{"id":234357,"date":"2026-05-17T04:50:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T04:50:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/234357\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T04:50:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T04:50:15","slug":"what-lindy-ruff-is-doing-to-take-pressure-off-sabres-and-more-notes-ahead-of-game-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/234357\/","title":{"rendered":"What Lindy Ruff is doing to take pressure off Sabres and more notes ahead of Game 6"},"content":{"rendered":"

BUFFALO, N.Y. \u2014 The Buffalo Sabres are facing elimination after losing 6-3 to the Montreal Canadiens in Game 5<\/a> on home ice. This is the first time in the postseason that the Sabres have entered a game in which they are facing elimination. Down 3-2 in the series, the Sabres will need to win a Saturday night game in Montreal to force a Game 7 in Buffalo.<\/p>\n

Sabres coach Lindy Ruff knows most of his players haven\u2019t felt this pressure yet in their careers. That\u2019s why he didn\u2019t bring the players to the rink Friday, the morning after the Canadiens again picked apart Buffalo\u2019s defensive coverage. Ruff told the players to come in if they needed treatment. Otherwise, they could head right to the airport for the team\u2019s afternoon flight to Montreal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know the pressure they\u2019re feeling,\u201d Ruff said. \u201cI know how they feel. I know how much they care. I just feel a day away from the rink, not coming here, is a good thing. We don\u2019t need to watch video today. We don\u2019t need to talk about the game. We need to move on. There\u2019s only one game that counts now. And that is the game tomorrow. All likelihood, we may not even skate tomorrow. We\u2019ll save everything we got for tomorrow night. That\u2019s my initial thoughts right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s an honest admission on Ruff\u2019s part, something Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis hasn\u2019t come close to saying in either of his team\u2019s playoff series. It\u2019s also a reality that Ruff is willing to confront. Ruff has been sensitive to the psyche of his team throughout the postseason. In the Boston series, he softened his postgame comments in the media after Game 2 so that his team wouldn\u2019t have to deal with additional questions about the loss. Before Game 6 of that series, Ruff canceled the morning skate, in part, to keep the pressure off and give players a break from the media.<\/p>\n

Now he\u2019s trying a similar tactic between games five and six of this series. The schedule is different this time around. Games have been every other day in this series, which makes it difficult to practice anyway. If Ruff does elect not to do a pregame skate, he\u2019ll be breaking from the typical routine of having a skate between games.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also his job to find answers, and this might be one of them. The Sabres\u2019 three losses in this series have come by a combined score of 17-6. Game 5 was particularly frustrating for the Sabres because they scored first and got three goals in the first period. The Canadiens answered every goal and then opened up the game with a three-goal second period. Jakub Dobe\u0161 was shaky early in the game, but the Sabres didn\u2019t keep the pressure on him, and he settled back into his game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought we let them off the hook,\u201d Ruff said. \u201cWe came out of the corner a couple times, and we had clear lanes to shoot pucks, and we deferred to a better play. I think we\u2019ve talked about this at length throughout the year, that sometimes, you know, our ability to make plays is (that) we sometimes defer it to that better play, and we had the puck go into the net early. We got rewarded for it. We just didn\u2019t quite stay with it. Probably there was four or five opportunities to get a puck there quicker last night that could have kept them in chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, the Sabres ended up in chaos, as has been the case too often throughout the series. At times, it has felt like a lopsided series because of the score discrepancies, but these teams have been tighter than it appears at times.<\/p>\n

According to Natural Stat Trick, the Sabres have a 107-104 advantage in scoring chances at five-on-five. The Sabres also have a 52-51 advantage in high-danger chances at five-on-five. But the Canadiens have 10 high-danger goals to the Sabres\u2019 four. Dobe\u0161 has a 92 percent save percentage on high-danger chances at all strengths. Alex Lyon and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen have combined for a 78 percent save percentage on high-danger chances. Goaltending and special teams have been Montreal\u2019s two biggest edges in this series. Otherwise, it\u2019s closer than it meets the eye.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is there, five teams left?\u201d Ruff said. \u201cTo be sitting here talking to you guys, I think that it\u2019s a wonderful place to be, and I\u2019ll tell the team the same thing. We get to go to Montreal in Game 6 in the middle of May to move on to a Game 7, and I think we\u2019ll all be evaluated on what this game looks like. Just bring your best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ruff has liked how his team has responded to adversity this season, but this is different.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a completely different challenge, being involved in an elimination game where, now, every mistake could mean the end for you,\u201d Ruff said. \u201cBut every opportunity you get to take advantage of could mean we go on to play Game 7.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quick hits<\/p>\n

1. Ruff has another goalie decision to make. Turning back to Lyon would make sense based on his playoff performance and his experience as a veteran. Luukkonen wasn\u2019t the only problem the Sabres had on Thursday, of course. Four of the goals against came on high-danger shots. It was a frustrating night for him because he didn\u2019t have a ton of help in front of him. After the game, he mentioned that he needs to be better, but he also said the Sabres\u2019 need to tighten up defensively. He also marveled at the way Montreal is playing defensively when asked about Dobe\u0161.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they\u2019re just playing good defense,\u201d Luukkonen said. \u201cHe\u2019s playing good. There\u2019s no denying that. But I think how well they defend, how many pucks are loose over there. They kind of get them away in front of him. They do (a) good job with that. I would say it\u2019s not necessarily that. It\u2019s how well they\u2019re defending as a team right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is something to that, and it speaks to what really matters in Game 6. Whether it\u2019s Lyon or Luukkonen in net, the Sabres need to create a better environment for their goalies to succeed. The 27 shot blocks they had in Game 4 need to be part of the formula in Game 6.<\/p>\n

2. Ruff said defenseman Owen Power came in on Friday to get treatment after he twisted his leg crashing into the boards late in Game 5. He finished the game, and Ruff got an encouraging update.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I can offer is he said he\u2019s feeling pretty good, better than he thought he\u2019d feel, so that\u2019s encouraging,\u201d Ruff said.<\/p>\n

Losing Power would be a significant blow to Buffalo\u2019s blue line.<\/p>\n

3. We may be guessing on Ruff\u2019s lineup choices if he chooses to skip the morning skate. Conor Timmins had a rough turnover that led to Cole Caufield\u2019s momentum-changing goal in the game, so it\u2019s possible there could be another change to the third pair. Ruff would be more than justified in shuffling his lines, too, and he broke up his first line late in the game last night. But tinkering around the edges will only fix so much. When talking about leaning on his top four defensemen, Ruff offered an answer that could apply to his whole team.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you get in games like this, your best players have to be the guys that are out there playing the most,\u201d Ruff said. \u201cThey\u2019ve got to be the difference makers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUFFALO, N.Y. \u2014 The Buffalo Sabres are facing elimination after losing 6-3 to the Montreal Canadiens in Game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3297,9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":["post-234357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-buffalo-sabres","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234357","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=234357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}