Fort Lauderdale, Florida (WGR 550) – On Saturday the Buffalo Sabres had their five game winning streak broken by the Montreal Canadiens, but they’re still 5-1-0 in their last six.
Had they won they would’ve been sitting in second place in the Atlantic Division, but the loss dropped them to Wild Card No. 1 with a points percentage of .620. Looking down the Boston Bruins are at .607, the Columbus Blue Jackets are .565 and Monday’s opponent, the Florida Panthers are .546.
If you look up the Detroit Red Wings are at .625 and the Canadiens are at .627 in second place.
The two teams have met twice in Buffalo with the Sabres winning 3-0 and losing 4-3.
One thing the Sabres have gotten better at this season is not letting a loss turn into a long streak. Ruff said,
“It’s part of just believing in the process, believing in how we play, nothing’s going to change, we’ve got to keep working on our game, there were parts of our game that I didn’t think were that great against Montreal, especially in the third period and we looked at some of that this morning on video and emphasized how we need to stay aggressive and to take time and space away from the opposition and just right back at it, stick with how we need to play and do it night in and night out.”
Alex Lyon will be back in net after having his 10-game winning streak snapped by Montreal. Ruff confirmed that Colten Ellis will play this week.
Isak Rosen will be in the lineup for Konsta Helenius who got bench on Saturday after Montreal’s third goal. Ruff said,
“This is just part of a young hockey player’s journey. I think you can start off well, your emotions are running high, and then you get into the grind of the games and sometimes you just see the peaks and valley’s, but it’s all part of how a young guy gets to where he wants to get to.”
Ruff said Josh Norris is progressing, but isn’t ready yet for this game.
The Panthers went on the road and won three straight games and then they came home to lose three in a row.
Florida has been alternating their goalies lately. If they continue that it will be Danill Tarasov. He’s 8-7-2 with a 2.67 goals against and .904 save percentage.
Matthew Tkachuk is finally back and has played eight games and has points in just one of those games when he scored two goals against the Chicago Blackhawks.
Other key injuries for the Panthers are Aleksander Barkov, Dmitry Kulikov, Seth Jones, Anton Lundell and Brad Marchand.
Join “Schopp and the Bulldog” at 6:00 for the pregame when you’ll hear from Lindy Ruff and Josh Doan.
MONDAY’S LINES:
Benson – Thompson – Tuch
Zucker – McLeod – Quinn
Rosen – Kozak – Malenstyn
Doan – Krebs – Ostlund