The Sabres had something of a mini-bye week over the past few days as they last played a game Monday night against the Washington Capitals and won’t play another until Friday when the Blue and Gold host Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers at 7 pm. With the wild week of the Jack Eichel trade now behind us, and with a little bit of a lull before the next contest, it’s an excellent time to preview the week of games ahead.
Friday: Oilers at Sabres – 7 pm – Hulu, ESPN +
The first thing to note about this game is that you’ll have to tune into ESPN+ or Hulu to watch rather than the typical MSG home broadcast. The ESPN broadcasts have been a refreshing change of pace thus far and it’ll be interesting to see what they have to say about the resolution of the Jack Eichel situation. The last time we saw an ESPN telecast of a Sabres game was Tuesday, November 2nd in San Jose when Emily Kaplan reported that a Jack Eichel deal was on the “one-yard line.” It’s fair to call that report accurate as Eichel was traded just days later. Hopefully the ESPN crew will break down the trade that saw Eichel head to the city of sin and Alex Tuch, Peyton Krebs and some picks come back to Buffalo.
On the ice? Woof. The Sabres are going to be in tough here. Craig Anderson is still injured, and it appears that Dustin Tokarski will start in net against McDavid and Draisaitl. McDavid has 9 goals and 14 assists for 23 points in 11 games, while Draisaitl has 10 goals and 13 assists for 23 points in 11 games.
Those numbers are, um, good.
For comparison’s sake, the Sabres’ leading scorer, Rasmus Asplund, has 10 points in 12 games. The Sabres will still be without Victor Olofsson and Casey Mittelstadt whose presence would at least add a dash of firepower to a team that’s bereft of it overall. This might be an excellent night to make dinner plans and forget the Sabres are playing.
Saturday: Leafs at Sabres – 7 PM – CBC, MSG, SNO, SNP
Hello Canada and hockey fans in the United States and Newfoundland!
If you grew up in Buffalo watching Hockey Night in Canada on CBC, that song is undoubtedly burned into your brain. Don Cherry, with his ridiculous suits and “good Ontario boy” takes may be gone, but it could be worth tuning into the CBC broadcast if available rather than the MSG feed just for old times’ sake.
The Sabres are 74-32-6 all-time against the Maple Leafs at home according to mcubed.net (which looks like a website straight out of 1997 but thanks for the quality info). Lest you think that those totals are inflated by wins prior to the Sabres being absolutely brutal for 10 years straight, the Sabres went 17-7-0 at home against the Leafs in the 2010s. Those tank teams liked to send Leafs fans home across the Peace Bridge in a miserable state, and Jack Eichel absolutely loved to torch the Leafs.
Speaking of the Peace Bridge, border traffic is now open to Canadians although they need to obtain a negative Covid-19 test prior to re-entry to their home and native land. Sabres ownership would certainly love to see some loonies and toonies in their coffers at the end of the night, but that will depend on whether Leaf fans are willing to go through the extra step of attaining a negative test to return home. It’s on a weekend so it seems like a safe bet that they will, and hey, it’s great for the local economy if they stay the whole weekend to make the trip worth it.
Welcome back, Canadians.
Tuesday: Sabres at Penguins – 7 pm – MSG
The Penguins will host the Sabres at PPG Paints Arena on Tuesday as the Sabres will get their first look at a Pittsburgh team that has lasted the test of time. Sidney Crosby has had a very rough season to date as he first started on the injured list to begin the season before coming down with Covid-19 and missing more games due to the virus. It seems like he hasn’t quite gotten right yet as he had zero points and a -3 rating in the one game in which he participated.
To make matters worse for the Penguins, Evgeni Malkin hasn’t played a game yet this season as he returns from a knee injury that has completely sidelined him during the early going. In their absence, old friend and noted superstar Evan Rodrigues is tied for second on the team in points with 7 (3 goals, 4 assists in 11 games). Godspeed, you speedy son-of-a-gun. The Penguins have muddled through the early part of the season with a 4-3-4 record that currently has them last in the Metropolitan Division. That said, it’s a scrambled division and the flightless birds are a mere 4 points out of third in the metro without their two best players.
Both figure to be ready for the contest with the Sabres. Hopefully the Sabres will have Anderson, Olofsson and Mittelstadt back in the fold by the time the puck drops on that one.
Flames at Sabres – 7 pm – MSG, SN360
The Flames were rumored to be one of the last teams who were in on the Jack Eichel sweepstakes along with the Vegas Golden Knights, as reported by Emily Kaplan. Following her report regarding the last teams interested in Eichel during the Sabres/Sharks game last Tuesday, Kevin Weekes reported that Calgary had made Matthew Tkachuk available; a claim that was vociferously and angrily denied by those inside of the Flames organization. Kevyn Adams too said in his post-trade conference that some players rumored to be available from other teams were not, in fact, part of potential trade packages. That was seemingly an allusion to the Weekes report.
So who leaked that false info? We’ll never know. Would it make sense that Eichel’s camp fed that little tidbit to Weekes to get Vegas to include Peyton Krebs in a deal? Perhaps, but unless someone writes a tell-all account of this some years down the line, we’ll never be able to say for sure.
On the ice, the Flames are doing well with a 7-2-3 record in the Pacific. Tkachuk, Johnny Hockey and Elias Lindholm are leading the scoring, while Sean Monahan (who was rumored to be part of a salary offset) is struggling with 5 points in 12 games. The Flames are a nice hockey team with-or-without Eichel.
Final thought:
The Sabres would do well to come out of those contests with a 1-1-2 record against those teams. None of those squads are pushover opponents, even for an established good team, which the Sabres are not. If they could manage a 2-1-1 record over those four games, it could be considered a terrific success. Their best look at those wins figures to be against the Leafs and the Flames. Avoiding a catastrophic blowout against the Oilers will give them a better chance keep this thing on the rails.
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