Sabres Rolled Over by Powerhouse North Stars, Losing Streak at 7

The Buffalo Sabres' struggles in every area of the ice continued last night as the Minnesota North Stars came into town and thoroughly outclassed the home team Sabres by a score of 6 to 1. After an early season win against the Chicago Blackhawks that gave Sabres fans some hope of a better season, the team has now lost 7 straight and are tied with that same Blackhawks team for last place in the league with a single win over the opening 10 games. The game last night was an apt example of the uphill battle Buffalo has been facing on a nightly basis. Special teams were horrendous, team discipline was laughable, the offense could not get anything going and the defense and goaltending was unable to give the forwards enough time to figure things out.

The game was all but over within the opening 15 minutes of the game. The North Stars came out hard and peppered Sabres goaltender Al Jensen with 14 shots over the course of the period and 4 of them found the back of the net. Ihnacak, Duchesne, Gusarov and Eklund were the goal scorers. Of the near 14,000 fans that made their way to HSBC Arena, it looked as though almost half of them were gone before the start of the 2nd period. The fans that left saved themselves a ton of suffering as it looked as though the ice was extremely tilted in favor of Minnesota from then on out. 

The 2nd period actually started out quite well for the Sabres as they managed to lock it down defensively for the opening 5 minutes. Then Mike Craig and Marty Ruff both went to the penalty box just after the 5 minute mark and the North Stars were able to convert on the ensuing 5 on 3 advantage. Peter Ihnacak scored his 2nd goal of the game on the team's 5th shot of the period. Coach Bryan Murray had seen enough at this point and pulled Jensen in favor of backup Clint Malarchuk. Malarchuk was solid in relief, as he turned away the remaining 12 Minnesota shots in the 2nd period. Shots ended up being 17 to 3 in favor of the North Stars for the middle frame.

An early 3rd period goal from Bob Errey put the Sabres on the board and ruined Martin Brodeur's shutout. A few minutes later Eklund scored his 2nd goal of the game for Minnesota and took what little wind was left in the Sabres' sails right out of the equation. The parade to the penalty box continued throughout the 3rd period and the North Stars cruised through another period finishing with 12 shots to the Sabres' 5. The Sabres' lack of discipline came back to bite them hard in this one, as they gave the North Stars 15 chances with the man advantage. Minnesota managed to score on 3 of those attempts, and were quite stingy the other way as Buffalo only had 1 powerplay of their own in the game.

The Sabres get likely the best chance of this young season to get things going as they face the Anaheim Ducks tonight. The Ducks are a team that started out well but have been struggling quite a bit since management urgently needed to shed some salary to keep the young expansion team afloat financially. The Ducks have won 3 of their opening 9 games but are currently on a 3 game losing streak without any answers of how they will replace the pieces they have recently moved out. The Sabres hope they can take advantage of another struggling team and stop their slide at 7 games.