There are a whole bunch of things that the Buffalo Sabres didn’t do well in their seven-game loss to the Philadelphia Flyers. In fact, the bad may outnumber the good. No matter though, I won’t rehash every hand-wrenching moment. Just the ones that can be fixed.
– Defensive zone coverage. That is a broad point and I intend it to be. The Sabres simply didn’t do very well handling the Flyers’ forecheck and clearing their zone. They also lost contain far too often and let too many dangerous forwards free too many times. In both 1-0 victories this happened. It may have been limited, but it happened. In the four losses it happened way too much. The most glaring times were when the Sabres were giving up two and three-goal leads.
A great deal of this can be fixed with more experience and a stronger defensive coprs. Not to mention any semblance of support on the boards from the wingers. The young defensemen were exposed, especially Chris Butler and Andrej Sekera, it is painfully clear that group is in need of an upgrade this summer. However, it needs to be an upgrade that comes from outside the organization, simply inserting a player from the minors clearly isn’t going to suffice.
– Big players playing big. Thomas Vanek came to play, so did Ryan Miller. Tyler Myers seemed to grow as the series continued as well. However, Drew Stafford didn’t get his nose dirty nearly enough, neither did Brad Boyes. Their goal totals were effected by this play. Tyler Ennis had a few timely goals, but he seemed to be overwhelmed. Tim Connolly killed penalties well, but that isn’t why the Sabres’ pay him over $4 million. Buffalo didn’t get the support that the Flyers got from their big guns. It is a major reason they didn’t finish off the Flyers.
– Power play inconsistency. This may be splitting hairs a bit. The power play was 1000% better than it was last year against the Bruins. However, too often during the series the power play was ineffective. At times the only thing it was effective at was swinging the momentum to the Flyers. Namely the two huge five-on-three chances Buffalo misfired on may have been the difference in the series.
– Dropping the ball at home. Game three ended up being somewhat of a wash considering the Sabres won the next two games. Ryan Miller wasn’t spectacular in that outing but Buffalo did find a couple ways to fumble that one away. Game six is obviously where I was going with this point. 2-0 lead, then 3-1 and a 4-3 lead with ten minutes to go and Buffalo couldn’t close the door on Philly. Sure, if Drew Stafford’s two-on-one attempt doesn’t hit the pipe I am breaking down how Buffalo matches up with the Caps. Instead you are left wondering how the Sabres surrendered those leads and misfired on a HUGE two-man advantage in that game six. I knew it once Ville Leino scored in OT, the series was the Flyers to lose. They certainly didn’t disappoint.
Now I am going to flip this and look at what the Sabres did well. I promise it won’t be a fluffy silver lining post either. The fact of the matter is that the Sabres had a lot of shortcomings in this series and once they are addressed this will be an even better hockey club.
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