Race for 30th place gets frenzied
McEichel Bowl II: The Reckoning
Andrej Meszaros might want to keep an eye out for Sabres general manager Tim Murray, carrying a telescoping metal baton.
The Buffalo Sabres defenceman scored twice Monday night in a 4-1 victory over the Arizona Coyotes, keeping the race for last place very much alive.
None of the Sabres has ever said they were trying to do anything other than win games as the season draws to a close, but none has made a finer point of showing it than Meszaros, who has scored five goals this year — and four of them in the last two games.
And so, McEichel Bowl II: The Reckoning, three days after Arizona’s win in the first game between the two worst teams in the league, leaves the Coyotes with 54 points on the season and the Sabres with 50.
The Coyotes have five games remaining in the season, and the Sabres have a treacherous extra game left, meaning the question of which team will finish in the coveted 30th spot is far from settled. (Last place guarantees a shot a drafting one of Connor McDavid or Jack Eichel, both potential franchise centres. The team that finishes 29th could be bumped into the third pick if a team above them in the standings wins the draft lottery next month.)
Had Arizona beaten the Sabres on Monday night, Buffalo’s position in the cellar would have been all but assured, with eight points separating the teams. But the Sabres went out and played one of their best games of the year, which admittedly isn’t saying much. After the Coyotes scored only 1:17 into the game on a Connor Murphy point shot, the Sabres dominated the play the rest of the way. Meszaros scored twice in the second period — four minutes in, and again at the 13-minute mark — as Buffalo outshot Arizona 19-9 in the frame.
Those two goals in a nineminute span are more than the Sabres have averaged in a game for two seasons running — their 1.81 goals per game average coming into Monday night is the lowest in the NHL since the Second World War, other than the 1.83 goals per game that the Sabres averaged last season. And the 19 shots they piled up in the second period was two short of the 21 per regulation game they have averaged over the course of the season. A handful of excel- lent saves from Coyotes goalie Mike Smith kept the Sabres from blowing the game open, which is a phrase possibly never written about the Sabres this year.
Sabres goalie Anders Lindback responded in kind in the third, making 11 saves as the Coyotes pressed for a tying goal. Buffalo killed two late penalties and scored twice in an empty net to seal the game.
Unlike Thursday’s game in which a good chunk of the crowd in Buffalo was enthusiastically cheering for Arizona, there was little evidence that the fans at Gila River Arena were doing anything other than cheering for the Coyotes. It is fair to say that McDavid and Eichel have not been big news items in the desert.
Buffalo hosts the Maple Leafs on Wednesday — a dangerous potential for two points, especially since Toronto will be playing the second half of a back-to-back — and also has games left against Carolina and Columbus. The Sabres will also face Chicago, Pittsburgh and the New York Islanders in games that would seem unlikely to generate points for Buffalo.
Arizona has a home-andhome against San Jose, a team not quite eliminated from playoff contention yet, and then games against Calgary, Vancouver and Anaheim, all of which should be playing for playoff positioning.
Should the Coyotes and Sabres finish tied in the standings, the Sabres would win the last-place tiebreaker, so to speak, by having fewer wins in regulation and overtime.
“We worked hard for this win,” said Sabres captain Brian Gionta. “There is a lot of pride and character in this room and we are pushing hard to the end.”
His team’s fans — and management — might prefer they push not quite so hard.