"All year we've been taking penalties at the wrong time, and tonight it killed us." That was the quote from Tyler Ennis during his postgame scrum after the Buffalo Sabres' 4-3 shootout loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs last Wednesday.
The loss gave the Sabres five in a row and kept them (at that point) three points ahead of the Edmonton Oilers in the race for 30th place.
But the Ennis quote deserves some further discussion.
The notion that penalties have killed the Sabres this season on its face seems logical. The Sabres are 11th in the league in penalties taken and are a particularly undisciplined game away from being in the top five. In other words, they have taken a lot of penalties this year.
Couple that with their 30th-ranked penalty kill, and the narrative almost writes itself: "Man, if they could only stay out of the box they would give themselves a better chance."
And that, of course, is 100 percent true. If you're giving up a power-play goal over a quarter of the time, the best way to fix that is to not take penalties.
Ted Nolan was also asked about his team's penalties in the firs ...
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Article written by Matt Clouden
Buffalo Sabres: Why Penalties Have Been the Least of Their Problems
March 16th, 2015 by Matt Clouden Leave a reply »
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