@boosbuzzsabres
The Buffalo Sabres have scored one goal in each of the last two games and, not surprisingly, they lost both of them. Buffalo has also been skunked on the powerplay in those losses going a combined 0/11 with the man advantage. In fact the Sabres have not scored a powerplay goal on any of their 20 powerplays in their four losses on the season.
Something wasn't right and head coach Phil Housley went about trying to fix it before their 3:30 ET game today against the Los Angeles Kings at Staples Center. "We talked about making decisions on a day-to-day, game-by-game basis," the coach said to the gathered media after yesterday afternoon's practice. "Obviously we didn't get the results so we've got to make some decisions and try and put some new lines together today to see the chemistry. I thought we had a real good practice today."
"Some decisions" proved to be an understatement as Housley blew things up. He moved left wing Jeff Skinner back to the Jack Eichel line, which is where he started the season, and moved veteran Jason Pominville all the way up to the first line from the fourth line. He kept veteran Kyle Okposo on rookie Casey Mittelstadt's right wing and moved forward Evan Rodrigues up from his fourth-line center position to play on Mittelstadt's left. The top-six looked like this:
Skinner - Eichel - Pominville
Rodrigues - Mittelstadt - Okposo
Left wing Conor Sheary started out on the second line this season before getting three games on the top line next to Eichel. He was moved to the third line which is being centered by Vladimir Sobotka who's been moved all over the lineup this year while playing both center and wing on different lines. Sam Reinhart had been on Eichel's right side but was dropped down to third-line right wing.
Veteran Patrick Berglund was a healthy scratch last game and looks to be back in the lineup as Buffalo's fourth-line right wing. Johan Larsson, who's been a healthy scratch for the past three games after playing in one game since returning from injury, is centering the Sabres fourth line while Zemgus Girgensons continues in his fourth-line left wing role.
Buffalo's bottom six from practice yesterday:
Sheary - Sobotka - Reinhart
Girgensons - Larsson - Berglund
Forward Tage Thompson looks to be a healthy scratch for the first time this season. Although he's shown spurts of playing well, Thompson's been unable to hit the scoresheet despite ample time in the top-nine while also getting time on the second powerplay unit.
Speaking of the power(less)play, Housley blew that up as well as he moved everyone off of the top unit except for Eichel. For today the top powerplay unit looks to be:
Eichel, Skinner, Mittelstadt, Pominville and Dahlin.
The second unit is Sheary, Reinhart, Okposo, Rodrigues and Ristolainen.
After losing the last two games by a combined 9-2 score, Housley wasn't fooling around when shaking things up to try and get some scoring. Eichel and Sheary lead the club with three goals each while seven other players are behind them at a goal each. Of that group there are only three forwards--Skinner, Pominville and Sobotka.
The bright spot of that group of seven is that four defensemen are on the list having already scored their first goals of the season--Marco Scandella, Rasmus Dahlin, Jake McCabe and Nathan Beaulieu--which is great considering no Sabres defenseman lit the lamp last season until McCabe did so on December 5.
Speaking of the defense, Housley mixed up that group as well. He put the left-handed McCabe up on the top-pairing with the right-handed Rasmus Ristolainen and moved Scandella down to the second pair where he was joined by Casey Nelson, who's been a healthy scratch lately. Dahlin was working on the third pair yesterday with forward Remi Elie while d-men Beaulieu and Zach Bogosian sat on the sidelines with injuries. Bogosian looks to be back in the lineup.
Word from the rink in Los Angeles is that Linus Ullmark will get the start in net for the Sabres.
*****
The Sabres will be facing a Kings team that might be in a particularly ornery mood. After starting out 2-1-1 to begin the season, Los Angeles has dropped it's last three games in a row and have been outscored 16-4 in those games. The Kings finished off a four-game road trip (1-3-0) and proceeded to get smoked 7-2 by the Carolina Hurricanes at home.
However, they should take heart in knowing that they've dominated the Sabres at home as of late. Buffalo is a mere 2-7-1 in their last 10 against the Kings and haven't won in Southern California since October 23, 2003, according to Mike Harrington of the Buffalo News.
Last season the Kings won both games by an identical 4-2 score. The first meeting was in Los Angeles with the loss dropping the Sabres to 0-4-1 to start the season. The second meeting was in Buffalo in February and it was so bad for the Sabres that GM Jason Botterill toppled a nacho bar in disgust.
The last time Buffalo defeated Los Angeles was December 13, 2016 when the Sabres stormed back from a 2-0 deficit with four unanswered goals in a 6-3 home win. Eichel scored a pair of goals in that game while a trio of Sabres who are no longer with the team--Ryan O'Reilly, Brian Gionta and Evander Kane--also scored. Reinhart finished the scoring with an empty-netter.
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