Buffalo Sabres Daily: Anders Lindback, Frozen Four

Buffalo Sabres goaltender Anders Lindback had arguably the best game of his season last night in a shootout win over the Boston Bruins. The funny thing is, he wasn’t even supposed to be playing.

Yep, that’s right. As of yesterday morning, almost everyone thought that it would be Matt Hackett in between the pipes for the Sabres, ready to make his return to the building where his injury occurred.

But this is hockey, after all, and anything can change. Sabres head coach Ted Nolan decided to change things up and go with the hot hand of Lindback, despite the fact that he had played the night prior and had taken the team to a shootout, albeit a losing one.

It turns out this wasn’t such a bad decision after all, as Lindback had a season-high 44 saves and stopped all three shooters to carry the Sabres to a victory, for his first win with the blue and gold.

In the end, the two points garnered by the Sabres won’t mean a whole lot in the standings, but the one point lost by Boston could mean a lot to the team’s playoff chances, at least according to this Boston Herald piece.

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Whether you’re pro-tank or not, you cannot deny that it always feels great to beat the Boston Bruins. It’s even better to beat them at a time like this, when the Sabres are the worst team in the league and realistically have no business winning, but can play spoilers and steal crucial points away from teams on the cusp of the postseason.

In other news, a Denver Post article this morning says that game-day skates may not be the ideal prep for NHL (and NBA) players.

Now, the title of this article is a bit misleading, as it says “warm-ups,” which to me are the skates immediately prior to a game. In reality, it’s talking about morning, game-day skates, like the ones the Sabres hold around 10 a.m. on pretty much every home game day at First Niagara Center.

The study points specifically to sleep patterns, suggesting that athletes need 8-10 hours of sleep in order to be properly rested for a game.

Around the college hockey world, teams are starting to look toward the Frozen Four, but first: championship weekend.

Yahoo’s Puck Daddy has a look at the conference tournaments and who’s your biggest movers and shakers around the college hockey world heading into the weekend.

Finally, if you have a chance, drag yourself off to the movie theater and see “Red Army,” a documentary about the Soviet Union’s famed hockey team. The movie stars hockey standouts including Scotty Bowman, Viacheslav Fetisov, Anatoli Karpov and Vladislav Tretiak. It’s more than just a hockey film, though, also examining the social, cultural and political movements of the time in the Soviet Union.

I’m not sure how long it’ll be in theaters, so if you get the chance, check it out.

The Buffalo Sabres are off until Friday, but there are three games on tap tonight in the NHL, including two nationally-televised bouts. The Blackhawks and Rangers face off in “Rivalry Night” (??) on NBCSN at 8 p.m. EST in the first game of a nationally-televised doubleheader. The Kings and Ducks will then face off at 10:30 p.m., also on NBCSN.

In non-nationally broadcast action, the Columbus Blue Jackets and Edmonton Oilers face off at 10 p.m.

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