Published by hockeybuzz.com, 10-20-2019
Who would have thought?
Coming into the 2019-20 season most pundits looked at the Buffalo Sabres lineup and it didn't look as if they'd made enough significant changes to even get close to their goal of ending an NHL-long, eight-year playoff drought. Some of the more rabid Sabres fans even called for the head of general manager Jason Botterill for not doing enough while hanging on to a list of what they considered hockey deplorables. Vladimir Sobotka was the king of the list with names like Johan Larsson, Zemgus Girgensons, Kyle Okposo and Marco Scandella deemed terrible. Many couldn't wait until defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen finally got traded for top-six help up-front even though in some fans eyes he rivaled Sobotka for the dubious distinction as most deplorable Sabre.
Although it's still way too early in the season to uncork the champagne in celebration of finally making it to the post-season, there are plenty of signs that this team will at least be able to make a run if they continue to play they way they have and their 7-1-1 start to the season most certainly helps. New head coach Ralph Krueger has each player believing in themselves and in their intrinsic value to the team. He's found four trios up front that he can roll and his pairings on the back-end have in the very least been solid but maybe more importantly, he's got this team playing as a five-man unit with support in every zone.
With that said, they had a couple of rough games--at Columbus and at Anaheim--which is to be expected, but how they recovered from that has been most impressive so far in this young season. The Sabres followed an overtime loss against the Blue Jackets with a 3-0 homestand and followed their loss against the Ducks with wins on the road against the LA Kings and last night's 4-3 victory over the San Jose Sharks.
The Sharks game last night was a complete team effort as they got goals from lines two through three while keeping San Jose from gaining any momentum after they tied the game on three separate occasion. Krueger has his four lines playing to their identities as they stick fast to a couple of his pillars--team-defense and aggressive, high-pressure skating--and with each game, each win, their confidence level gets higher.
Krueger's top line of Jack Eichel, Sam Reinhart and Victor Olofsson haven't scored a 5v5 goal since Eichel scored an unassisted one at the 7:35 mark of the first period against the Ducks in Anaheim. Buffalo's once-vaunted powerplay has cooled off going 2/14 on this three-game, California road trip and their top unit hasn't scored a powerplay goal since late in the first period of the Ducks game (0/13.) Casey Mittelstadt and the second PP unit were responsible for Buffalo's only powerplay goal in the last 163:24 and for a team that was pretty much scoring at will with the man advantage, that's a long drought for the first unit to have.
Contributions from three lines got the Sabres the win last night and a lot of determination was involved in the final three goals Buffalo scored for the win. The Sabres second goal came as Conor Sheary outraced a Shark-defender to negate an icing call and after San Jose got it up ice to the red-line Jimmy Vesey stole the puck and did a great job of protecting it along the wall while his teammates got into the play. Vesey hit defenseman Henri Jokiharju with a pass at the Sharks blueline and the 20 yr. old sent a shot to the net that Mittelstadt deflected to make the score 2-1.
After the Sharks came back to tie the game early in the third, Sobotka lugged the puck into the offensive zone with San Jose defenseman Eric Karlsson draped all over him and hit a trailing Jake McCabe who drove towards the net. After an ensuing scramble the puck hit McCabe, who was in the crease and fell to Jeff Skinner who buried it in a wide open net.
What you don't see on either replay was the hard work and determination that preceded the highlitght. Sheary busted his ass to negate the icing then raced to be on side before heading down low to create a 2-on-1 which allowed Mittelstadt a wide open space for the tip. Sobotka did a great job protecting the puck from Karlsson who easily could have been called for holding or interference on the play.
That type of hard work and determination is expected from Buffalo's fourth line of Larsson, Girgensons and Okposo. The trio had been the Sabres most consistent line all year but seemed to tail off a little bit on this trip. Their work on the game-winning goal was typical of how they've been playing through most of the first nine games.
Okposo created a turnover behind the San Jose net and the puck came to Larsson who shot it towards the net. It hit Okposo who was trying to create a screen but Girgensons was right there driving the slot and he banged it home for his first of the season.
Credit to the Sabres who finished a three-game in four-night road trip by netting four of a possible six points. They came back from a poor 40 minutes against the Ducks to survive an onslaught by the Kings for the shutout and had an answer for every Sharks goal last night. They're working hard and they've been getting results. It's the type of work we've now come to expect overall from this edition of the Buffalo Sabres and it's paid off with a 7-1-1 record on the season so far.
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