Faceoffs
My last negative takeaway, faceoffs has also been a lingering issue. Last night against the Wild, Buffalo won 15 out of 55 faceoffs which is 27 percent. Minnesota won 40 of them to be successful 73 percent of the time. Some people might not think too much of them but in certain situations, they are very important.
You don’t need to be a diehard hockey fan to understand that winning a faceoff could determine what is going to happen on the next possession. Again, it’s still very early on the season but they need to win more of them.
Effort
Enough of the bad, let’s get into the good. Even though it was a very ugly first half of the game and a scary finish, the Sabres did a good job of bending but not breaking. At one point in the third period, Buffalo could not get out of their own zone.
Even in the first half, it was a very sloppy effort defensively but as I just mentioned, they did not break and scored a couple of goals when they figured it out. A huge reason why they didn’t bend, the person I’m going to talk about in my next takeaway.