Buffalo, NY (WGR 550) – There are many ingredients to becoming a good team. If you’re going to win hockey games you must defend well, you must get big and timely saves from your goaltender and you must win the special teams battle.
In the first 20 minutes in their 3-2 shootout win over the Tampa Bay Lighting on Saturday they defended extremely well in the first period holding the Lightning without a shot for the first 14:12 of the period and giving up just one scoring chance on two shots.
James Reimer won his sixth straight game and he started providing those big saves in the second period. He was sitting on the seat of his pants to rob 38-goal scorer Jake Guentzel.
Brayton Point has 39 goals, but Reimer stopped him as he was open in the slot. Late in the second just after a power play, Brandon Hagel found himself in the slot with the puck, but Reimer said no again. The Sabres goaltender also had to make four saves in overtime to give him 22 on the game.
The 37-year-old goalie has started six of the last seven games and seven of the last nine. Since March 23 Reimer is 6-0-0 with a 2.80 goals against and .912 save percentage.
You also need to win the special teams battle on most nights if you want to be good. Buffalo went 3-for-3 on the penalty kill and scored a big power play goal in the third. It was an impressive hard working goal. Rasmus Dahlin had two players at the crease so he got the puck there. Alex Tuch worked hard to win the battle and keep the puck active in the crease until it got to Jason Zucker who put home his 20th goal of the season and his career high 11th on the power play. Zucker had never scored more than seven with the extra man.
I can’t remember the last time a Sabres team was good at home, but all of a sudden, they have become hard to play against here. In their last 18 homes games they’re 14-4-0 and in their last 13 they’re 11-2-0. Overall, in Western New York they’re 20-13-3.
In their last 31 games the Sabres are 15-10-1 for a points percentage of .596. If their points percentage was that for the season, they’d be in the Eastern Conference’s top Wild Card position.
Instead, despite winning 6-of-7 games and 8-of-11, Buffalo is still in third last place in the conference with a points percentage of .480. They’re ahead of the Philadelphia Flyers and the Boston Bruins. The Montreal Canadiens just need three more points to officially eliminate the Sabres for the 14th straight season.
Close games don’t panic this team anymore. Coming into Saturday’s game Tampa Bay was 35-1-1 when leading after two periods. They entered this game up 2-1 with a full 2:00 power play to open the third, but the Sabres didn’t get flustered, they were patient and realized it’s not the end of the world if you have to win the game in overtime or a shootout.
Tage Thompson has remained relatively healthy this season and has his second 40-goal season.
With Sunday a back-to-back situation, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen likely crawls back into the net. He’s 23-23-4 with a 3.23 goals against and .885 save percentage. He’s played just one of the last seven games and gave up seven goals in Philadelphia to the Flyers. He’s given up seven in two of his last five games.
Join Brian Koziol and me for the pregame at 5:00 when you’ll hear from Lindy Ruff.