Buffalo aims to get back to .500 parity
buffalo saber (9-10-4) New Jersey Devils (15-7-1)
Puck Drop: 4:00 PM Eastern Time | KeyBank Center | Buffalo, New York
TV: MSG, ESPN+
radio: wgr 550
know your opponent
New Jersey Devils
record: 15-7-1 | 31 pts
final game: 3-2 OT win at home against the St. Louis Blues
division ranking: first, metropolis
PP:7th, 24.1% (14/58) (Sabres: 19th, 17.9% (12/67))
P: 10th, 82.4% (56/68) (Sabres: 2nd, 87.9% (58/66))
what to watch
1. Struggle to be mediocre
Every time the Sabers are in a position where they are at .500 and looking to take a winning record, they find a way to lose and fall back down again. This is nothing new this season, and even with the changing faces, there is no way this franchise can shake off the grief of this destruction that has befallen it.
Buffalo will once again attempt to get themselves back to the .500 level after laying an egg on Pittsburgh this afternoon against the best team in the Eastern Conference, but one can’t help but feel that their biggest enemy is within their own heads. The Sabers are just as likely to put together a complete game today and destroy the Devils as they are to still be sleeping and shellacking from yesterday’s turkey adventure. This is what a .500 team is all about, after all.
2. You don’t know Jack
Everyone knows the Devils’ Jack Hughes, but our own Jack Quinn has been picking things up in recent games. With Jason Zucker on the second line and Ryan McLeod at center, Quinn is on a three-game points streak with five points in that span, while Zucker has seven points in the last four and McLeod also has five points in the last three. Fast, intelligent and creating opportunities for each other, moving to the second line is the Sabers’ best chance to score goals right now.
Over the past three games since that line has been put together following Zucker’s return, the Sabers’ second line has had a 32-10 advantage in scoring chances created vs. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see him score again today.
3. Predicting decline
The way the ‘riding the hot hand’ strategy should work with goaltenders is for the coaching staff to keep starting the best goaltender until they see something in his performance that indicates a drop-off is coming, and then immediately replace him. It’s almost impossible to do this with Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen because his game ends so quickly that you might not even see it coming. A few days after his stellar performance against the Carolina Hurricanes, he looked aggressive at times against the Penguins.
Meanwhile, Alex Lyon has not been seen again for more than a fortnight after allowing two goals on three shots against the Colorado Avalanche. Considering he’s in the starting net today, hopefully he doesn’t look too rough.
Estimated Lineup
buffalo saber
Ahead
Zach Benson – Tage Thompson – Alex Tuch
Jason Zucker – Ryan McLeod – Jack Quinn
Josh Doan – Noah Ostlund – Tyson Kozak
Josh Dun – Peyton Krebs – Beck Malensteen
protect
Rasmus Dahlin – Mattias Samuelsson
Bowen Byram – Connor Timmins
Jacob Bryson – Owen Power
goalkeeper: Alex Lyon (projected starter), Ukko Pekka Luukkonen
New Jersey Devils
Ahead
Timo Meier – Nico Hischier – Jesper Bratt
Ondrej Palat – Dawson Mercer – Arseny Gritsyuk
Paul Couture – Cody Glass – Connor Brown
Juho Lammikko – Luke Glendening – Stefan Noesen
protect
Jonas Seigenthaler – Dougie Hamilton
Luke Hughes – Simon Nemec
Brendan Dillon – Colton White
goalkeeper: Jacob Markstrom (projected starter), Jake Allen
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