Published by hockeybuzz.com, 11-27-2019
The Calgary Flames have been struggling as much as the Buffalo Sabres this season. After taking the Western Conference crown last season with 107 points, Calgary is off to a rather pedestrian start to 2019-20 and finds themselves off the pace out west. They're 11-12-4 record is good for 26 points which places them in the middle of the pack just outside a playoff spot but they've played more games than anyone else in the conference and if you take a peek at their points-percentage, you'll find they're third-last.
Buffalo is very similar in the standings as they took a dive after a fast start. The Sabres are 11-10-3 on the season with their 25 points placing them 11th in the Eastern Conference and are only a little better than the Flames with a .521 point-percentage as opposed to Calgary's .481.
They say you know what kind of team you have by U.S. Thanksgiving and one would assume that the Flames and general manager Brad Treliving aren't very satisfied with the way things have gone so far and the Bill Peters story isn't making things any easier. Peters, who is considered the Flames head coach (for now,) won't be behind the bench tonight as the team and the NHL sift through a series of unseemly actions which includes the use of racial slurs in a verbal attack on Akim Ailu while they were in the Chicago Blackhawks organization. Since Ailu came forward, other accusations are coming to the fore and it doesn't look as if Calgary can do anything but fire him.
With that in mind, the Flames are headed to Buffalo with a 1-5-2 record in their last eight games, which includes a six-game winless streak (0-5-1,) and will have assistant coach Geoff Ward running the bench. Ward and company will be facing a Sabres team that has had a brutal month of November going only 2-8-1 for the month.
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The Sabres will have a boost up front a forward Marcus Johansson will return from the lineup after missing seven games with an upper-body injury. Johansson went down in the second game of the Buffalo/Tampa Bay Lightning Global Series in Stockholm, Sweden on November 9. Buffalo went 2-4-1 without him in the lineup.
With Johansson back in the lineup, head coach Ralph Krueger did some line adjustments which ended up being a blender-move outside the top line of Jack Eichel flanked by Victor Olofsson and Sam Reinhart.
Krueger opted to move Jeff Skinner away from Johansson to a line with center Johan Larsson (who was the pivot on Buffalo's checking line) and right wing Conor Sheary. Johansson was centering a line with left wing Jimmy Vesey (who's been moved up and down the lineup lately including going from 1st to 4th line in one game) and Casey Mittelstadt while rookie Rasmus Asplund had Zemgus Girgensons on his left and recent call-up Jean Sebastian Dea, whom he played with in Rochester, on his right.
This is the most Kreuger has deviated from his usual lineup all season and some of the moves are real head-scratchers, like Skinner/Larsson?
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The Sabres released their injury report today which includes defenseman Rasmus Dahlin being on the list with an "indefinite" designation placed next to his name. Dahlin was elbowed by Tampa Bay's Erik Cernak in their game on Monday night with no penalty called. Cernak received supplemental discipline from the NHL's Department of Player Safety for the illegal hit but it didn't help the Sabres in-game.
"We would have rather had a five-minute major within the game," said Krueger on WGR550 this morning, "because that kind of suspension really does us no good."
The Sabres were on the powerplay at the time and were only down a goal. Had the call been made, even a two-minute elbowing minor, Buffalo would have had a two-man advantage for about a minute and it could have changed the complexion of the game. It was not to be as both refs and both linesmen apparently didn't see what everyone watching on TV saw.
And in other injury news, Vladimir Sobotka had surgery on his knee and is out indefinitely. Sobotka was submarined by Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov on November 8, the first game of the Global Series. Kucherov undercut Sobotka well after he got rid of the puck and no penalty was called.
Are we sensing a theme here?
The Sabres play Tampa Bay for a fourth and final time on December 31.
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