Buffalo Sabres must avoid the infamous trap game on Tuesday
By Sion Fawkes
The Arizona Coyotes are arguably the NHL’s least relevant franchise, and the Buffalo Sabres need to show they can dominate such teams.
On Tuesday, the Buffalo Sabres are playing in what might just be my least favorite game of the year. On one corner, the Blue and Gold are one of the NHL’s fastest-rising teams. Sure, they lost two straight, but they were hard-fought games against the Eastern Conference’s best. So much that, with a bit more experience, Buffalo will start winning more against the league’s elite.
This week’s slate of games will kickoff against the exact opposite, a team that, honestly, I have no idea why the NHL bothers to keep them around as opposed to relocating them. Now, I don’t mean to be harsh – I have a lot of sympathy for our friends in the desert. But really, if this team was winning and had adequate fan support, they wouldn’t be playing in a 5,000-seat arena in front of a bunch of college kids.
That, unfortunately, is the case for the Coyotes. And even more unfortunate is the fact that they are the kind of team that can come in and pull off some stunners. At this point, the Sabres, young as they are, would consider themselves stunned if Arizona snuck up on and did the unthinkable.
Coyotes present a potential trap for the Buffalo Sabres
Why am I writing this article? Because on Thursday, the Sabres are playing Jack Eichel and his Vegas Golden Knights, arguably the league’s best team led by the most infamous man in Buffalo. Given how bleak the Coyotes are, it’s easy for a young team like the Sabres to overlook and fail to take them seriously.
Sure, they play in a 5,000-seat college arena on a college campus. Yes, they are the least valuable team in the four major North American professional sports leagues. Yes, you have a better chance of running into a fan of an obscure, Division III college than you do of running into a Coyotes fan.
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And that’s what makes this game so frightening. Case in point, the Sabres need to focus on the Coyotes and only the Coyotes until it’s officially Wednesday, November 9th. And they need to make a statement before they faceoff with Eichel and his Golden Knights.
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