Sabres Need to Douse the Flames

Calgary Flames (11-15-4) vs  Buffalo Sabres (11-13-4)

Puck Drop: 9:00 pm Eastern | Scotiabank Saddledome | Calgary, AB

TV: MSG, ESPN+

Radio: WGR 550

Know Your Opponent

Calgary Flames

Record: 11-15-4 | 26 PTS

Division Ranking: 7th in the Pacific

Last Game: 2-0 win over Utah

PP: 32nd, 13.7% (13/95) [Sabres: 21st, 18.1% (15/83)]

PK: 5th, 83.7% (82/98) [Sabres: 1st, 87.2% (68/78)]

What to Watch

1. Break The Slump

The Sabres started their six-game road trip with two losses which has the potential to quickly become an existential crisis for what is a pretty fragile team mentally. This slide very quickly becomes a slippery slope, so Buffalo need to find a way to show up and do whatever it takes to get a win tonight.

The Flames are not a good team, but they play what is often called a “heavy game.” They are a veteran team that forechecks hard and plays with a tenacity and desperation, which showed when they deflated the Sabres’ bubble in a 6-2 win in Buffalo recently when the Sabres had just made it back to .500 parity.

2. Battle of the Kills

Both teams do very well on the penalty kill, with the Sabres leading the league and the Flames not far behind in fifth. Both teams also have mediocre power play units, with Buffalo 21st and Calgary down at the bottom in 32nd.

One difference however is that the Flames are the fourth-most penalized team in the league so the Sabres should certainly have their opportunities, but Calgary are also in decent form having gone 7-3-2 int heir last twelve, and 4-0-1 at the Saddledome in their last five at home.

3. Just Score

After their loss last weekend when they only mustered one goal, Lindy Ruff put it pretty succinctly to his boys: “stick the puck in their teeth and dive into the net headfirst”. This was in response to the Sabres’ lack of fight around the Winnipeg goal when Eric Comrie left juicy rebounds laying around.

Tage Thompson hasn’t scored in six games, Alex Tuch has two goals in the last ten games, and Zach Benson has now played 15 games this season and has 11 assists but no goals. All-Star Rasmus Dahlin hasn’t scored a goal since returning from Sweden nearly a month ago, and after starting on fire has cooled off recently, with just two points in the last seven games.

Stats like this are not good enough for any top six forward or top four pairing defenseman. The return of a free-scoring Josh Norris was supposed to spark this team, instead the other forwards have gone quiet and he and Jason Zucker continue to carry the scoring burden.

Projected Lineups

Buffalo Sabres

Forwards

Jordan Greenway – Tage Thompson – Alex Tuch
Zach Benson – Josh Norris – Josh Doan
Jason Zucker – Ryan McLeod – Jack Quinn
Beck Malenstyn – Peyton Krebs – Tyson Kozak

Defense

Rasmus Dahlin – Mattias Samuelsson
Bowen Byram – Conor Timmins
Jacob Bryson – Owen Power

Goalies: Alex Lyon, Ukko Pekka Luukkonen (projected starter)

Calgary Flames

Forwards

Jonathan Huberdeau – Morgan Frost – Matt Coronato
Yegor Sharangovich – Nazem Kadri – Joel Farabee
Connor Zary – Mikael Backlund – Blake Coleman
Ryan Lomberg – John Beecher – Adam Klapka

Defense

Kevin Bahl – Rasmus Andersson
Yan Kuznetsov – MacKenzie Weegar
Joel Hanley – Brayden Pachal

Goalies: Dustin Wolf (confirmed starter), Devin Cooley