Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR Sports Radio 550) - After going 13-straight games without a win, the Buffalo Sabres finally snapped the trend just before Christmas with a resounding win over the New York Islanders.
Since breaking free of their winless skid, the Sabres have strung together a three-game winning streak, scoring 17 goals in that stretch.
The Sabres will look to make it four games in-a-row come Tuesday night when they close out the 2024 calendar year against the Dallas Stars at American Airlines Center. Buffalo has not been able to string together a streak of four-or-more consecutive wins since January of 2023.
Throughout their losing streak, the Sabres were a roller coaster, in terms of controlling the game. At times, the Sabres would get ahead early, only to surrender leads late. At other times, Buffalo simply couldn't get anything going for the entirety of the game.
Over the course of their three-game winning streak, though, this group seems to be playing more cohesively, and is creating better offensive scoring chances.
"First and foremost, puck management has gotten a lot better with our club, and we've got some timely scoring," said Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff during his weekly appearance on the "Jeremy and Joe Show" on WGR. "Our power play has started to click a little bit. It's been a number of things that when you're losing, you can find a lot of different ways to lose, and we did. Now we're winning.
"I think if you go to the St Louis [Blues] game, you look at the timely power play goal there, we got a big night in goal from our goaltender. There's different ways you can win. I thought on the Island, we really skated well, played well, got a great four-line effort, came back home against Chicago [Blackhawks], and same thing: Skated well, good speed. I think when we do that, that's the key to our club."
Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin was out of the lineup for nearly 20 days with back spasms, missing seven games in that span. Now that he has returned to the Buffalo blue line, he has recorded seven assists in the last three games, earning him league honors as the "Second Star of the Week" this past week.
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"When he goes well, our team goes well," Ruff said of his captain with Jeremy White and Joe DiBiase on Tuesday. "He has dealt with some issues, for sure, and we're trying to get him through some of the stuff he's dealt with. There's games recently that I think he's really looked like himself, but I think there's going to be stuff he's going to deal with. We gave him a maintenance day again yesterday, so I think there's stuff that we have to guard against to try to keep him in a good spot. But we all know that he's one of the elite defensemen. He can drive our power play, he can drive our offense. A lot of our offense is driven by our D getting up ice and helping make plays. He's the one guy that can take control of the game or get us back in a game, and it's good to have him back to a form that he looks like the old Rasmus."
One of the younger players that has helped activate the Sabres offense is rookie forward Jiri Kulich.
Kulich is playing his first full season in the NHL, getting 27 games under his belt with nine points (7+2). Five of those points have came in his last five games when the team has needed consistent production the most.
"The consistency with those three guys (Kulich, Zach Benson and Peyton Krebs) staying together, the fact that he's played center recently and has really skated well. I think he moves better when he's in the middle of the ice," Ruff said. "I really think he can be one of those guys and really help this push that we need to have, amongst other players."
The Sabres and Stars drop the puck at 8 p.m. EST on Tuesday, with pregame coverage on WGR starting at 7 p.m. EST with Brian Koziol.