@boosbuzzsabres
The Tampa Bay Lightning have been one of the last four playoff teams standing in three of the last four seasons with one of those ending up in a Stanley Cup Finals appearance. They're still a relatively young, very fast and extremely skilled team that can score as evidenced by their league-leading 3.65 goals/game. Tampa is atop the conference once again this season and has the second-best goal differential (+15) in the league.
The Buffalo Sabres are just figuring out that this winning thing is pretty cool. After a 2017-18 season spent wandering in the desert and an opening night 4-0 shutout loss to start this season where they looked the part of a last-place team again, the Sabres slowly began to get it together. They ended up going 2-2-0 in their opening four-game homestand and came back from a 10-day Pacific Division road trip above the .500 mark for the first time in years. The tail end of that roadie beget a three-game winning streak and a five-game point streak before they took a step back losing the next two games. Buffalo got back on track with dual come-from-behind wins--a 6-5 overtime win in Montreal and a 4-3 shootout win at home against the Vancouver Canucks.
Buffalo enters tonight's contest against the 12-4-1 Lightning with a 9-6-2 record, which isn't bad considering they hadn't won their ninth game last season until December 22.
No one will ever consider Buffalo a Stanley Cup contender but with team hovering around a wild card spot for the past few weeks, at this point they might be considered a possible playoff contender. The Athletic's Sean McIndoe, aka Down Goes Brown, put the Sabres in a group of early season success stories who may fall in the standings.
"At 9-6-2, they’re holding down a share of the final Eastern wild-card spot," wrote McIndoe. "After years of being dead in the water by November, the Sabres are at least in the mix."
However, "They’re a sports team from Buffalo, so we know this ends badly," wrote McIndoe in his next paragraph on the Sabres. "But 'badly' is relative; for a Sabres fan, watching this team lose a heart-breaker in the first round of the playoffs wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Even seeing them stay in the race all season long before falling just short would have to feel like at least a moral victory.
"So can they do that? Maybe."
McIndoe points to HockeyReference.com for some early season strength of schedule comparisons that have Buffalo with the second easiest schedule so far. Which is true, especially when their first four losses were against playoff teams from last season--Boston (4-0,) Colorado (6-1,) Vegas (4-1) and San Jose (5-1.)
The Sabres just came through a stretch of hockey where they went 6-2-2 against good, but not great teams and they face a pretty stiff challenge beginning tonight against Tampa Bay at KeyBank Center. After that they hit the road for back-to-backs in Winnipeg and Minnesota before flying to Pittsburgh to face off against the Penguins on Monday night. For those counting that's four games in seven night's including three games in four nights on the road.
Head coach Phil Housley was on WGR550 Radio this morning for his weekly spot and he called this upcoming stretch "a great opportunity...playing against really good competition." Housley pointed out that the Vancouver Canucks, whom they beat in the shootout on Saturday afternoon, were at the top of the Pacific Division and when you add in that team, it made for a challenging stretch of games. He preferred to focus upon tonight's game against the Lightning calling it "a big divisional game for us."
The Sabres haven't really provided too much of a challenge for the Lightning. Buffalo is only 2-5-3 in their last 10 home games against Tampa and they're only 3-8-1 against them over the last three seasons. However, as surprising as it might sound, the last place Sabres of 2017-18 went 2-2-0 vs. the Lightning.
Housley tinkered with his lines for the third period of the Vancouver game moving Sam Reinhart up and pushing Jason Pominville down and it looks if that will take hold tonight. Reinhart had the primary assist on Jeff Skinner's goal with 2:27 left to pull the Sabres to within one and he also scored the game-tying goal on a long rebound off of defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen's shot from the left half-wall. Both of those came with Buffalo's goalie pulled in favor of the extra attacker.
Word from the rink had these as the probable forward lines for tonight:
Skinner-Eichel-Reinhart
Sobotka-Rodrigues-Pominville
Sheary-Mittelstadt-Okposo
Thompson-Larsson-Girgensons
On Buffalo's fourth line, Tage Thompson looks like he'll be in the lineup for a second game in a row while Zemgus Girgensons looks to be back in the lineup after a one-game hiatus. Patrik Berglund, according to The Athletic's Joe Yerdon, was on the ice but not taking line sprints. Forward Remi Elie once again joined d-man Casey Nelson as the fourth d-pairing and none of those three look as if they'll be in the lineup tonight.
No changes are expected on defense as these will once again probably be the pairings:
McCabe-Ristolainen
Scandella-Bogosian
Beaulieu-Dahlin
Carter Hutton is expected to get the start in goal.
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