Missed opportunity

The Sabres had a chance to pull into a tie with the Winnipeg Jets last night.

But, the Jets outplayed the Sabres last night and now the Sabres are 4 points out with 16 games to play. It was far from a "must win" game and the Sabres still have a chance to make the playoffs. But, that was a huge loss and it never really felt like the Sabres were going to win.

Where does the team go from here?

The Vanek, Roy, Pominville line is slumping right now. Horribly. And while Lindy Ruff usually changes lines at a drop of a hat, he keeps throwing VRP over the boards hoping that they will figure things out. Personally, I'm ready to see Hodgson and Roy flipped and have Roy between Ennis and Stafford and have Hodgson with Vanek and Pominville. Or, just put Vanek on the 4th line for a game or two and have Boyes up with Roy and Pominville.

On defense, I hope that Robyn Regehr heals up. Quick. He was a turnstile on one of the goals last night and the lower body injury that kept him out of the Vancouver game had to have been a factor. If it wasn't, we could be seeing the LH version of the Craig Rivet drop off happening in front of our eyes all over again.

Another issue was that Ryan Miller's rebound control was less than stellar. The question is when can they fit Jhonas Enroth in over the foreseeable future? Can they play him versus Carolina tomorrow night? Do you wait until Monday versus Montreal or next Wednesday versus Colorado? Personally, if you can't play him tomorrow night versus the Canes, then you can't play him the rest of the season and Miller needs to get a lot of rest on non-game days.

All that being said, going 3-1-1 over the 5 game road trip is really good. It was the first time in the team's history that they won 3 straight road games in the Pacific timezone. And all three were in regulation, so no asterisks required for that record.

And the glimmer of hope moving forward is that Winnipeg has 9 of their remaining 15 games on the road and they are 11-17-4 away from home so far this season.