Perhaps being on the road will help them get back to what allowed them to have the best record in the NHL over a four-month stretch from early December through the end of the regular season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After going 0-5-2 through their first seven road games and 2-9-2 through their first 13, the Sabres went 22-4-2 in their final 28 games away from home, from Dec. 9 on. With 24 road wins, they finished tied with four teams for second in the NHL, behind the Colorado Avalanche (29).<\/p>\n
\u201cI think maybe playing free isn\u2019t the right term, but it seems like when we\u2019re on the road we\u2019re loose and (playing with) lots of energy,\u201d defenseman Logan Stanley<\/a>\u00a0said. \u201cWe kind of get four lines and three D pairs are rolling and (we) play with a lot of pace and energy, and I think that\u2019s helped.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to solving Boston\u2019s tight defensive structure, Buffalo is looking to break through on the power play. The Sabres are 0-for-9 in the series and 0-for-31 in nine games dating to April 1.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, we’d like to get on the board,\u201d said center Josh Norris<\/a>, who is typically on the right flank on the first power-play unit. \u201cI thought we had a couple really good looks last game. We tried to generate some momentum for our team, but, yeah, like I said, we’d like to be better. Power plays are huge, obviously, in the playoffs and we\u2019ve got to find a way to put one in and just be better next game.\u201d<\/p>\n The top unit features defenseman Rasmus Dahlin<\/a> at the blue line, forward Jack Quinn<\/a> on the left flank opposite Norris, forward\u00a0Jason Zucker<\/a> at the front of the net and center Tage Thompson<\/a>\u00a0as somewhat of a rover between the high slot and the goal line. The second unit has defenseman Bowen Byram<\/a> working up top, forwards Zach Benson<\/a> and Ryan McLeod<\/a> on the flanks, forward Josh Doan<\/a>\u00a0at the net and forward Alex Tuch<\/a>\u00a0as the rover.<\/p>\n There have been power plays over the course of the drought where the Sabres have had good looks. Overall, though, the lack of production and potential loss of momentum as a result has been an issue that\u2019s led to Ruff being asked about it regularly in recent weeks.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s always a concern, for sure. I think we’ll have to tweak some things,\u201d Ruff said after the game Tuesday, when Buffalo went 0-for-5. \u201c\u2026 Some of our execution, some of our puck play hasn’t been good enough. I think we stabbed a few pucks that we need to hang on to that would give us more zone time. That’s just the realization that you know where the pressure is coming from again, but obviously at this stage, it’s going to be a conversation in the coaches room, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perhaps being on the road will help them get back to what allowed them to have the best…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-624523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}