Leaving The Season The Way They Entered

The ITC regular season drew to a blessed close with two consecutive games for the Buffalo Sabres, first losing 3-1 to the rock-bottom New York Islanders in the Nassau Coliseum then tying the Toronto Maple Leafs 2-2 on home ice. The woeful finish capped off a record-breaking twenty-five game winless streak for the beleaguered Sabres, and the one point gained from the Maple Leafs was the only one for some time. This leaves Buffalo 27^th in the league overall – 13^th in the Eastern Conference – with a total of just 53 points for the whole season; the 249 goals conceded is the fourth-worst total in the league, behind Carolina’s 265, Edmonton’s 257 and the 251 shared by Toronto, Nashville and Florida, while the 172 goals scored is also in the bottom ten.

Rick Nash returned to the line-up after being sidelined with his wrist injury for the Islanders game, and despite scoring Buffalo’s only goal – his 22^nd of the campaign – he was one of the many Sabres to take penalties, and it was his call for roughing that resulting in Marco Sturm doubling New York’s lead to 2-0 early in the third period; Sturm had opened the scoring already with under a minute to go in the first period, with what was his 200^th career goal. But just as the Buffalo fans felt like they could mount a comeback, Vyacheslav Truhnov killed their hopes with his sixth goal less than thirty seconds after, and with the Sabres offense firing blanks, goaltender Samuel Belanger had little to do to add another win to his total; at the other end of the rink, Vesa Toskala faced seventeen shots but allowed three goals on them to deliver a hit to his save percentage. Sturm took the first star honours, Truhnov the second and Greg Watson, who assisted on both of Sturm’s goals and brought his total to twenty helpers, was the third star.

After the sparsely-populated Coliseum – only six thousand five hundred fans turned up for the game – Buffalo returned home in front of a packed house for an always-intense game against dogged rivals Toronto. Regardless of the Leafs’ statistical superiority, it was Mike Cammalleri who drew first blood, netting his 24^th goal to keep the team lead off an exquisite pass from Trevor Daley in the second minute, and would later provide an assist for Nash on a powerplay goal. By that time, unfortunately, the Maple Leafs had regrouped and scored twice in the first period – Derek Roy scoring his 18^th and Jukka Poutanen chipped in with a go-ahead goal (also his first this year) – and thus the valiant effort only left Buffalo with one point for a 2-2 tie. Toskala weathered a late barrage of shots in overtime to emerge with 27 saves, while Mikael Tellqvist saved nineteen; Toskala also was nominated as the first star for his heroics, with Cammalleri second and Derek Roy third. The AHL game was more eventful, as the Rochester Americans came out 7-6 winners over the St. John’s Maple Leafs that saw St Johns’ Shawn Weller score a hat-trick and still come out on the losing side.

With the fourth overall pick in the upcoming draft and another pick later, the Sabres have a lot of options in terms of players. The top-ranked player by the CSB, Robin Fernsworth, is unsurprisingly one of those on the list, but aside from him the Buffalo management is keeping their cards close to their chest. The fact is that since the team has holes everywhere, there’s not really a bad pick to be made. However, an inside source claims that the man they have their eye most closely on is Canadian all-round forward Rene Arsenault of the Red Deer Rebels, who is someone able to chip in all over the ice and thus would provide some welcome insurance. The 22^nd overall pick, the one formerly belonging to the Ottawa Senators, is being shopped around but it’s not really expected to be moving anywhere.