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Pittsburgh Penguins (1-0-0) vs. Buffalo Sabres (0-2-0) 7 PM at the Consol Energy Center
First things first, happy 48th birthday to Penguins legend Mario Lemieux. No person has had more of a positive influence on the Pittsburgh Penguins or the Southwest Pennsylvania hockey community than Super Mario. He was personally responsible for my growing interest in the sport of hockey as a young kid and was a great role model. Enjoy the vino.
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Myself and Hockeybuzz's Sabres blogger Kevin Freiheit exchanged our predictions for the tonight's Penguins Sabres game and here is his prediction:
The Sabres head into Pittsburgh with a pair of losses, and facing the Penguins, things aren't going to get any easier. Fleury and the Pens are coming off of a shutout and Buffalo has scored one goal in two games. Last season, Buffalo defeated Pittsburgh two out of three times, both of which came on the road. Ryan Miller has been phenomenal in this short season, but has nothing to show far in the win/loss column. The Sabres have been playing well, but have not been able to score, especially on the power play, where they are 0-11. I think the Sabres will get a couple of goals, but the Penguins will be the better team. Pittsburgh 4, Buffalo 2
You can find my prediction on
Kevin's blog
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Here are your lines from today’s morning skate for the Pittsburgh Penguins:
Kunitz-Crosby-Dupuis
Jokinen-Malkin-Bennett
Jeffrey-Sutter-Kobasew
Glass-Vitale-Adams
Orpik-Martin
Scuderi-Niskanen
Maatta-Bortuzzo
Engelland
Fleury
Zatkoff
Marc Andre Fleury will be getting the start in goal against the Sabres tonight.
Penguins #1 PP
Jokinen-Crosby-Kunitz
Malkin-Martin
Penguins #2 PP
Bennett-Sutter-Jeffrey
Maatta-Niskanen
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Ryan Miller is not on the ice for the Sabres. Jhonas Enroth and freshly called up goaltender Matt Hackett are the two goaltenders on the ice. Matt Hackett was pulled from the Rochester Americans season opener last night after giving up 6 goals in an 8-1 loss.
Matt Hackett has been designated as a goalie exemption call up and that means that Ryan Miller is still eligible to dress tonight.
According to Sabres GM Darcy Regier, Ryan Miller has a minor lower body injury and still might dress tonight. Given that information and the fact he had a huge workload last night I am confident that Jhonas Enrosh with be the starter this evening for Buffalo.
Here is the projected lineup for the Sabres this evening (h/t
Daily Faceoff):
Thomas Vanek - Cody Hodgson - Drew Stafford
Tyler Ennis - Johan Larsson - Steve Ott
Zemgus Girgensons - Mikhail Grigorenko - Brian Flynn
John Scott - Kevin Porter - Patrick Kaleta
Christian Ehrhoff - Mark Pysyk
Henrik Tallinder - Tyler Myers
Mike Weber - Rasmus Ristolainen
Jhonas Enroth
Matt Hackett
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The Pittsburgh Penguins and Buffalo Sabres both enter the 2013-2014 season with very different realistic goals in mind. The Penguins are still in Stanley Cup or bust mode, while the Sabres are closer to the 2003-2004 version of the Penguins. The Sabres will be looking to learn as much as they can about their young players during this season. Success for the Sabres this year will be in the form of seeing positive developments from Tyler Myers, Zemgus Girgensons, Mikhail Grigorenko, Rasmus Ristolainen, Marcus Foligno, Johan Larsson, and Joel Armia.
While it is usually better to have larger sample sizes when talking about team puck possession, I thought that it was an interesting contrast to compare the Penguins possession stats to Buffalo’s for this game.
Currently the Penguins have the best 5v5 Close Fenwick For % in the NHL with 66.7%. The Sabres are ranked dead last in the NHL with 40.2%. Its early in the year and I understand that, but the Sabres were one of the two worst possession teams in the league last year, the other team being Toronto. The Sabres will need to reverse this trend moving forward and provide their younger players with a proper template for success.
Last night the Sabres played a very exciting and hard fought game against the Ottawa Senators only to see the game winning goal scored by Erik Karlsson very late in the third period. It was the kind of game that should quiet the critics who say you need more goals in hockey. You don’t need more goals, you need more scoring chances. Great saves are just as exciting as goals and last night was a prime example.
After the game Ron Rolston was not very happy with what he saw and was not afraid to let it be known.
Rolston said that his best line last night was their third line which consisted of Kevin Porter, Brian Flynn, and Zemgus Girgensons.
"If that's our best line, we're in trouble. We’re in trouble in terms of elite in this league, so we’ve got to fix some things.”
Ron Rolston is correct; he can’t have his third line be the best line on a nightly basis for the Sabres to have success. However, Zemgus Girgensons is going to be a player the Buffalo faithful enjoy for a long time. His development has been quick and he looks like he is ready to take the next step at the NHL level. I would put his development path ahead of other 1st round pick Mikhail Grigorenko.
One positive so far this season has been the amazing play of Ryan Miller. Despite generally being outplayed Miller has provided the Sabres opportunities in both games this season for the Sabres to steal a win. Miller has stopped 74 out of a possible 77 shots, many of them being of the non routine variety.
Chances are the Penguins will not see Ryan Miller tonight and we will see the season debut of Jhonas Enroth. Given Miller’s history with the Penguins and the fact he is coming off a night in which he was heavily worked, the time seems right to start Enroth. However, Ryan Miller is a workhorse and may find his way into the net anyways.
Tonight’s Key Matchup
A matchup to watch tonight will be how Ron Rolston uses Tyler Myers and Christian Ehrhoff against the Penguins top 6. James Neal is listed as week to week and will not be playing, but the Penguins will still have their top line of Sidney Crosby, Pascal Dupuis, and Chris Kunitz intact. Evgeni Malkin will be centering Jussi Jokinen and the young up and comer Beau Bennett.
Let’s take a look at how each Sabres defenseman has done possession wise against the players from the Penguins top 6 during the time frame of 2010-2013. First up is Tyler Myers
Tyler Myers has actually done a great job against the Crosby line. Each player on that line plays better away from Tyler Myers than when they are up against him. Those numbers caught me off guard. Crosby is still a positive possession player vs. Myers but Kunitz and Dupuis are not. This could potentially be because of Crosby’s absence due to injury. Myers has not done well against Malkin at all.
Lets look at Ehrhoff:
Ehrhoff is the opposite. He has pretty bad numbers against Dupuis and Kunitz, especially Kunitz. You will notice Crosby is not listed and that is because he did not play enough minutes against Ehrhoff at even strength during this sample size. Ehrhoff is also really bad against Malkin, but considering Myers has had success against the Kunitz/Dupuis combo I would lean towards playing Myers against the Penguins top line. Ehrhoff will be a sacrificial lamb to the Malkin line for one night.
Those are just some interesting numbers I thought I would throw out there for the matchup.
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For the Pittsburgh Penguins to be successful against the Sabres they need to continue to do similar things to what they did on Thursday night against the Devils. Their defensive zone play was organized and controlled. The forwards did a terrific job of not allowing odd man rushes. Last but not least the Penguins generated speed and controlled zone entries through the neutral zone which led directly to goals.
The Sabres defense is young and if the Penguins can control the neutral zone tonight it will put great stress on the Sabres youngsters to maintain proper gap control. If gap control is lost on players like Crosby and Malkin the results are pretty predictable.
With James Neal out on a week to week basis that leaves the Penguins with Beau Bennett and Jussi Jokinen to play with Malkin. It will be interesting to see how that line clicks tonight. Both Bennett and Jokinen had very good preseasons playing next to Malkin, but it was never with the both of them on the line at the same time.
This could be Matt Niskanen’s last game in the Penguins top 4 on defense depending on Kris Letang’s status. Letang will be eligible to come off the IR before the next game. Niskanen had a very solid game against the Devils playing alongside The Piece. Having Matt Niskanen on the team to play a bottom pairing role makes the Penguins a better team. It was nice that they were able to find a way to become cap compliant without trading him.
The Penguins Sabres games are amongst my favorite during the year. Enjoy the game and thanks for reading!
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