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The Bolts, the Lineup and the Legend

January 10, 2022, 6:24 PM ET [813 Comments]
Hank Balling
Buffalo Sabres Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The Sabres are in action at home Tuesday night against the back-to-back Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning. Spoiler alert: the Lightning are still very good! They sit second in the division and conference at 23-9-5 behind only the Florida Panthers which should make Gary Bettman very happy as the architect of southern expansion. The Atlanta Thrashers are also undefeated this year.

Steven Stamkos leads the way for the Bolts offensively with 41 points in 36 games, while Victor Hedman is leading the backend with dominant numbers – of both the tradition and fancy variety – during another solid year for Swede. Andrei Vasilevskiy is goalie number one between the pipes, and he sports a tidy .923 save percentage and a nice 2.23 goals against average.

The Sabres will likely draw veteran Brian Elliott who has a less-than-stellar .899 save percentage through parts of eight games this season, although that was based on the assumption that Vasilevskiy would play against New Jersey tonight before that game was postponed because New Jersey has seven players in Covid protocol.

Why was that game postponed but the Sabres had to play down Dylan Cozens, Mark Jankowski, Zemgus Girgensons, Vinnie Hinostroza, Jeff Skinner and Don Granato in a game earlier this season?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So Vasilevskiy should be ready to go if they so choose that route.

Meanwhile, the Sabres got some players back from protocol and added some more. Points leader Tage Thompson entered protocol and joined Alex Tuch, Peyton Krebs, Kyle Okposo and Casey Fitzgerald on the Covid inactive list. Anders Bjork, Drake Caggiula, Robert Hagg and Jacob Bryson all returned to the club after missing time for various reasons.

In a corresponding move, the Sabres sent exceptionally large hockey player Brett Murray back to Rochester. Murray has 6 points in 16 games this season which is two points fewer than Cody Eakin in 13 fewer games. It’s also more than John Hayden. It’s a shame that the Sabres continue to play those two when there’s nothing to be gained rather than giving some minutes to youngsters.

Speaking of youngsters, Jack Quinn is with the Sabres now and he will make his debut tomorrow night against the Lightning. One of the more interesting decisions for head coach Don Granato will be whether or not to play the Sabres’ 2020 first-round pick at center for his first career NHL regular-season game. The Sabres organization has periodically toyed with the notion that Quinn could be at least a part-time center due to his playmaking, vision and ability to drive play. With the team down Thompson, Krebs and Mittelstadt for various reasons, this could be the perfect time to try it out.

Throwing Cozens between Skinner and Olofsson would allow Quinn to play with Anders Bjork and Rasmus Asplund who are both reasonably defensively responsible. Conversely, The Sabres could move Asplund to the middle and play Quinn on his right side where there would be less pressure and responsibility on the youngster. That plan is probably more prudent.

This game has the potential to get really ugly really fast. The Sabres, a mediocre team on their best day, are severely depleted due to injuries and Covid cases against the back-to-back Cup champions. That said, hockey is sometimes a sport that results in odd outcomes due to disproportionate luck as compared to say, a single football game. The Sabres will need plenty of luck if they're going to hang at all in this one.

That game is only the first of a busy week, though. The Sabres then play Nashville on Thursday, Detroit on Saturday, Detroit again next Monday and the Ottawa Senators next Tuesday. It does seem very unlikely that the Ottawa-Buffalo game actually goes ahead as scheduled because the Senators postponed two more home games between now and then due to ongoing Covid attendance restrictions at their home arena. That one seems destined to be rescheduled for some nebulous date in the future. We’ll see.

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The Sabres are honoring Rick Jeanneret on April 1 as they’ll raise a banner with his name to the rafters. The longest-tenured NHL announcer is retiring following the conclusion of the season and the Sabres have decided to honor him with a banner for his 50+ years as a Sabres play-by-play man.

It’s a well-deserved honor.

RJ is an irreplaceable figure in the Buffalo hockey scene and an absolute icon in the sport. Congrats to Mr. Jeanneret on his career and good on the Sabres for making this happen. I’d still love to see his figure immortalized in bronze in the Alumni Plaza beside the current statues of Rick Martin, Rene Robert and Gilbert Perreault. He’s inarguably as large of a part of Sabres history as the famed French Connection line.

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