San Jose, Calif. (WGR Sports Radio 550) – After missing Tuesday’s win over the Vegas Golden Knights, Buffalo Sabres winger Alex Tuch took part in Thursday’s morning skate and will return to the lineup against the San Jose Sharks.<\/p>\n
Tuch was forced to miss Tuesday’s game due to an illness, but feels much better ahead of Thursday’s contest.<\/p>\n
“I felt good, really good. Better than I thought I was going to a couple of days ago,” said Tuch. “But that was a tough one. I felt good to be back out there.”<\/p>\n
You always worry about stamina after a player misses time being sick. Tuch says he\u2019s been here before.<\/p>\n
“I don\u2019t think I was off for too long, so I don\u2019t think it\u2019ll be an issue,” he said. “But maybe the first couple of shifts, keep them short.”<\/p>\n
Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff feels it\u2019s something that will need watching.<\/p>\n
“I think we\u2019ll get a good read on him early, and we can balance the ice-time off of that,” he said after the morning skate.<\/p>\n
The Sabres third pair of defensemen will again be Zach Metsa and Logan Stanley. They showed well in their first game together in Vegas according to Ruff,<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought that pair did a nice job. Moved the puck well, I thought defended well, there was a lot to like about their game.<\/p>\n
Ruff was asked about Stanley\u2019s comfort level rising and he said,<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to get to, he understands how we need to play, I thought his box outs around the net were real good, moving the puck, 90% of it was good, I\u2019m sure there\u2019s a couple he wants back, but overall I think he\u2019s feeling better about his game than the first couple.\u201d<\/p>\n
Metsa plays a very calm game which Ruff feels helps them be a good pair,<\/p>\n
\u201cZach\u2019s breakout ability has been so good, that compliments how we need to play and I think he gave them good outs at times.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he broke the puck out himself well, so I think those two did play off of each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buffalo is working on a team record road streak picking up points in 11 straight games. In that streak they\u2019re 10-0-1. Overall they\u2019re 19-11-3 away from home.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s Alex Lyon\u2019s turn to be in net. He\u2019s won five straight games and since Dec. 8 is 16-2-0 with a 2.22 goals against and .924 save percentage.<\/p>\n
The Carolina Hurricanes won their game in hand and are back ahead of the Sabres with a points percentage of .676. Buffalo is .662 while the Tampa Bay Lightning is .652. Tampa Bay is at Vancouver tonight while Carolina visits Toronto tomorrow. Macklin Celebrini did score against the Sabres in Buffalo, but that was because of a bad turnover. Ruff said the did a decent job on the kid that\u2019s fifth in league scoring with 35 goals and 60 assists for 95 points,<\/p>\n
\u201cHe created a couple of opportunities with just speed and agility that our goalies made good saves on (Lyon), he\u2019s just a guy you\u2019ve got to be aware of because if he has a step or he gets inside, or if he gets you flat footed, he can beat you, but I think for the most part, we got in his way, we bumped him because you\u2019ve got to slow down the key guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buffalo won that game 6-3. The Sharks have lost two in a row and five out of seven. They\u2019ve only won five of their last 15 games. That puts them one point behind the Seattle Kraken and the Los Angeles Kings for the eighth and final playoff spot in the West. All three have a points percentage of .530.<\/p>\n
Tage Thompson had been on a hot streak that almost hit 40 games, but he\u2019s gone very cold lately going pointless in four straight and goalless in five in a row.<\/p>\n
Join Brian Koziol for pregame coverage on WGR starting at 9 p.m. when you\u2019ll hear from Ruff and Zach Benson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Jose, Calif. (WGR Sports Radio 550) – After missing Tuesday’s win over the Vegas Golden Knights, Buffalo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-534663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}