Sabres Craig Anderson Becomes Oldest To Make More Than 50 Saves In A Game; Teammates Surely Happy To Draw Attention Away From Terrible Puck Possession

Score one for the old guys. Actually, score one on the old guy who in this case is Buffalo Sabres 41-year-old netminder Craig Anderson.

On Friday, Anderson allowed just 1 goal in the Sabres 3-1 win over the Florida Panthers after getting shelled with 54 shots.

That accomplishment makes him the oldest goalie in NHL history to make more than 50 saves in a single game.

Let's celebrate for a moment before we unpack why milestones like this one highlight a huge underlying problem for the team involved, in this case, the Sabres.

"It's special, for sure. Age is just a number," Anderson said after the game, via The Buffalo News. "Right now. It's just managing the rest and managing your time, so that you can have the moments in the game like this."

Congrats to Craig Anderson, who can still steal games even after all these years... now, let us rag on his teammates.

Crashing into him wasn't the only way the Buffalo Sabres didn't make things easy for Craig Anderson on Friday night. (Photo by Joel Auerbach/Getty Images)

An Amazing Quantity Of Saves Means Terrible Puck Possession By Sabres

When a goalie makes an ungodly amount of saves like this we always focus on the goalie's incredible performance. As we should, facing that much rubber is exhausting. What's always funny to me is that a feat like Anderson's would be impossible if the team in front of him was playing well.

Sure, they gave him some support and snuck 3 past Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky (who stopped 32 of 35 shots on goal), but they still gave up 54 shots. 54 shots on net.

The Panthers actually had 86 shot attempts to the Sabres 54 attempts. Some of those missed the net and the Sabres dove in front of 11 of them. Still, that meant that they usually didn't have the puck.

It's always funny to me that the goalie can be proud of a job well done, while his teammates are thrilled all the attention is on him and not their lousy puck possession numbers.

Well, surely Sabres head coach Don Granato won't be overlooking those stats...

Follow on Twitter: @Matt_Reigle