Quite a bit of Sabres content in the latest Puck Daddy Power Rankings at Yahoo– and it’s not good.
First, on the (lack of) scoring:
I had to look this up like four times because I couldn’t believe it was true and also because I would never subject myself to watching a Sabres game unless I absolutely had to, but right now Buffalo has 10 goals scored in eight games.
Just 10 goals scored, and it was seven in seven before they ran, well, “roughshod” isn’t the word, in a shootout win over the Islanders. Only Tom Vanek has more than one. He has three. It’s an amazing accomplishment, really. Before last night they were only shooting 3.9 percent as a team, which is obviously going to come up but who’s going to do it? Maybe Tyler Ennis? He doesn’t have any points at all through those seven games, but that’s okay because neither do 10 of the other skaters who have suited up for the team this year.
The reason this is noteworthy is that we might end up seeing the worst offense in NHL history; even a significant uptick in scoring would probably get it done. The above-mentioned Bolts of the late 1990s are the current NHL record-holders in the fewest-goals-scored-in-82-games department at just 151 (1.84 per game).
It’s a great fortune that Vanek will probably be traded this season, because I really want to see the mighty Quetzalcoatl of Mikael Renberg and Alex Selivanov, who led those Lightning in goals with 16 apiece, finally toppled. Too long have they lorded their futility over the hockey world.
Brian Flynn, do you have what it takes to lead the Sabres in scoring with just 15 goals? Gee whiz I hope so.
And on the recently (and oft) suspended Patrick Kaleta:
Patrick Kaleta, at long last, had his suspension hearing yesterday after already having missed two games and was then hit with an additional eight games for his hit to Jack Johnson’s noodle.
This is, frankly, not enough, but also the logical conclusion to the kind of disciplinary gauntlet that Kaleta has been building toward. The fact that he’s been fined three times and now suspended for a fourth in since 2009 is insane. If you’re looking at the “rats” that need to be run out of the game, this is where the discussion begins, lingers for a while in the middle and also ends.
The term “garbage” gets thrown around a lot these days but Patrick Kaleta is garbage. Maybe this wakes him up, in the way that getting screamed at all summer by Mario Lemieux and Ray Shero did for Matt Cooke. But as with Cooke, until we’re given legitimate evidence of contrition, it’s a safe assumption that Kaleta will continue to “play on the edge” and try to injure his opponents given the slightest opportunity. This is especially true for people who share the ice with him on any given shift.
Only getting 10 games is too damn good for him.
Where’s a nice lockout when you need one?
