Buffalo looking to close out road trip on a high<\/p>\n
Buffalo Sabres\u00a0(44-20-6) vs Anaheim Ducks (38-27-4)<\/p>\n
Puck Drop:\u00a08:00 pm ET | Honda Center, Anaheim CA<\/p>\n
TV:\u00a0MSG-B, ESPN+<\/p>\n
Radio: WGR 550, Sirius XM (app)<\/p>\n
Know Your Opponent<\/p>\n
Anaheim Ducks<\/p>\n
Record:\u00a038-27-4\u00a0| 80 PTS<\/p>\n
Last Game:\u00a04-1 win over Utah Mammoth; 5-4-1 in last ten games<\/p>\n
Division Ranking: 1st, Pacific<\/p>\n
PP:\u00a027th, 16.8% (36\/214) [Sabres: 16th, 20.7% (43\/208)]<\/p>\n
PK: 20th, 78.3% (177\/226) [Sabres: 3rd, 83.1% (157\/189)]<\/p>\n
What to Watch<\/p>\n
1. Keep The Focus<\/p>\n
The Sabres have done an admirable job since December. 33 wins in their last 41 games, and 11 wins in their last 12 road games. They\u2019ve been patient in games where they haven\u2019t been able to jump into a big lead early on, learning and adjusting in the middle stanza and then pulling away in the final period. They will need to do that again. <\/p>\n
One area they have not been tested often in is when they\u2019ve had to come from behind. Thanks to timely saves and a potent offense, the Sabres have not played too much hockey trying to eradicate a lead. <\/p>\n
2. Strong Competition<\/p>\n
The Anaheim Ducks are no pushovers. While the Pacific Division is littered with mediocrity, the Ducks are one of the better teams in the West, and they paid a hefty sum for defenseman John Carlson at the trade deadline too. Their special teams has been quite ordinary, but their 5-v-5 play improves their overall stats. They are 9th in SAT% at 51.6 and are not often outshot in games. They are a high volume shooter with 30.2 per game, third in the league.<\/p>\n
Both the Sabres and Ducks are at 54.5% for SAT% when behind, so no lead will be safe tonight. <\/p>\n
3. Everybody Ropes, Everybody Rides<\/p>\n
From Tage Thompson in the post-game after beating the Kings last night \u2013<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a slogan that \u2018Everybody ropes, everyone rides.\u2019 It means there\u2019s no job that\u2019s too big or small for you to do out there. When everyone out there is doing those little things that aren\u2019t very pretty but that show the guy next to you that you care about winning, it\u2019s infectious.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the attitude in the team right now, and it\u2019s incredible. That\u2019s accountability right there. <\/p>\n
Projected Lineups<\/p>\n
Buffalo Sabres <\/p>\n
Forwards <\/p>\n
Peyton Krebs \u2013 Tage Thompson \u2013 Alex Tuch
Jason Zucker \u2013 Ryan McLeod \u2013 Jack Quinn
Noah Ostlund \u2013 Josh Norris \u2013 Josh Doan
Zach Benson \u2013 Sam Carrick \u2013 Beck Malenstyn<\/p>\n
Defense<\/p>\n
Mattias Samuelsson \u2013 Rasmus Dahlin
Bowen Byram \u2013 Owen Power
Zach Metsa \u2013 Logan Stanley<\/p>\n
Goaltenders <\/p>\n
Alex Lyon (projected starter), Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen<\/p>\n
Anaheim Ducks <\/p>\n
Forwards <\/p>\n
Chris Kreider \u2013 Leo Carlsson \u2013 Troy Terry
Alex Killorn \u2013 Mason McTavish \u2013 Beckett Sennecke
Jeffrey Viel \u2013 Ryan Poehling \u2013 Cutter Gauthier
Mikael Granlund \u2013 Tim Washe \u2013 Keegan Kolesar<\/p>\n
Defense<\/p>\n
Jackson Lacombe \u2013 Jacob Trouba
Pavel Mintyukov \u2013 John Carlson
Olen Zellweger \u2013 Ian Moore<\/p>\n
Goaltenders <\/p>\n
Lukas Dostal (projected starter), Ville Husso<\/p>\n
\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Buffalo looking to close out road trip on a high Buffalo Sabres\u00a0(44-20-6) vs Anaheim Ducks (38-27-4) Puck Drop:\u00a08:00…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-231547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}