Ted Nolan's iPod was on shuffle on Monday morning. The song that was locked in his hoy jam was "Shake It Off". The Pittsburgh pillaging in the rear view mirror, Nolan shook up his line combos and D pairs before departing to St. Louis.
The moves were made to resuscitate Buffalo's dead offense. Wingers are now centers, and vice versa. It can't hurt, right?
The Sabres have scored an embarrassing 17 goals in 16 games played.
Take Drew Stafford, Tyler Ennis, and Zemgus Girgensons away from the lineup and this team is stuck in the mud.
Nolan has been patient with his 20 and 30 goal scorers to find the back of the net. There's no telling when that will happen.
Nolan wants results and he wants them yesterday. Here are his new trios:
Moulson-Girgensons-Ennis
Mitchell-Flynn-Gionta
Foligno-McCormick-Stewart
Deslauriers--Stafford-*Kaleta/Hodgson
First things first, the Sabres are now healthy again.
Marcus Foligno and Pat Kaleta skated the practice in full without complications and have been cleared to resume play.
Its very likely that Cody Hodgson will sit out the Blues game to make room for PK36. Brian Flynn or Torrey Mitchell would likely be a scratch to accommodate a Foligno return.
Hodgson has been a no-show for the Sabres this season. He was a 20 goal (24 assists) scorer last season and now he's stuck on one goal for on just 22 shots. He's a -9. Nolan moved him from center to wing last month. What's more, Hodgson scored 6 goals and added 2 assists in 7 games played for Team Canada at the World Championships last spring. He's a scorer, but he's not acting like one right now. Nolan played Hodgson 10:22 TOI in the Pittsburgh beat down. His ice time is slowly decreasing commensurate with his production, and lack there of. The only thing Nolan can do now is park Hodgson.
Maybe a seat 150 feet above the ice will help him to see the errors of his ways.
Drew Stafford is now a center for the time being.
After the skate, Nolan told Sabres.com that he's trying to jumpstart Matt Moulson, who scored his first goal of the season in Friday night's loss to the Edmonton Oilers. Nolan needs his 30 goal man firing pucks into the net, not into the goalie's gut. Playing him with Zemgus and Ennis will hopefully give Moulson opportunities to put the biscuit in the basket.
“We are at that point. When you run into obstacles, you don’t stop and quit. You’ve got to find a way to get over it or around it or through it,” he said. “We’ll try different things. We’ve got to get Matty Moulson going. With Girgensons and Tyler, we feel that can be our legitimate No. 1 line and we can go from there.”
**
Rasmus Ristolainen and Nikita Zadorov practiced together on Monday and will play together as a D pair in St. Louis.
I applaud Nolan for making this move. The pair played great together in the third period of Saturday's snoozer.
Both burly D were drafted by Buffalo in the first round of the 2013 NHL Draft. Ristolainen was taken eighth overall and Zadorov was selected with the 16th overall pick.
***
Join the Discussion:
»