A lot of times when a team is in a funk the overriding theme on a far-reaching road trip like this is that it will be a good bonding experience. Without any local distractions, it's just the team and their opponents and a lot of time to focus solely on the task at hand.
Buffalo begins a three-game, western Canada swing tonight with a visit to Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta to take on the Oilers. After that it's a stop in Calgary to face the Flames before they head to the Pacific coast to take on the Vancouver Canucks which will ultimately take them 2,700 miles from home and hopefully even further away from the struggles they've endured lately.
The Sabres have been brilliant versus the Pacific Division this season going 9-2-1 and haven't lost in regulation since the Anaheim Ducks walloped them 5-1 on October 18. For those following, it was after that game that Buffalo bench boss Phil Housley mixed up his forward lines. He moved Jeff Skinner back to Jack Eichel's left wing, which was where he started the season, and moved 35 yr. old Jason Pominville to that duo's right. Kyle Okposo remained on rookie Casey Mittelstadt's right wing while fourth-line center Evan Rodrigues was moved to up to the left on that line. The bottom-six featured Conor Sheary/Vladimir Sobotka/Sam Reinhart along with Zemgus Girgensons/Johan Larsson/Patrick Berglund.
Those lines would generally stay the same and the Sabres, who were 3-4-0 at the time and on a two-game losing streak, would go on to win three in a row scoring 13 goals in the process. Not bad considering they scored a grand total of only 12 goals in the previous seven games.
Housley would tweak the lineup here and there and the Sabres would ultimately go 17-12-6 in the following games which included a 10-game winning streak, a five-game winless streak and a four-game point-streak before heading west with a record of 3-7-1 in their last 11 games. The magic they had during their win streak, which included timely scoring and timely saves from their goaltenders, would eventually vanish and as their puck luck went south as the competitive nature of the competition went up. Teams were gunning for the Sabres and for one reason or another, a team that was once at the top of the entire league during the streak now finds themselves ninth in the Eastern Conference on the outside looking in at the playoffs.
However, despite their post streak record of 6-10-4, the Sabres have been playing some real good hockey, especially as of late. In their last five losses they only had one semi-clunker and it was in Boston without Eichel. They were steamrolled for two periods but thanks to some sharp goaltending managed to allow only two goals and after some sustained pressure in the third period they broke the ice late before falling 2-1.
In their other losses they were stymied by tough goalies (2-1 at Washington, 3-1 vs. NY Islanders,) were the victim of three goals off of their own defenders in a 4-3 loss at Carolina and were outgunned by the NHL's best team, the Tampa Bay Lightning, 5-3.
Eichel left very early in the NY Islanders game after aggravating an upper-body injury. The Sabres proceeded to go 2-1-0 in his absence and perhaps it might end up being a blessing as the team no longer could rely solely upon Eichel and his top linemates to do the scoring. Prior to his injury the Sabres top line had accounted for 60% (24/40) of the team's goals post winning streak with the bottom three lines contributing only 10 goals (25%.) While Skinner continued to do his thing in Eichel's absence, other forwards contributed and when he returned, secondary scoring accounted for three of Buffalo's six goals in their past two games.
What Housley does with his line combos, if he does anything at all, remains to be seen but one thing we do know is that a western Canada road swing will be a challenge despite sweeping the three games last season. The NHL schedule-maker has been making this a three-game swing for Buffalo for the past five seasons and if you take away last year's sweep, the Sabres are a miserable 2-9-1 with their only two wins coming against the Oilers and their only other point coming against Calgary.
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Since Edmonton's Conor McDavid and Buffalo's Eichel were taken first and second overall, respectively, in the 2015 NHL Draft the Oilers and Sabres have met six times with McDavid and Eichel each missing one game in the series. Buffalo is 4-1-1 against Edmonton in the "McEichel-era."
Last season in Edmonton the Sabres blanked the Oilers 5-0 with Eichel scoring a goal and adding three assists. The totals between the two players in their careers vs. each other:
Eichel--5 games, 3 goals, 4 assists
McDavid--5 games, 2 goals, 2 assists
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If you've been following here, no doubt you've seen us take a liking to forward C.J. Smith. The undrafted college free agent out of UMASS-Lowell in Hockey-East has spent the majority of his time in the AHL plying his trade with the Rochester Americans but just concluded a four-game stint with the big club. Which is the way it should be.
Smith got a cup of coffee with the Sabres after signing in 2017 (2 games, 0 goals, 1 assist) and joined the Rochester Americans for the 2017-18 season. He proceeded to finish third on the Amerks in scoring with 44 points (17+27) which was good for 10th in the league amongst rookies. This season has gone even better for him as right now he's at almost a point/game pace (16 goals, 17 assists in 34 games) and performed quite well for his recent Sabres stint which included all three games Eichel was out. In those four games he scored his first NHL goal and looked like he belonged.
Ultimately Smith was a victim of a numbers-crunch and since he was waivers-exempt, and as the Sabres forwards got healthy, the team sent him back down to Rochester prior to the Carolina game. He didn't make it back in time for the first of a home and home with the Toronto Marlies (TOR) last weekend, a 5-1 Rochester loss, but he was on the ice for the second game in Toronto and scored the hat trick (the second of his career) while adding an assist.
The Sabres (as all teams do) have been looking for quality players on modest contracts that can contribute to the club that has one superstar contract on the books and more on the way. Smith has been very consistent in his game for much of his AHL career and outside of an Amerks playoff run, it would seem as if there's not much more for Smith to learn at the AHL-level. With the Sabres on their bye-week prior to the All-Star break they'll be away from the ice for 10 days and perhaps we'll see some maneuvering by Buffalo's front office to adjust their forward group.
Rochester has four games scheduled during Buffalo's break in the action and it might not be a bad time to check out Smith, along with the progress of forwards Victor Olofsson and Alexander Nylander as well as defenseman Brendan Guhle, all of whom represent intriguing prospects moving forward.
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Reports from the rink today have these as the lines for the morning skate in Edmonton:
Skinner-Eichel-Reinhart
Sheary-Mittelstadt-Thompson
Sobotka-Rodrigues-Pominville
Girgensons-Larsson-Okposo
And, just for fun, here's the forward group when the Sabres beat the Oilers 5-0 last year in Edmonton:
Girgensons-Eichel-Okposo
Scott Wilson-Ryan O'Reilly-Reinhart
Evander Kane-Larsson-Pominville
Jordan Nolan-Rodrigues-Nicolas Baptiste
Housley has been switching up his d-pairings often as of late, for whatever reason, but it looks like he's going back to some pairings that have worked well:
Rasmus Dahlin-Zach Bogosian
Jake McCabe-Rasmus Ristolainen
Marco Scandella-Nathan Beaulieu
Hutton looks to get the start in net
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