Eleven games into his Sabres career, Crevier has endured some growing pains. The 6-foot-8 defenseman\u00a0played a season-low 7:37 and finished minus-two in the Washington game. Overall, the Sabres have controlled just 41.8 percent of the expected goals during Crevier\u2019s 5-on-5 minutes. After three seasons in Chicago, he\u2019s still finding his footing on an active Buffalo blue line.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think personally, I\u2019d like to be a bit more stable,\u201d he told Sabres.com. \u201c\u2026 There\u2019s definitely some different stuff going on (from Chicago). Just skating with the puck, especially with some of the defensive guys we have that are really good with skating the puck, so I think it\u2019s something I\u2019ve got to pick up a little bit more.\u201d<\/p>\n
The typical game flow hasn\u2019t done Crevier many favors, with the Sabres regularly chasing the score and leaning heavily on their top defensemen. Comfortable leads \u2013 only twice has Buffalo led by multiple goals \u2013 would mean more regular shifts for a defense-first guy like Crevier.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to get to that point where we stay a lot more solid defensively and we get a couple-goal lead that we make the opposition earn what they get,\u201d Ruff said.<\/p>\n
Buffalo\u2019s defense will certainly be put to the test Tuesday, when it faces Macklin Celebrini and the highly skilled, high-event Sharks, who\u2019ve scored 14 goals (and allowed 11) over their last three games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think if we play our game, things are gonna turn well for us,\u201d said Crevier, who leads the Sabres with 16 blocked shots \u2013 another area they\u2019re looking to improve. \u201cJust got to be a little bit more careful, especially when those top guys are on the ice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added Ruff: \u201cPart of the coaching is knowing you\u2019re playing against good players; you\u2019re going to give stuff up. You\u2019ll never perfect it. But we\u2019re trying to clean it up after every game. We review a lot of defensive situations after every game and try to [understand] that, if we\u2019re going to give up anything, this is maybe what we\u00a0can give up.<\/p>\n
“That\u2019s an ongoing battle, and we\u2019re not there yet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eleven games into his Sabres career, Crevier has endured some growing pains. The 6-foot-8 defenseman\u00a0played a season-low 7:37…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[88,90,89],"class_list":["post-509010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509010","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=509010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}