Buffalo Sabers eliminated by Philadelphia Flyers in consecutive days

Goal: Flyers 3 | Sabers 0

Strokes: PHI 38 | BUF 28

Sabers Goals: No

Objectives of the Flyers: Sean Couturier (5), Michael Raffl (3), James van Riemsdyk (10)

Minus-1 | Where do we even start?

There was nothing to like about the Buffalo Sabers’ game in both competitions this weekend. Today and yesterday the blue and gold were completely outclassed by a top team from the Philadelphia Flyers.

The Sabers’ evenly matched woes aren’t new, but the futility of the league’s leading team’s power-play unit has added a new dimension of desperation. Jack Eichel’s return from a lower body injury didn’t lead to any sort of spark. As tradition has it, Buffalo actually packed it before March.

Only this time the season didn’t start until January, so there is that.

Minus-2 | No more head scratching coach decisions

Since the start of this afternoon’s competition, the Sabers’ line combinations have been a mess. Jeff Skinner stayed on the fourth row (hey, at least he’s playing now), and Kyle Okposo served as the leader alongside Eric Staal and Taylor Hall. This line that produced an xGF rate of just over 33% in this one. Surprisingly, only one forward trio fared better, which is just amazing.

Perpetual wrestlers Cody Eakin and Tobias Rieder were actually not catalyzed by the presence of Casey Mittelstadt. This group had an even-matched xGF rate of only 10.34% (which was ALWAYS not a weak team).

Only three Sabers finished the day with positive xG shares (Sam Reinhart, Jeff Skinner and, surprisingly, Brandon Davidson). At the risk of being called out by the police cliché, it looked like a team quitting the coaching staff.

But hey, at least they have their “basics” to fall back on, right?

Minus 3 | Record breakers

After yesterday’s loss, the PDOcast’s Dimitri Filipovic tweeted an interesting factoid about the Sabers’ five-on-five issues in 2020-21.

Obviously, today’s performance did nothing to help Ralph Krueger’s squad on its way to becoming the most futile scoring team in NHL history. Yes, somehow worse than the 2014-15 Sabers that were built for the sole purpose of losing games.

Any logical team would strongly consider a coaching change at this point. Last week, the Montreal Canadiens fired Claude Julien, and he had a winning record! There is a counter-argument for “continuity” here, but in a team that has Eichel, Hall, Reinhart, Skinner and Stall in mind, there is simply no excuse for this degree of failure on offense.

Fortunately, we all have a day off before this team returns to the ice. The next competition will be next Tuesday against the New York Rangers. The puck handover is scheduled for 7:00 p.m.