The Sabres’ Inconvenient Truth
Monday, December 7th, 2009 9:31 pm by mrenninger
You would be certainly be forgiven for missing it, especially if you don’t watch hockey with one eye cocked at the Sabres bench, but Jhonas Enroth was in Buffalo for the team’s pair of games hosting Montreal and the Rangers. Of course, like 23 of the previous 26 games this season, there was little for the backup goaltender to do but fist bump his teammates at intermission and look stylish in a team wool cap. It has been all too easy to remain blissfully ignorant to the fact that there is an achillies heel to this very talented, very scrappy team that could destroy not only our pie-in-the-sky dreams of a Stanley Cup parade down Delaware Avenue, but of a playoff appearance altogether: our backup goaltending situation.
Odds are you have heard the same schpiel more than once, that Ryan Miller, on top of his already demanding schedule (as of Monday night he had the 4th highest percentage of starts for his team in the league), can expect a grueling Olympic schedule that may demand double digit starts in less than two weeks. Of course, this is what we all wanted back in 2006 while heckling Robert Esche during the Flyers playoff series for somehow beating out Miller for the team USA job, but I digress. Actually, lets talk about 2005-2006 for a second, the season that the hockey gods snatched the Stanley Cup out of our hands by forcing us to insert useless players like Doug Janek, Jeff Jillson, and Rory Fitzpatrick in Game 7 of the conference finals. The Sabres had 110 points that season, 18 points ahead of the 8th seed in the conference. Of course you may say this is simply proof of how efficient the team was that year, but I would have to remind you that this team, which won the hearts of Sabres fans across the country very easily could have missed the playoffs. Martin Biron had an unheard of record of 21-8 that season, including the still-franchise-record of thirteen straight victories while Miller was sidelined with a broken thumb.
Patrick Lalime’s record last season, where we missed the playoffs by two points? 5-13. GAA? 3.10.
The front office failed to ink a suitable replacement for Lalime, instead crossing their fingers that two offseason hip surgeries would solve all our ills. Meanwhile three goaltenders familiar with the team system became available, signing for similar or far less money than Lalime had been making, in Ty Conklin, Martin Biron and Dwayne Roloson (some may knock Conklin, but all he did was let the Penguins keep rolling while Marc-Andre Fluery missed several months, and put up a game for Buffalo where he stopped over 50 shots, leading me and one of my college friends to term the practice “conk-blocking”). Hell, Philadelphia chose to eat Antero Nittymaki’s contract just to ensure he wouldn’t play between the pipes for the Flyers anymore. Luckily for the front office this ineptitude has been glossed over by the fact that Miller is having the season of his career (despite trailing 3-0 to the Devils at the moment) and the team in front of him is putting together their best season since the President’s Trophy champions of three years ago. Ruff has certainly helped too, making Lalime’s starts so few and far between we have plenty of time to forget about how much of a train wreck they were before throwing in back out there for another pitiful showing. But this is problem that will emerge in a glaringly obvious way at some point this season, whether sooner, later, for 5 games or for 25, but it will be made obvious to even the most casual Sabres fan.
So what options are there? Well picking up a goalie at the deadline is the most obvious answer, but it seems deep goaltending is at a premium in ways previously unseen, making it less likely that anyone better than Lalime will be on the market. The exception comes in Uniondale, where the Islanders will be looking to unload one of their two current goalies when Rick Dipetro returns from his injury (he allowed 3 goals in his first rehab assignment), giving the team a second chance at snatching up Roloson or Biron. The other option, one not as good as picking up a proven backup but certainly palatable, perhaps even downright enjoyable, is to throw the 21 year old Enroth out there for a few more games and see how he does. Yes, he did allow 4 in his first and only NHL start this season, but more than one of those were on deflections and bad bounces that even Miller would have had difficulty with. The point here is we know what we will get from Lalime, several goals and/or a flat effort from the team in front of him. As for the latter, I couldn’t even blame the team for taking the night off, seeing as they could put up 4 or 5 goals and lose during some of Lalime’s uglier efforts. Philly had the stones to accept their mistakes and cut ties with a goalie who was dragging the team down. It is time for the Sabres to do the same, and let Enroth show his stuff. We’re all assuming Miller plays 70 games this season barring injury, so at least stick a kid out there the rest of the time who wants to impress the fans, his teammates and his coach.
While studying abroad in 2004 I became friends with a kid from Ottawa (forgive me, this was long before Chris Neil, Ray Emery, the brawls and the epic playoff matchups), who told me recently that while goaltending for the Senators the first half of this decade, Lalime took on the moniker of “Red Light Lalime” among the Senators faithful. Lalime is 5 years older, this time sporting synthetic hips, and the red light gets even more of a workout when he finds himself between the pipes than it did in Ottawa. It’s time to let him go.