The Value Of Patrick Kaleta

Kaleta plays a solid game each night. He may not get a ton of ice time, but he has been moved from the fourth line up to the third line. He puts his whole effort each night into every game. But he doesn't do it by putting the puck in the back of the net. There's a lot more to hockey  than just scoring. Personally, he reminds me a lot of Michael Peca. Peca never scored a ton of goals. However, he had a solid phsycial presence. Peca also was able to play two way hockey, and was very good as a defensive forward. Kaleta reminds me of Peca, and the potential to be better than Peca.

First, Kaleta has a knack for driving right to the net. He only has three goals, but he tries extremely hard. Kaleta's last goal, against the Senators, was a goal scorers goal. He was left alone in front of the net, and when the puck hit his stick, he didn't waste time, he shot it. It was redundent at that point in time, do to the fact that the Sabres were down 5-2 after his goal, but the quality of the goal was high. Also, he currently leads the Sabres with plus/minus with 7. He's on the ice for a lot of goals for the Sabres.

Second, Kaleta is also smart when he draws penalties. His style of play is beneficial. He doesn't drop the gloves and start fighting a lot. He hits someone cleanly, and due to the hit, his opponents retaliate. Kaleta takes it well, doesn't get drawn into the fight, and ends up giving Buffalo a power play. Of course, the Sabres powerplay isn't that great, but it's a better chance due to his smarts to not take the dumb penalty. Last night against the Capitals, he did it again. Ovechkin delivered a hard hit on Ovechkin after an earlier hit, and it resulted in a five minute major penalty given to Ovechkin, and he was tossed from the game. The Capitals star player was taken out of the game

Third, other players are starting to fear him, especially lead scorers. One game I attended was against Carolina when Kaleta had just gotten called up. Kaleta played one shift early against Eric Stall, and got a good hit on him. Stall was essentially taken out of the game because he was looking over his shoulder the whole game, wondering when Kaleta would strike again. Kaleta is getting matched up more and more against the big scorers of his opponents. Not knowing when one may get hit hard when he has the puck, can make someone get rattled and they stop playing their game.

Kaleta is probably one of the most valuable players on the Sabres team. He doesn't score a lot of goals (even though he has 3 this season, 1 behind Tim Connolly). However, we all know that there's a lot more to the game than scoring. Patrick Kaleta is able to do numerous things well on the ice, and continues to improve his game, he will be a valuable member of this team for years to come.