Published by hockeybuzz.com, 3-9-2019
No one in Sabreland should have been surprised the Buffalo Sabres lost 5-4 in Chicago. That it happened in the shootout maybe, but the real surprise was the names on the score sheet for Buffalo. Vladimir Sobotka, Zach Bogosian and Kyle Okposo, three players mentioned in the last blog as being "miscast and/or overpriced vets" all scored for the Sabres against the Blackhawks. Newcomer Brandon Montour, who was acquired at the NHL trade deadline nearly two weeks ago, scored his second goal in the Blue and Gold but the Sabres blew a third period lead and lost in the shootout as goalie Carter Hutton was unable to stop any of the three Chicago shooters that came his way.
What a waste of a night, but it's par for the course for Buffalo as of late and especially on the road. The Sabres woes in the Windy City continued as they haven't won in Chicago since January 10, 2007 (0-6-3) and they presently have the NHL's second-worst road record of 11-18-5. Since the end of the Sabres 10-game winning streak in November, the club is only 3-14-4. Post All-Star break when it's time to play for keeps in a playoff push, the Sabres are 1-6-2 with their only win coming in Columbus the day after the break ended.
Buffalo's home record post-break of 5-4-1 isn't great but it's fairly respectable and had they been able to move the needled on the road from abysmal to meh with a couple of wins, their playoff deficit wouldn't have ballooned from two points on January 30 to 10 points today.
Such is the season.
The Sabres are on the road against the Colorado Avalanche today at 3pm ET. Buffalo is 3-5-2 in their last 10 games against Colorado but won last year 4-2 and in the process broke a six-game losing streak (0-4-2) in the Mile High state.
Like Buffalo, Colorado has had struggles of it's own this season. However, even though their 70 points is only one better than the Sabres, they're only four points out of the second wild card spot in the Western Conference. And similar to Buffalo, the Avalanche have basically been a one-line team and they're playoff hopes may have taken a blow when captain Gabriel Landeskog suffered an upper-body injury and could be out for the season. Before the injury Landeskog was on the left side of a potent line featuring center Nathan MacKinnon and right wing Mikko Rantanen with the trio combining for 96 goals and 238 points on the season. Colorado's 3.22 goals/game is ninth best in the League.
According to the Avalanche website, former Sabre draft pick J.T. Compher will be on MacKinnon's right side as coach Jared Bednar completely mixed up his forward lines in Landeskog's absence. Compher was selected with the 35th pick in the 2013 NHL Draft but was traded to Colorado in the 2015 Ryan O'Reilly deal. The two-way center should see action on the wing against his former organization.
Speaking of moves to wing, rookie center Casey Mittelstadt spent some time at left wing during practice yesterday. When Mittelstadt was struggling with his duties as a top-nine/top-six center, some fans were clamoring for him to be moved to the wing in a top-six role. They got half of their wish right as he was moved to the wing, but it won't be in the top six. Housley move center Johan Larsson up to the third line with "Mitts" on the left and 36 yr. old Jason Pominville on the right, according to reports yesterday. Right wing Tage Thompson, who's failure to be hard on the puck in his own zone led to Chicago tying the score on Thursday, looks to be on the outs while Zemgus Girgensons returns to the lineup.
Here were the lines from yesterday:
Skinner-Eichel-Reinhart
Sheary-Rodrigues-Okposo
Mittelstadt-Larsson-Pominville
Wilson-Sobotka-Girgensons
Housley's mantra seems to center around changing things up after a loss and true to that his line-shuffling continued even though the Sabres got contributions from the second line on down against the Hawks. What Mittelstadt will learn by being next to Larsson, a checking line center placed on a scoring line, remains to be seen and it comes off as a curious reach at this point with Mittelstadt arguably playing his best hockey of the season right now.
And, of course, Housley is mixing up his d-pairings again although it looks as if he'll keep the Bogosian/Montour pairing intact. By the looks of yesterday's practice he'll give the Rasmus combination of Dahlin and Ristolainen another go while using a third-pairing of Marco Scandella/Casey Nelson.
Thompson was the extra forward yesterday and practiced on a d-pairing with reserve defenseman Matt Hunwick.
For all of goalie Carter Hutton's troubles in the shootout against Chicago, his 41 regulation/overtime saves helped get the Sabres to that point. Perhaps he was disheveled a bit after facing relentless pressure from the Blackhawks in overtime as they pumped seven shots on goal and rang another one off of the post in the five-minute session. Then again he could've be channeling the No. 40 from two years ago in the form of former Sabres goalie Robin Lehner who infamously failed to stop any of eight shooters while on his way to an 0-4 shootout record in 2016-17. Regardless, he stopped allowed three goals on three shots in the skills competition while his counterpart allowed one goal on two shots.
Having won last season in Colorado, at least the Sabres can go into Denver today without the weight of a long losing streak hanging over them. And with Landeskog out, it's a winnable game. But with this team on the road, and their terrible record the last six weeks, they'll have their work cut out for them.
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