SabresBeat Posted March 29, 2007 Report Share Posted March 29, 2007 Kotalik and Paille Return, Al Nets Game Winner Instant Chemistry with Zubrus and Drury “They hit their shots. They sat back and were a pretty patient team. They didn’t give us too much and they capitalized on their opportunities.” –Martin Brodeur on the Sabres scoring 3 of 4 on one-timers. … and no one has a better one-time shot on this team than Ales Kotalik. Early in the 3rd he rang one of the post, but I’ll attribute that to shaking off a little rust. But at 15:52 of the third period, Kotalik converted a perfect cross-ice pass from Dainus (please consider re-signing here) Zubrus from 45 feet out, blasting it by Brodeur and, at that point, opening up a 2 goal lead on New Jersey. Kotalik’s return to the lineup had the effect I was hoping for; solidifying the Drury line, giving us a solid 2-way unit that is tough to contain down low. The Devils are a team that a lot of us in Sabresdom are worried about b/c of their similarity to the Dallas Stars of the late 90’s. Solid at all of the technical things and stultifyingly boring. They’d rather ice the puck 30 times than try one pass that might spring a forward if there’s a hint of it getting picked off. The margin for error playing that way is slim. The Sabres haven’t shown a real committment to adapting to that style of play on an consistent basis. They’ll do it occassionally, for a period here, a couple of shifts there, but by and large they’ve struggled against teams that want to take the ice away from them. This is the 2nd time this year that the Sabres came out and showed the Devils that they can play that game as well as the Devils can, and that, with an even reasonably healthy lineup, they can’t match up against us line for line, defense pair for defense pair. One of the complaints I constantly hear about the Sabres is that they don’t like to play against the trap. I have a couple of things to say about that and here’s the patented bulleted list: The Sabres beat the trap at will last night, and they did so against the Devils the last time they played them and the night before in Minnesota. The 1st period was a series of soft dump-ins to the corner to kee pBrodeur where he belongs and grind things out along the boards, hoping to retrieve the puck and set up a shot from the point. Textbook example of this is the Sabres 1st goal by Jochen Hecht. The Sabres play the trap when it suits their purpose…. and they play it really well. The Devils were the ones having a terrible time getting through both our 1-4 and our 1-2-2 last night. They are excellent at Dump and Chase, so when they did break our trap they create solid pressure. The Sabres ridiculously strong transition game feeds off the trap better than the Devils! This is the important point. Buffalo has more guys who can make you pay for a neutral zone turnover created by the trap than the Devils… hence, if the Sabres wanted to (and they did last night a lot) they could play an entire game this way and still score a ton of goals. Okay, enough mythbusting. The win was very solid and the Sabres out-waited the Devils as the 2 points meant more to them than to us. The goals scored in the 3rd came off of forcing the Devils into bad turnovers, and I think them losing a little patience. It was that kind of game… little things mattering greatly. Points of Interest: Early in the 3rd period I screamed at Brian Campbell on a rush up the RW to lower a shoulder and drive the net on Brian Rafalski. He had the angle and chose to swoop in behind the net. 5 minutes later Danny Briere roared down the LW, drove into Rafalski and fed Hecht a perfect pass on the mini 2 on 1. Teams like the Devils and the Wild give you the outside lane around the net, it allows them the extra second or two to get back into their 5 man zone. To be successful, at some point in the game driving the net, even if it fails, is necessary. Force the defensemen to take you one on one and beat you. This brings me to the Kotalik/Drury/Zubrus line. The way those guys play, the fact that they are all similar in speed creates an almost inevitable wall of human puck possession coming through the neutral zone and should scare the daylights out of any team, even 3 on 3. Zubrus and Drury can both distribute the puck (Zubrus tape to tape, Drury into open space) and all three can retrieve it, with the wingers punishing you for doing so. If they are given the blueline then Kotalik’s one-timer can be set up with traffic going to the net. Kotalik changes the entire dynamic of that line. Who wants to trade Dmitri Kalinin still? Best overall defenseman last night against one of the best puck pressure teams in the league. He still just 26 years old. His best hockey is yet to come. Look what happens when you match Adam Mair with just one guy who he clicks with… Dan Paille. Scud had himself one of his best games as a Sabre last night. He and Paille were so good I would have sworn they’d played 9-11 minutes, they only played 5-6. But, 2 goals from that line is 2 more than anyone really expects. Rotating Hecht and Roy with those guys seemed to work best. The Devils are scary not because they trap and slow the game down. The Devils are scary because they have at least 2 more gears than they normally play in and save it for when they’re down a goal late in a game. Their desire to win is impressive and they can manufacture garbage goals in an instant. You must play to the buzzer against them or they’ll burn you. That group is mentally tough and resiliant. 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