Be honest: How many of you stayed up for the 10:30 pm Sabres vs. Sharks game on a Tuesday night?
If you did, you heard some interesting Jack Eichel information from ESPN’s Emily Kaplan after the first period. But more on that later. First we have to talk a little bit about the pretty miserable 5-3 loss that transpired concurrently with that news.
Jonathan Dahlen got the scoring going early as the Sharks won a faceoff draw and got the puck to the net in traffic where Craig Anderson had a difficult time handling all of the activity in front of his crease. Truthfully there wasn’t much Anderson could have done to prevent that one.
Thankfully for the Sabres faithful who stayed up for the late contest, Jeff Skinner got things equalized during a delayed penalty call against the San Jose Sharks to keep thing interesting. Tage Thompson was hauled down in the low slot, after which Skinner received the puck and let a wrist shot go from the high slot that beat James Reimer. The lead was short lived, however, as Ryan Merkley quickly restored the Sharks lead with another scoring play caused by a crowded crease.
There were some very cool stats on the ESPN broadcast during the first intermission as they clocked Sabres forward Vinnie Hinostroza with a max speed of 22.87 MPH in the first period. It’s easy to get used to the new broadcast partnership between the NHL and ESPN with this kind of presentation. The NBC telecasts had gotten incredibly stale, and the ESPN broadcasts bring a higher-energy level that the league desperately needs if they want to attract a younger audience.
ESPN also had an unexpected Eichel-themed segment after the first period during which Emily Kaplan said an Eichel trade is at “the one-yard line… with the Calgary Flames and the Vegas Golden Knights as the final two participants vying for the services of the former Sabres captain. The new NHL rights holders are clearly trying to market not only the product on the ice, but also the behind the scenes drama. The NBA has successfully tapped into that vein going back to the LeBron James “taking my talents to South Beach… press conference a decade ago and ESPN is smart to seize on a similar marketing opportunity here.
If the rumors on Twitter from the likes of NHL Rumors Daily and The Mayor are to be believed, it seems like a Vegas deal would center on young prospect Peyton Krebs along with veteran Alex Tuch, a high draft pick and a B-level prospect. Such a trade package is completely reasonable.
It’s fair to assume, then, that an equal deal from the Calgary Flames would revolve around center prospect Connor Zary, perhaps Andrew Mangiapane, a 1st round pick and a lower-level prospect like Eetu Tuulola. From there, it’s a matter of making the money work by adding a third-party team to inject some more salary cap to the Sabres side and/or absorb some cap to satisfy the Flames side. Both of these trade destinations allow the Sabres to ship Eichel to a time zone far, far away which is good news, as no Sabres fan wants to watch Eichel dominate the Sabres 4-5 times a year with an Eastern Conference team. Losing to him repeatedly in the early going of the playoffs would be brutal. Send him west.
Anyhoo, back to the game. In the second period, Dylan Cozens fell down and lost his man which resulted in a partial breakaway from Tomas Hertl who cashed the opportunity over Craig Anderson. Cozens rebounded well from that mistake, though, as his line cashed in on an opportunity in the 13th minute of the second period when Cozens fed Hinostroza who fed Drake Caggiula who wired an absolute laser above Reimer to make it a 3-2 game. The ESPN telecast later pegged that clapper as an 89 mile-per-hour rocket.
Near the end of the second, Brent Burns took a “closing the hand over the puck penalty… after attempting to play a dump in by Jeff Skinner who is often credited as drawing a ton of penalties in favor of the Sabres. The blue and gold couldn’t manage much on that man advantage. The Sabres desperately need some more high-end talent in those situations. The loss of Victor Olofsson due to injury in this game made that issue even more pronounced. If Emily Kaplan is correct about an end to this Eichel standoff then the Sabres should receive an influx of skilled talent soon.
If I weren’t the Sabres blogger, I would have bailed on the game after the third period goal by Mario Ferraro. C’mon, it’s 12:30 and 4-2, but #SabresAfterDark cannot be cut short so on we go toward 1 am. Tage Thompson continued his strong play on the season with numerous opportunities throughout the game that he was unable to cash. The team very much needs him to capitalize on those chances rather than hitting the post or shooting the puck wide.
Again, without Olofsson, Buffalo needs guys like Thompson to step up and put something away because it’s unrealistic to thing that Zemgus Girgensons or Kyle Okposo can do so with any regularity.
My god, on the fifth goal, Hertl absolutely walked Rasmus Dahlin. He made the Sabres defenseman look comically bad. Anderson probably could have done a better job to make the save, but that’s all on Dahlin. Brutal. If you stuck with it beyond that point, I have a gold star for you, and you also saw a pretty wild goal by Jeff Skinner. Skinner took a puck out of the air behind the net and banked it off the back of Reimer’s head and into the net. So that was cool I guess.
Overall, there isn’t much in the way of positive reinforcement to say about this one. At least fans got some juicy Eichel rumors in exchange for staying up til 1 am to watch a bad loss as the Sabres fell to 5-3-1 on the season.