Salt Lake City, Utah (WGR 550) – Lindy Ruff decided it might help the team to get to Utah a day early and practice in Salt Lake City on Tuesday.

On Tuesday morning Lindy Ruff joined Jeremy White and Joe DiBiase on WGR Sports Radio. He talked about Jason Zucker and the lengthy illness that has kept him out three games and three more coming up,

“It’s just one of those crazy viral sicknesses that he hasn’t had any solid food I don’t think for nine days and has gone through every type of test. Weight wise I think he’s down a considerable amount of weight and when he does start feeling better, it’s going to take a good period of time to get him up and running.”

One line has been consistently good for the Buffalo Sabres and according to “Money Puck” has been one of the seven best lines in the NHL. In Carolina on Saturday, Ruff shuffled the lines in the third period and one line dominated play and scored two goals. There’s one player that has been in on both those lines and that’s Ryan McLeod. He centered Alex Tuch and Josh Doan for a while and that line was usually good every game. On Saturday, he went between Tuch and Tage Thompson and both his wingers scored.

In 15 games this season McLeod has three goals and five assists for eight points. That translates to 16 goals and 27 assists for 43 points which is down from his career highs last year in all three categories. The fact is he’s using his speed to help drive his lines and Ruff has liked what he’s seen,

“He’s a good driver because his speed through the middle is something that helps create a lot of opportunities.

“You look at the Thompson in alone play, you look at in the third period where he threw it out wide and got in behind them and missed on his own opportunity, the drive on the Thompson goal, so he’s a good driver for offense and that helped those two guys.”

McLeod is a very humble man and doesn’t want the credit. He said,

“I’m just trying to work pretty hard and try to do the little things, I still think I can add a lot to my game, but I’ve just got to work on the small details and me and ‘Tuchy’ have had some good chemistry now and it’s been good.”

Going into Tuesday’s games the Sabres have the worst record in the Eastern Conference with a points percentage of .467. Their second three-game losing streak of the season will do that to you. Buffalo is now four points out of a playoff spot and has eight teams to leap frog to get there. This thing is starting to slip away quickly as it usually does at this time of year for them, so they must get it turned around now on this four-game road trip where they’ve already lost one game. If they come home after Saturday’s game on a six-game losing streak, they will likely be out of it.