penguins/Flyers but it was fun. In the 2010 playoffs the #6 seed Boston Bruins rolled the #3 seeded Buffalo Sabres. The two always seemed to really battle one another. Now? Now Buffalo is in full on tank mode and for some reason guys like Jack Edwards are saying it is because of Milan Lucic.

Not only did the Sabres not answer that Lucic hit on Miller, you can actually trace the downward spiral of BUF to that exact moment.

— Jack Edwards (@RealJackEdwards) March 16, 2015

Jesus Christ. It doesn’t matter what I think of Jack Edwards but he knows how to pander to the Bruins fanbase. His mentions were eating that up like Sully, O’Brien and MacAullie were all sitting down to a boiled dinnah. Also, if you never had a boiled dinnah please do so.

Right now.

The sodium from the corned beef and the swelling that will occur is worth it. Trust me.

Normally I use these previews to talk about the opponent because we should all know about the Boston Bruins. We are fans of the team. We follow them night in and night out. It is the opposition that relatively goes unknown unless it is against a marquee team. No one cares what the Wild are doing, ya know, so I try to inform you.

But it is fucking Buffalo. No one cares about the Sabres. They are last in like everything. Let’s talk about the Bruins:

At home this season Boston sports on of the best corsi for% at 54.2, good for 7th. Surprisingly they’re 20th in the NHL in goals for (97) but 10th in goals against with only 79 allowed. It is clear that while the team has struggled defensively overall they are much better at home. One stat that really jumped out at me was the offensive zone starts for Boston. At home this season, Boston has started 52.4% of their faceoffs in the offensive zone. That’s a pretty good number when you look at a team who doesn’t score a lot at home. So they’re getting the zone starts and about 72% of their shots are unblocked shot attempts on goal. So what’s the problem?

Their shooting percentage is terrible. The Bruins on ice shoot percent at home is 8.3% which ranks them 24th with teams like Edmonton, Columbus, Florida and Arizona. Surprising fact of the day: Chicago is at the bottom too.

How have the Bruins been on their recent string of amazing hockey? From 2/27/15 to today here is where Boston ranks:

25 goals for (7th overall)
16 goals against (6th overall)
51.6% corsi for [measuring possession] (14th overall)
72.4 of shots are unblocked shots on goal (16th overall)
8.7 shoot percentage (16th overall)
94.8% on ice save percent [what!] (2nd overall)
53.1% of faceoffs won (6th overall).

There are some insane fucking numbers there people. So obviously because I am giving the Bruins the wettest blogging version of a blowjob I can, they’re going to lose tonight.