Wow…I missed this game, but recorded it and watched it later. What a wild one.
For as many opportunities as there were, it was a bit incredible that only 3 goals were scored the entire game. As much as I’d like to give credit to Johnny Oduya for sealing the deal in OT, this was really Ondrej Pavelec’s win. This wasn’t just another 31 saves; the guy was all over the place, making some huge stops particularly in the early going when things were back and forth. That he got bailed by an early whistle in the 3rd should be but a footnote to his strong performance.
Stats and BW chart after the jump.
1st Period: No scoring
2nd Period: 11:08 Buffalo PP Goal, Tyler Myers 3 (Jason Pominville 29, Marc-Andre Gragnani 10); 19:55 Winnipeg PP Goal, Blake Wheeler 8 (Tobias Enstrom 11, Bryan Little 10)
3rd Period: No scoring
Overtime: 0:57 Winnipeg ES Goal, Johnny Oduya 2 (Evander Kane 13)
Shots: Winnipeg 41, Buffalo 32
BW Chart Key
Blue vertical lines — Winnipeg goals
Black vertical lines — Opponent goals
Shaded green — Powerplays
Shaded pink — Penalty kills
- We really started to take a commanding lead shot-wise with powerplay opportunities, and when things got heavy in the 3rd we played our best. Good to know.
- Why must we insist on killing ourselves with penalties? I complain about this all the time, it’s almost like I’m not the coach and I should just deal.
- Our goal came on a 5-on-3 opportunity, and it wasn’t till after a mad scramble out of which Little and Toby tic-tac-toed it to Blake Wheeler who was on the doorstep.
- Sorry about the “0-5-0” on the left margin there…the “0” on the line with the hashmarks is the official zero, with positive going up/down with intervals of 5 from it.
- We’re still not “road warriors” yet. The Sabres were a beatable team. I’m glad it was an exciting game that we won, but we need to play better against more of our opponents before I’m comfortable with our prospects.
- Congrats to Bryan Little on his assist in his first game back. Really glad to have you around again.
- Even bigger congratulations to Jarome Iginla, who scored his 500th goal last night. A deserving accomplishment for one of the best power forwards of our era.
