Buffalo Sabres at Florida Panthers
Buffalo has been one of the hottest teams in the NHL coming out of the break. I’ll wait for you to recover consciousness.
Buffalo has won four of five games since the Olympics with the latest coming last night against Tampa Bay. It’s not from excellent team play – they are getting outshot by nearly 17 shots per game in those five contests – but wins are wins nonetheless. Goaltender Jhonas Enroth has been forced to make 20-plus saves in some of those games and has been the single difference between this team getting shelled and actually winning games. It’s quite something.
Florida has been the opposite of “hot” with three losses in four games since the break (the lone win coming against the Islanders). In those four games, they managed to give up 18 goals against. There is help coming though as the Panthers traded for goaltender Roberto Luongo on deadline day. The Panthers have the second-worst five-on-five save percentage in the NHL and Luongo should help in that regard. The rest of the team has remained intact though (aside from defenseman Mike Weaver) so Luongo will have to be special.
This seems like a good spot for Luongo to get his first win: Buffalo is playing back to back nights on the road and getting their teeth kicked in everywhere except in goal. Today marks the first game for newly-acquired goaltender Michal Neuvirth and he better be ready to make 40 saves. I’ll take Luongo tonight and a few Panthers skaters to go with it in cash games.
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Top RW Value |
Top LW Value |
Top C Value |
Top D Value |
Bargain Bin |
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Marcus Foligno |
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(FLA) $5289 |
