NHL teams at 10* (Atlanta and Buffalo)

November 1, 11:45 AMNHL ExaminerChris Morgan

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Who's Rich Peverley? Atlanta's leading scorer. (AP Photo)

Well, it was bound to happen, especially on a Saturday when I'm watching college football. I forgot to cover one of the teams on the day after their 10th game. Then, to make matters worse, they played their 11th game. I didn't write up the Buffalo Sabres in time. I apologize. To keep things even, I'll just write about their first 10 games. I'm sure they won't mind, because in game 11 they were shutout by the New York Islanders 5-0. Also, that means the stats don't change that much. Thanks, Buffalo! Also, Atlanta is involved in this article.

Atlanta Thrashers: 5-4-1, good for 11 points. The Thrashers have played pretty well, especially since they lost Ilya Kovalchuk to injury a few games ago. Even with that they still have the best power play in the league right now. Of course, we knew Atlanta would likely score, it was the defense and goaltending that was the concern. Well, so far Ondrej Pavelec has played quite well. He's got a 2.60 GAA and a .924 SV%. Could he be what Kari Lehtonen was supposed to be but never was? If so, we could be looking at a playoff team. However, I'm holding off judgement until he's done it over a larger amount of games.

As for the offense, Rich Peverely of all people leads the team with 13 points, mostly due to Kovalchuk's injury. However, Peverely played quite well last season after being picked up on waivers from Nashville. Shrewd move, Preds. Nik Antropov has played pretty well after coming over as a big money free agent. He's got 10 assists... but he's got no goals. The main concern for the Thrashers so far is that Bryan Little (0G, 5A), Slava Kozlov (0G, 4A), and Todd White (3G, 1A) are all struggling to start the season. If those guys get going, and they decide to keep Kovalchuk for the season, Atlanta could be an interesting team.

Buffalo Sabres: 8-1-1, good for 17 points. A really good start to the season for the Sabres, their 11th game aside. They owe most of that to Ryan Miller, who has been the best goalie in the NHL to start the season. That's right, you heard me Ilya Bryzgalov and Craig Anderson. More importantly to the Sabres, he's more likely to keep it going than those two as well.

On offense, the oft injured but supremely talented Tim Connolly leads the team with 10 points. Thomas Vanek has been a bit disappointing, only scoring four goals and five points thus far. Sure he was injured, but it only cost him two games. Scoring is going to be the issue for Buffalo this season probably, and they'll definitely need Vanek to pick it up. If Miller keeps up his pace, this could be a playoff team.

That's it. That's all 30 teams. This ordeal (is ordeal the word I'm looking for?) is behind us. As I said many times over during these articles, 10 games is a small sample size, and you can't take too much from it. In future editions of these articles at different game milestones, things will be more substantial, and thus more interesting. Until then...