Love to play with him, hate to play against him.
When the Buffalo Sabres drafted Patrick Kaleta with the 176th overall pick in the sixth round of the 2004 NHL Entry Draft, they knew that they were getting a hard-hitting grinder who may put up 10 points a season, but they didn’t know they were drafting the league’s best agitator.
From Kaleta’s bone-crushing hits to his overly elaborate goal celebrations (see picture), he knows just how to get under the opposing team’s skin.
He’ll line another player up from the other side of the ice and knock them through the boards. Once he collects his first hit, then the first part of his job is done—he has let the other team know that he’s on the ice.
Once an opposing player takes exception to one of Kaleta’s hits, or one of his goalie poke-checks, or one of taunts, then the second part of his job is done—he has begun to agitate the other team.
Here, have a look at such an instance .
Once an opposing player takes a penalty on Kaleta’s behalf, then his job is complete.
In his first three seasons in the NHL, Kaleta has done something very special for the Northeast-leading Sabres. He has led the league in penalties drawn in all three seasons.
In the 2007-08 season, Kaleta led the NHL with an average of 5.0 penalties drawn per 60 minutes. Last season, Kaleta led the same category again, averaging 4.9 penalties drawn per 60 minutes.
This season has been no different for the 23-year-old native of Angola, New York. Kaleta currently leads the NHL averaging 4.0 penalties drawn per 60 minutes.
Kaleta was thrown right into his role as an agitator in his very first NHL game, back on Feb. 22, 2007—an historic game in Buffalo Sabres’ history.
The February game happens to be the same night Ottawa Senators’ forward Chris Neil took out then Sabres’ captain, Chris Drury, with a late hit that knocked Drury out of the game.
After a couple of smaller scuffles, Head Coach Lindy Ruff put out Kaleta, along with Andre Peters and Adam Mair, to mix it up with Ottawa’s top line.
You really have to see for yourself .
Kaleta got to drop the gloves with Ottawa defenseman Chris Phillips in a night that he will never forget.
Whether he’s just throwing a hit or finding a way to get entirely too close to the opposing goaltender, well after the whistle has blown, Kaleta has quickly become the league’s top agitator.
From his first night in a Sabres’ uniform, Kaleta has become a fan favorite in Buffalo—and he is hated by fans everywhere else he goes.
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It’s not a secret that if the Buffalo Sabres want to make any kind of playoff run, certain players are going to have to step their game up—Thomas Vanek, Drew Stafford, and Craig Rivet just to name a few.
But there is one name that seems to be escaping a lot of criticism: Lindy Ruff.
Buffalo’s head coach, in his 12th season with the Sabres, has made some highly questionable decisions in the last month of play—the most recent has Sabres’ fans scratching their heads.
In light of the Sabres’ recent scoring slump, Ruff called up Mark Mancari from the AHL to provide an offensive spark—which the young Sabre did.
In three games with the big club, Mancari had two points, an incredible 15 shots, and was a plus-three. He also averaged just under 18 minutes of ice-time per game.
It seemed that the Sabres had finally found the offense it was looking for, thanks to the hard-nosed effort of Mancari—until Ruff returned the 24-year-old forward back to the Portland Pirates before Saturday’s 3-2 overtime loss to the Detroit Red Wings.
There is a combination of things that has made Sabres’ fans wonder what Ruff was thinking.
Forget Mancari’s great numbers with the team in three games, but take a look at another player on the team that could have been sent down.
Tim Kennedy’s rookie year has progressively gone downhill as the season has worn on.
Kennedy does not have a point in his last 12 games. He also only has six shots during that stretch and is an abysmal minus-nine—showing that he is slacking on both sides of the puck.
Mancari had seven shots in Friday night’s 3-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild alone.
Kennedy’s ice-time is also down significantly from the beginning of the season. He hit a season-low on Friday night after playing just 6:47.
Kennedy’s lack of offense coupled with his lazy defensive play makes me wonder what Ruff is trying to do with the 23-year-old Buffalo native.
With plenty of talent waiting in the AHL—Mancari, Tyler Ennis, and Nathan Gerbe—what could Ruff possibly be waiting for?
This is not the first questionable decision that the former Jack Adams’ Award-winner and longest tenured coach in the NHL has made this season. I understand that I almost contradict myself with that previous statement, but it would appear from this season that Ruff’s best coaching days may be behind him.
Either way, it might be time for the Sabres to look for a new head coach—playoffs pending, that is.
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If the Buffalo Sabres did not have any worries about not trading for a capable backup goalie on the March 3 trade deadline, they do now.
Patrick Lalime continued his miserable two-year stretch with the Sabres on Friday night, allowing three goals on 33 shots in a 3-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild.
Lalime let in two horrible first-period goals which took the Sabres out of the game early—something that generally does not happen when Ryan Miller is in net.
With the Sabres trailing 1-0, Lalime gave the puck away behind his goal to Minnesota forward Guillaume Latendresse, who buried it into an open net.
The Sabres’ faithful made sure Lalime knew they were getting tired of his act. Relentless booing after the second goal, followed by sarcastic cheers every time Lalime made a save thereafter, certainly got the point across to the struggling goaltender.
“It felt like I was on the road,” Lalime told the Associated Press after the game. “You just want to shake it off.”
After two goals from Thomas Vanek, Buffalo’s third-period comeback fell short, and the Sabres lost for the first time in four games.
Lalime is 3-5-2 this season with a .897 save percentage and a GAA over three. His last win came back on December 29 in a relief effort against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
But it is last season’s performance that turned many fans off of Lalime. The 11-year veteran went 5-13-3 in the 2008-09 season, with a .900 save percentage and a 3.10 GAA.
When Miller was hurt mid-February in a game against the New York Rangers, Lalime was given the opportunity to take the reins and help the Sabres make the playoffs—and he couldn’t have performed worse.
During his one-month stint as Buffalo’s starting goalie, Lalime went 3-6-2 and let up four or more goals four different times. When the Sabres missed the playoffs by three points, a lot of fingers were pointed Lalime’s way.
This season has been no different for Buffalo’s backup. Lalime’s bad rebounds, mental errors, and overall shaky play has left the Sabres with one option in net—luckily, that option is Miller.
The Sabres’ tough and condensed schedule probably means that Lalime may grab one or two more starts this season—just don’t expect those starts to be against the Ottawa Senators.
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The Buffalo Sabres extended their win streak to three games on Wednesday night with a 5-3 win over the visiting Dallas Stars.
Leading the way for the Sabres were the young guns. Tyler Myers, Mark Mancari, and Patrick Kaleta all had big games for Buffalo.
Myers, who has looked a little flat since the Olympic break, had arguably his best game of the season. The 6’8” rookie had a career-high four points and was a career-best plus-four.
“It’s always nice to have a breakout game like that when you get that many goals,” Myers told the Associated Press after the victory.
After allowing several players to climb back into the Calder Trophy race for Rookie of the Year, Myers made it clear tonight that he was not going to let that slip away.
“He’s been an important piece to our team,” head coach Lindy Ruff told the Associated Press of Myers. “I thought even in the third period, he was just having fun playing.”
Also having a huge game for the Sabres was Mancari, who was playing in just his 13th career NHL game.
Mancari finished with one goal and one assist. He was also a plus-three for the game.
Heading into the game, Mancari had just three career points—needless to say, he picked the right game to step up.
Another key player in Buffalo’s win was Kaleta, who finished the game with six hits and caused a ton of problems for the Stars in the process.
Kaleta also took on tough guy Steve Ott midway through the second period after Ott took offense to one of Kaleta’s colossal hits. Kaleta landed several clean blows, won the fight, and then threw his arms up to get the crowd back into the game.
The Sabres’ Thomas Vanek scored just three minutes after Kaleta dropped the gloves with Ott.
Kaleta also managed to draw a penalty in the first period after running Stars’ defenseman Stephane Robidas into the boards.
This was the first time in recent memory that, despite giving up three goals, the Sabres really dominated the majority of the game.
There is no doubt that the efforts of Myers, Mancari, and Kaleta sparked the offensively struggling Sabres—13 players had at least two shots on goal for Buffalo.
With some of the veterans struggling, it’s nice to see that the Sabres can rely on the younger talent in a time of need.
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You had a feeling it was coming.
Ryan Miller played fantastically all through the Olympics and pretty well in the Sabres’ last few games in the NHL. He had to have a bad one sooner or later.
Luckily Ryan Miller’s “bad one” amounted to one bad period. After giving up three goals (and two leads) in the first period, Miller locked it down in the second and third periods in the Sabres’ 5-3 win over the Stars Wednesday night.
It was the first game since the Olympics that the Sabres didn’t need Miller to carry a sputtering offense through a low-scoring game. The goals finally came and the Sabres pulled back into a two point lead in the Northeast Division.
It looks like it may take awhile for Miller to regain his Olympic form. The question remains: Will the offense be able to bail him out when he has his “bad one”?
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The Buffalo Sabres’ special teams have been a mystery all season long.
Buffalo’s penalty kill is currently ranked fourth in the NHL at 86 percent. The Sabres’ extremely high percentage can be attributed to the fact that they have been shorthanded just 214 times this season—the third fewest penalties taken in the league.
The Sabres are not overly aggressive on the penalty kill. Instead, Buffalo lets its opponents take the puck into the offensive zone and waits until they make a mistake to clear it down the ice—this is more easily done with a goalie like Ryan Miller in net.
But, Buffalo’s checking line and defensive specialists—Paul Gaustad, Mike Grier, Jochen Hect, and Patrick Kaleta—are among the league’s elite penalty killers.
The previous ingredients, mixed with the rather large defensive pairing of 6’8” Tyler Myers and 6’4” Henrik Tallinder, make it very difficult for opponents to get into a groove on the power play.
While the Sabres have excelled being down a man, they have struggled as of late with the man advantage.
Buffalo has just one power-play goal in its last 10 games and is currently ranked 23rd in the NHL.
Thomas Vanek, Buffalo’s high-paid “superstar,” has not scored a power-play goal since Jan. 29 in a 2-1 win over the Boston Bruins.
But obviously Vanek isn’t the only player struggling at the moment, and head coach Lindy Ruff has had to mix up the power play lines as a result.
On one power play during the Sabres 2-1 OT win over the New York Rangers on Sunday, Ruff put out Mark Mancari, Tim Kennedy, and Jochen Hecht.
Mancari is understandable because his call-up could have motivated a few other players to get theirs acts together—not to mention he has a monster slap shot.
Kennedy, on the other hand, has been in a severe rut both offensively and defensively. Rewarding him with power-play time is not the way to break him out of it.
While Hecht is a key component to the Sabres’ penalty kill, he is not known for his dynamic offense.
The bottom line is that there are other players that should be used to help a laboring power play before Hecht is thrown into the mix.
Ruff has the right idea with Mancari.
If the power play continues to struggle, though, Nathan Gerbe and Tyler Ennis of the Portland Pirates may be next in line to provide a spark.
But for the moment, the Sabres and their conflicting special teams have done just enough to keep the team atop the Northeast division.
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Very rarely does someone enter the NHL with the path of success Thomas Vanek left behind when he joined the Buffalo Sabres for the 2005-06 season.
Vanek enjoyed two absurdly successful seasons playing college hockey for the Minnesota Golden Gophers, including scoring the game-winning goals in both the semifinal and final of the NCAA tournament, to clinch the National Title.
He would end up leaving school early, a top 10, first round draft pick, as one of the most decorated Gophers in school history.
That success still continued when Vanek joined Buffalo’s minor league club in Rochester and finished second on the team in scoring and first among AHL rookies with 42 goals and 68 points.
So it was no surprise when Vanek made the final jump to hockey’s highest level of competition that he was able to flourish.
In his first season, Vanek had a tremendous year playing in a potent offensive lineup that allowed him freedom and opportunities to score. As a rookie, Vanek notched a very respectable 25 goals.
The following season, Vanek rode the team’s success to a career year finishing 2006-07 with 43 goals and 84 points.
At this point, everything was pointing up for Vanek and the Sabres as the sky was the limit for the future.
However, the summer of 2007 broke the chain of success for Vanek and the Sabres.
First, the team was trounced from the playoffs after being arguably the best team during the regular season. Then, high profile scorers Danny Briere and Chris Drury left town via free agency neglecting to sign offers with Buffalo in the process.
After this, the focus turned to Thomas Vanek who had become a restricted free agent after his rookie contract expired at the conclusion of the season.
After nearly half a decade of success, many cracks began to show in Vanek’s armor. The Sabres were elated with his performance over the past two years, but only 12 points in 26 playoff games became a little worrisome.
Nevertheless, there was really no indication that the Sabres wouldn’t re-sign Vanek especially after two of the team’s best scorer’s skipped town.
Then came the offer sheet from the Edmonton Oilers.
In what has been criticized as a dirty, but fair move, the Oilers offered Vanek an outrageous seven-year $50 million contract knowing full well the Sabres would have to match the offer.
This put Buffalo and its GM Darcy Reiger in a tough predicament. With two top scorers leaving town, he could not afford to let Vanek go even if it did mean four first-round draft picks in compensation.
In the end, Buffalo matched the offer but Vanek has never been quite the same player he was since signing this huge contract.
Vanek was able to net 40 goals last season, but overall, his impact has been severely limited while making the big bucks.
What’s the problem then?
The problem with Vanek is two-fold: First, the Sabres have mismanaged him over the past few years. And second, Vanek is one of those stars who enter the NHL already close to his ceiling as a player.
As far as the Sabres treatment goes, it is really unfair for Vanek to be making over seven million dollars a season. And it’s made all the much worse that the Sabres don’t treat him like someone making that kind of money.
Just take a look at the other forwards in the NHL who are making seven million or more:
Iginla, Staal, Richards, Gomez, Gaborik, Drury, Spezza, Crosby, Malkin, Heatley, Thorton, Lecavlier and Ovechkin.
Together, these players are averaging nearly a point-per-game and racking up the ice-time to boot. Taking out over-paid and aging veterans like Gomez and Drury only makes this lists stats all the more impressive.
The point is, Vanek is wasting away on the Sabres roster, playing less than 17 minutes a night while these other stars average over 20 minutes.
The result is that Vanek is heading for a career low in every statistical category with only 18 goals and 39 points thus far through 57 games.
And the other problem is, nobody is really sure if Vanek truly has the ability to be a star in the NHL and it seems the Sabres are afraid to give him the minutes his contract deserves, lest the team has to dish out more money when that expires.
To be blunt though, Vanek simply cannot be making the money he is making and not show what he can do. How terribly frustrating must it be to have so much success so early and then be treated like just another second-line winger?
Still, there is the fear that perhaps Vanek has maxed out his potential, being the type of player who enters the league with a very good set of offensive skills, but never one to really improve much over his career.
And it’s that possibility that has many Sabres fans up in arms. Vanek will always be able to find the net and it is almost assured that he will be a consistent 30-goal scorer for the next five years, but nobody is particularly happy about his contract eating up such a large amount of the team’s cap space.
Vanek’s game offers little else beside a decent scoring touch to bestow such a large contract to him, but that is the deal the Sabres agreed to.
Now, both player and team don’t seem too excited about the future.
Vanek would undoubtedly like more minutes and the opportunity to live up to his contract, but the Sabres don’t seem to have faith in his overall game to justify such treatment.
Perhaps those four first round draft picks from Edmonton would have been better?
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The Buffalo Sabres had an interesting deadline day, to say the least.
After several hours of inactivity, GM Darcy Regier made his first move around 2 p.m., sending defenseman Nathan Paetsch and a 2010 second-round draft pick to the Columbus Blue Jackets for forward Raffi Torres.
Torres has 19 goals and 12 assists in 60 games this season. The gritty forward is known for his hard skating and even harder hitting.
The Sabres also traded forward Clarke MacArthur to the Atlanta Thrashers for third and fourth-round draft picks.
MacArthur has just three assists in his last 11 games and no goals.
Adding Torres and getting rid of MacArthur was a great move for the Sabres who could use some tenacity up front. Torres will provide the necessary offense and defense needed on any of the Sabres’ top three lines.
“I’m excited,” Torres told TSN’s Trade Centre today. “They’ve got a playoff group, and I’m just hoping to come out there and help them along the way.”
While the trade for Torres will certainly help Buffalo for a potential playoff run, the biggest question is why didn’t they deal for another defenseman or backup goaltender?
Defenseman Toni Lydman was rumored to be on the move earlier in the week, but at the end of the day he was still in a Sabres’ uniform.
Lydman, an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season, has just 12 points this season and has been a defensive liability all year.
With defensemen like Derek Morris, Dennis Seidenberg, and Steve Staois available, and Mike Weber waiting in the AHL for the call up, it is a mystery as to why the Sabres didn’t ship Lydman out of Buffalo.
A lot of people thought a new backup goalie, perhaps Martin Biron, was headed to Buffalo to as well. But Buffalo decided to hold onto the struggling Patrick Lalime for the remainder of the season.
Not trading for Biron, or even Dwayne Roloson, can be attributed to the Islanders losing Rick DiPietro to a knee injury for the 85th time in the last six years or so.
But there were other goalies available—which is obvious from the four goalies that were moved today—that the Sabres could have used.
After tonight’s 3-1 loss to the Washington Capitals, the Sabres have 14 games left in March. Ryan Miller better find a way to get his rest or Buffalo will have a very long month ahead of it.
At the end of the deadline, the Sabres came out ahead of where they were—but not by much.
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Written By: Mark “The Hard Hitter Ritter”
The Columbus Blue Jackets have traded power forward Raffi Torres to the Buffalo Sabres in return for defenseman Nathan Paetsch and a second round draft pick.
Torres, a native of Toronto, has registered 19 goals, 31 points, and 32 penalty minutes through 60 games with the Blue Jackets.
Through 418 NHL games, Torres has amassed 98 goals and 177 points.
Known as a tough, in your face kind of player, Torres will be a nice addition for the Sabres, adding another physical element to their already tough roster and a bit of scoring to boot.
In Paetsch, the Blue Jackets receive a defenseman that has struggled to stick with the Sabres, posting seven goals and 42 points in 157 NHL games, with a plus/minus rating of plus-17.
Paetsch has a chance to get more playing time in Columbus, but this trade is a clear win for the Sabres, at least in the short term.
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With the regular season about to jump into high gear, the Buffalo Sabres will have a lot on their plate from now until the end of the regular season.
But before I go any further, let me say that I am very happy to be back writing for my loyal Sabres’ community. Writing for the Winter Olympics was a lot fun and I got a lot of coverage, but now I know where the term “Everyone’s a critic” comes from.
The remainder of the season will be one of the toughest stretches of games that Buffalo has had in recent memory.
Every player will need to be on the top of his game and Ryan Miller, well, he just needs to keep doing what he does best. If anything I think that the loss in the gold medal game might just light a fire under Miller—rumor has it that Mr. Miller doesn’t take losing too well.
Okay, onto what the Sabres have in store for them over the next month or so.
