See that, people?It was what kicked Buffalo's butts in three consecutive games. At home. HSBC saw three games in four nights and Buffalo came out with zero out of six points.
In what was arguably Buffalo's toughest three game stretch of the year, they were dominated twice and gave up shorthanded goals in all three games. All three teams ran variations of Jacques Lemaire's Neutral Zone Trap.
Lemaire, right, made it famous in 1995 when he won the Stanley Cup with the New Jersey Devils. He has since moved to coach the Minnesota Wild, and carried the system (mostly) over. The Devils have employed the system since and have been fairly successful with it. The Avalanche have only used it a few times this year, and I believe they were using it mainly as an experiment on Buffalo, to see if they could shut down the Sabres offense.
Buffalo scored 251 goals through 65 games this year, an average of 3.86 goals per game. In the three games this week, Buffalo had only scored five goals. The trap has stymied the most potent offense in the NHL, and coach Lindy Ruff gave the players both Thursday and Saturday mornings off, citing they didn't need to skate.
Well they sure as hell needed to watch some game film. Drew Stafford has left his man unguarded twice and both times goals were scored. Thomas Vanek seems to have forgotten what backchecking is- along with the rest of the forwards.
In the Sabres' offensive system, the defense is normally supposed to cheat up and help forecheck, but in that case, the front lines should be helping backcheck... and they haven't been.
I don't know whether the Sabres need a break from their fast paced style, whether they didn't play hard so they don't kill themselves before the playoffs, or the injured players coming back one at a time is screwing up chemistry; but I do know if they don't get their act together, they won't be seeing home ice for game seven in the Conference Finals... and if you don't think that's important, think back to June 1st, 2006 when Buffalo lost game 7 to the Carolina Hurricanes at the RBC center.
There is no doubt in any other's mind that if the game was in Buffalo, the Cup would be on display at HSBC arena.
The Trap is something Lindy and his mates need to study and counter, fast. The Trap isn't a really difficult system to use, and if the rest of the league sees our fall to it- it could really wreck any chance of us winning in the playoffs.
Trap defense is also used in playoffs on a regular basis.
In the last week, Buffalo had it's first glimpse at playoff hockey.
Let's hope the losses were a hiccup and not a trend. Buffalo can win big games, and I'd like to see them win 16 after the season is complete.
1 comment:
Ya know.. I couldn't agree with you more. I didn't get to watch all the games, and I didn't get to watch the complete games of the ones I did get to see. I wasn't missing much. They deserved their loss against the Avalanche, they didn't even show up. I have been rather disappointed in them the past couple games. Let's hope they get them selves out of it, and they figure out how to work their offense around this trap. You're right, coaches see that it hurts us, and that's the end if we don't get something figured out!
Another nice write up :-)
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