From the files of
Yes it can happen. Buffalo celebrates a sports championship. They win the big game.
The
2007 Champion Buffalo Sabres had their awards banquet at old country buffet and celebrated by giving out their team trophies.
The team led in team points with 122 and Goals scored with 343. Goals against was 218 for 7th in the league. Power play goals 94 (1st) The team was 2nd in most power play chances and also 2nd in fewest times short handed. All these things in combination lead to the Stanley Cup championship.
Individual standouts were
Brian Campbell as Top Defenseman. He lead the league in Defensive Takeaways with 104 and was 29th in assists with 57. He was the 2nd highest rated defenseman in the league in plus/minus with +37 only being outdone by teammate Dmitri Kalinin with +42. In the playoffs Campbell led in Defenive Takeaways as well by 3 over his teammate Petteri Nummelin then their was a wide margin after that.
Staying on the plus/minus train of thought. The league leader was
Jason Pominville with +50. He was followed by his linemates Chris Drury +46, Alexander Semin +42 and the aforementioned DMen Kalinin +42 and Campbell +37. The Sabres took the Top Five spots in this catagory.
The rookie of the year for the Sabres was a one horse race with
Drew Stafford playing 40 regular season games with 7 goals and 14 assists. But the real good numbers came in the post season where young Stafford played 25 games and exploded with 11 goals and 8 assists. In the two playoff series that went to game 7, Stafford scored the game winning goal each time, so he scored in clutch situations. He finished 7th in playoff goals and 14th in playoff points.
In goal both
Martin Biron and
Ryan Miller had a 2.63 goals against average but Ryan Miller had a league high in wins (46) and shutouts (6) while playing in just 62 games. His record of 46-16 was the best in the HBL. He was the number one star of the game 13 times during the season. In the post season Miller was 16-7 with 2.66 GAA and raised his Goalie Rating save percentage almost 4 percent over the regualar season. 69.7% to 73.4%
An award to the most over achieving player. Comparing his NHL stats to his HBL stats. It goes to
J.P. Dumont with 66 NHL points and 97 HBL points a +31. "It help I pass to Vanek many time." said J.P. during his speech. In the playoffs Dumont was the leagues top point scorer with 36 points (11 goals, 25 assists).
The rest of the hardware was given to team
MVP Thomas Vanek. In only his second season in the HBL Vanek was the most outstanding player in the league. He led the league in goals with 77 goals to win the Rocket Richard Trophy. An
HBL record. He won the goal scoring title by a margin of 18 goals over the next closest player. Vanek dominated the league in 14 catagories. He was the Star of the game 16 times and had 84 star points. The HBL's offensive player of the year was also excellent on defense where he was ranked 9th in the HBL in Defensive Takeaways by a Forward with 66 takeaways. Thomas had 5 hat tricks (2nd), 17 two goal games (1st) and 22 multi-goal games (1st) He scored a goal in 50 games (1st). When the post season began the Austrian sensation's dominance did not waiver a single bit, in fact he actually got even better in the 25 game championship playoff run he recorded 24 goals and 9 assists. He collected 29 star points.
At the end of the night
Vanek had to rent a U-Haul for all that hardware he collected from his most valuable player season
But the best piece was for the whole team to enjoy. The Stanley Cup!
