The Sabres had several regular season games in which they did this to other teams, exploding for 7-8 goals and winning in a similar fashion. It's not a new development, as disappointing as this loss may have been.
Go Habs Go!
- Thread starter talkinghead
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So here we are.....another game 7. It's tough for the heart. Today is do or die, again.
Last game was ugly. But it is what it is. All that's left is the ultimate showdown.
Can we not allow a goal in the first minute of play, please?
Last game was ugly. But it is what it is. All that's left is the ultimate showdown.
Can we not allow a goal in the first minute of play, please?
5 reasons the Sabres and Canadiens are obviously winning Game 7
If you’ve been paying attention to this series, you know who’s going to win. But here are reasons for both team's logical victory anyway.
www.nytimes.com
We’ll start with the easy one. As always when it comes to a winner-take-all hockey game, we can approach this from a dozen different angles. We can dig into increasingly obscure stats. Or we can babble about vibes and narratives and all the rest of that nonsense.
Or we can just accept that the team with the best goaltending will win. Like they always do.
And in this series, only one team has any reason to have much confidence in their goaltending. Granted, Jakub Dobes is coming off a rough one in Game 6, a performance that saw him yanked for the first time this spring while driving his series save percentage down to .884. That’s not ideal, I’ll grant you.
But it’s still better than what the Sabres are facing. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen was supposed to be The Guy in Buffalo for this playoff run, but he almost immediately lost his job to Alex Lyon. Now Lyon has presumably lost it back, with Luukkonen expected to get the nod tonight. Is that the right call? And if he gets off to a slow start, how short should the leash be? Knowing his team doesn’t fully believe in him, can he shake off a bad break or tough goal, or will he crumble in the bright lights?
The Habs don’t really have those questions. After seeing Martin St. Louis stick with Dobes through a shaky start in Game 5, we know he’s all-in on his starter.
There’s an old hockey cliche that says if you’ve got two starting goalies, you don’t have any. Montreal has one and they know it. The Sabres are running out of time to figure it out."
For Montreal there is zero questionning, Dobes is their horse with a reason. He always been able to brush off a bad goal or a bad performance. The entire team has full confidence in him.
For the Sabres it is a head or tail throw, Ruff knows it and, as opposed to Marty, he has been praying night and day since saturday night, hoping his decision will be the good one!
For the Sabres it is a head or tail throw, Ruff knows it and, as opposed to Marty, he has been praying night and day since saturday night, hoping his decision will be the good one!
I love coin flips having to be made by a coach in professional sports. They can make history.
My favorite all time favorite coin flip move happened in another sport- baseball. In the 1968 World Series, Detroit manager Mayo Smith was faced with a critical decision. Facing the strong pitching staff of the St. Louis Cardinal led by ace and Hall of Famer Bob Gibson and his 1.12 ERA, Smith had to decide whether to bench starting shortstop Ray Oyler, who that season batted an MLB worst .135 and was the ultimate automatic out, and start a better hitter while sacrificing defense at a critical position. Smith decided to start regular centerfielder Mickey Stanley at SS, bench Oyler and his anemic bat, and the rest is history, as Stanley hit, made 2 errors (not leading to any runs) and Detroit would win the World Series 4 games to 3.
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