I don't like having to rely on one goalie for 30+ straight games, and that could be an issue if they even reach the playoffs, but I think this is just one bad game by Miller out of several this season, and one bad defensive team game out of many. I don't think any reliable conclusions can come from that game, other than the fact that Sekera continues to be a magic eight ball on the blueline.

1 stat matters for goalies: save percentage. everything else is too dependent on the defense in front of you.

Wins is the most important thing.

thats a team stat.

Yeah, maybe it's considered a team stat...but I'd rather have my goalie have average GAA and SV% and a great winning record than the other way around.

I don't know about that. Wins are a pretty telling stat for goaltenders. Look at how many Patrick Lalime has with the Sabres.

Egh Sekera made the same gamble that Grabner did. Grabner just won the coinflip. Take a chance at playing the puck to generate an odd man rush rather than being safe and playing the man.

You can also look back to last year's playoffs to see how Miller failed to make clutch saves at the most critical times, despite having excellent overall stats. In 2 out of the 3 games in which the Sabres held 2-goal leads, they lost. Including in game 4, when they had a 2-0 lead entering the 3rd period. This despite posting a better than .920 GAA in that series. Yeah, yeah, I know, the team around him didn't do very well in those games either, but those are also big-stage moments when you expect your superstar goalie to crank it up a notch. He wasn't the reason they lost the series, but he also couldn't close the deal when given the opportunity.

He got shelled in that series. The Sabres collapsed like a house of cards.

Miller Sits, Enroth Starts, Many Overreact

by @DaveDavisHockey on 02/15/11 at 01:04 PM ET
Comments (0)

An American-born goaltender from Michigan has a career year, leads his team to the Northeast Division title, wins the Vezina Trophy, injures his hip early the following season and proceeds to stink up the joint. Sound familiar?

As you probably deduced, I’m referring to Tim Thomas.

While the numbers have been eye-popping for the Boston Bruins goaltender in his comeback season, the Sabres have a pretty talented goalie of their own who finds himself in a similar situation to where Thomas was a year ago.

And now, after a nightmarish performance by Ryan Miller Sunday against the New York Islanders, things here in Buffalo have gotten a little crazy. It’s amazing what one awful game in a 12-4-2 stretch will do to people.

A local radio station ran a poll on its website yesterday asking Sabres fans whether or not new ownership should move forward with Miller as their goaltender. Pundits are enlightening us with the notion that non-elites like Antti Niemi, Marc-Andre Fleury and Chris Osgood winning Stanley Cups somehow translates to Miller being expendable.
When Jhonas Enroth goes between the pipes tonight for the Sabres at Centre Bell in Montreal, it’ll be the first game Miller hasn’t started since we were all sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner. Many of the franchise netminder’s antagonists have either forgotten or ignored the fact that he was battling hip and knee injuries at the time.

Are we to assume that three months later the reigning Vezina Trophy winner is playing at 100%? Noone lacking a medical degree should dare touch that one, but perhaps history can give us a lesson.

Thomas went through most of last season not totally sure what was wrong until he aggravated his injury right after the Olympics. He eventually had to resort to offseason surgery to resolve the problem. Put another way, a 36-year old with a surgically repaired hip currently leads the league with a 1.97 GAA.

Wouldn’t it be kind of foolish for Buffalo to even consider making a rash move based on an assumption that Miller’s Vezina season was just a fluke? That’s the type of thinking that has gotten guys like Mike Milbury jobs as television analysts.

Miller may be injured, tired, neither or both, but one thing he’s not is dispensable. Unless the Sabres have discovered some grand scheme to get Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Sidney Crosby and Pavel Datsyk onto their roster this summer, they aren’t winning a Stanley Cup in the near future without a rejuvenated Miller in net.

Free agent pickings aren’t great this summer. And sorry, Sabres fans, but trading for Jarome Iginla, Dustin Brown, David Backes, or anyone else that your silly rumor site is telling you is headed here won’t be enough to put this team over the top without the healthy and fresh version of the franchise goaltender playing well.

To the 25% who voted ‘no’ in that poll yesterday, shame on you. But based on how you voted in that Drew Stafford poll last summer, it’s not surprising.

In the 2 games where they blew 2-goal leads, the shots were almost exactly even. Not sure how this equates to him getting shelled.