too cute<\/a>\u201d and Ruff noting that the Senators competed harder than the Sabres did. Considering the Sabres had a chance to clinch a playoff spot and end the franchise\u2019s league-record postseason drought with a win, hearing about a lack of urgency is hardly encouraging. But after sleeping it off and watching video, Ruff had a more pragmatic view of the team\u2019s situation.<\/p>\n\u201cI thought we were slow,\u201d Ruff said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to make excuses, but maybe the pressure of being there, just a little bit of that, caught up to the guys. Today was about just getting up to pace, playing fast, playing our game. I thought the energy was great. I thought the pace was great. I thought we skated better today than we did last night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s another way to look at the Sabres\u2019 last six games: They have a 54-percent expected goal share at five-on-five during that stretch and have a similar share of the scoring chances and high-danger scoring chances. Their shooting percentage, which is 10.31 percent at five-on-five this season, has dropped to 7.97 the last six games. The games the Sabres are playing have all been close, and lulls like this happen.<\/p>\n
The Sabres are going to clinch the playoffs at some point. And they will likely finish somewhere in the top three of the Atlantic Division. But where they end up within that is up in the air, with the Montreal Canadiens just two points behind. After four months of being on top of the league, the Sabres have hit a bump in the road, but there\u2019s still time to get back on track.<\/p>\n
\u201cI kind of love the adversity,\u201d Sabres goalie Alex Lyon said. \u201cYou have to love the adversity to a degree. As long as I\u2019ve been in the NHL, that was the longest sustained run of success that I\u2019ve ever experienced as a group. That\u2019s extremely rare. We just have to keep sight of that and remember when we were in September and October and November, there were difficult times, so it\u2019s important to remember that as well. It can turn at any second. When momentum shifts, you have to embrace that and grind through that.\u201d<\/p>\n
1. Ruff decided to put his lines in a blender for the first time in a while. Here\u2019s how the Sabres looked Friday:<\/p>\n
Peyton Krebs \u2013 Tage Thompson \u2013 Josh Doan
Jason Zucker \u2013 Josh Norris \u2013 Alex Tuch
Zach Benson \u2013 Ryan McLeod \u2013 Jack Quinn
Jordan Greenway \u2013 Tyson Kozak \u2013 Beck Malenstyn<\/p>\n
Mattias Samuelsson \u2013 Rasmus Dahlin
Bowen Byram \u2013 Owen Power
Logan Stanley \u2013 Zach Metsa<\/p>\n
\u201cI look at our five-on-five scoring, I think it just needs a little freshness,\u201d Ruff said. \u201cThe lines have been together a long time. It\u2019s time to tweak them a little bit and let them go out and play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruff had Tage Thompson and Josh Doan playing together during the team\u2019s first 10-game winning streak in December and got positive results, so there\u2019s a history there. It\u2019s also been a few weeks of a production slump for Ryan McLeod and Josh Norris, so shuffling the middle two lines might help get something going for them.<\/p>\n
2. Logan Stanley and Zach Metsa are still Buffalo\u2019s third pair on defense. Thursday was the shakiest game Metsa has played in a long time. It was also his fifth game in seven nights after playing three games in three days last weekend in Rochester. It looks like Ruff is going to stick with that pair for a bit and give them time to get comfortable. It\u2019s been tough to get a proper read on Stanley\u2019s game because he\u2019s played with four different partners in 12 games. But it\u2019s worth noting the Sabres have 60 percent of the high-danger chances and 51 percent of the expected goals during his five-on-five minutes. He\u2019s made mistakes and taken a few too many penalties, but the on-ice results have been solid for a player adjusting to a new system.<\/p>\n
3. Every game Stanley and Metsa play is another game that Michael Kesselring is out of the lineup. He\u2019s been upbeat at practice and tried to approach the situation with the right attitude despite the frustration that comes with being scratched for 11 straight games.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, the situation is we have nine NHL defensemen,\u201d Kesselring said before the road trip. \u201cDo I think I\u2019m going to be a top four D in this league? I do believe that. I think I played through a little too much this year, and it is what it is right now. But this is the hardest I\u2019ve worked all year, and I\u2019ll be ready when I get back in. You can\u2019t be mad. I\u2019ve tried to be smiling in the locker room and stuff like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kesselring has dealt with early-season knee and ankle injuries that lingered into the second half of the year. But he can still be a big piece of what the Sabres do moving forward. It\u2019s tough to figure out when his next opportunity will come, but Ruff should find a way to get him one before the end of the regular season.<\/p>\n
4. Luke Schenn has been a valuable guy to have in the room, even though he\u2019s only played in two games for the Sabres. He\u2019s in the same situation as Kesselring, and it\u2019s good for Kesselring to see how Schenn handles himself as a veteran. Schenn knows his words carry more weight when he\u2019s playing, but he\u2019s found a way to stay involved in whatever way he can. And he\u2019s also confident he can make an impact on the ice.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe playoffs is not even close to the same game,\u201d Schenn said before the road trip. \u201cYou go to the first 30 or 40 regular-season games, and it\u2019s not as physical, it\u2019s a little more playing off the rush. You get into the last 20, 10, five games, it comes down to more one-on-one battles. It\u2019s tighter checking. Playoffs is an extra level of that, and not a lot of guys have experience with it. That\u2019s when I feel like I\u2019m at my best, when it\u2019s just about will and compete and battles and you against your opponent shift after shift for seven games or whatever it takes in a series and four rounds. It\u2019s a different game.\u201d<\/p>\n
5. Lyon had the net to himself at practice, which is a strong indication that he\u2019s going to get another start after Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen got three starts in a row. Lyon has allowed 10 goals in his last two starts, with a save percentage just above 80 percent. So this was a fine time for a reset, and Lyon seemed to embrace it as a chance to get back on track.<\/p>\n
6. After Josh Dunne got one game centering Jordan Greenway and Beck Malenstyn, it looks like Tyson Kozak will get a chance to fill in for the injured Sam Carrick on that fourth line based on practice.<\/p>\n
7. The league hasn\u2019t announced clinching scenarios for the weekend, but here\u2019s what it looks like for the Sabres. They can clinch if any of these scenarios happen:<\/p>\n
\u2022 The Sabres beat Washington in any fashion.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The Red Wings lose in regulation against the Rangers on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The Red Wings lose in overtime, and the Sabres get at least a point against Washington.<\/p>\n
If the Red Wings win against the Rangers, the Sabres can also clinch with an overtime loss in the following scenario with the Senators:\u00a0The Senators lose in regulation, and the Sabres get at least a point against Washington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON, Va. \u2014 Lindy Ruff didn\u2019t like the way the Buffalo Sabres skated or competed against the Ottawa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3297,9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-185721","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-buffalo-sabres","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-news","12":"tag-new-york-state","13":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-state-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}