(WGR 550) – The Buffalo Sabres will play their biggest game in a decade on Tuesday night, as they travel to Sunrise, Florida to take on the Florida Panthers.
Buffalo trails Florida by four points in the race for the playoffs, and Buffalo also has two games in-hand. A regulation loss wouldn’t end the Sabres' chances, but it would make the task of making the playoffs more unlikely than it already is.
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After picking up just six out of 24 possible points, Buffalo has taken nine out of 10 points by going 4-0-1.
Head coach Don Granato has talked about how this team is going through this kind of pressure for the first time in some of their careers, and they weren’t handling it well to start. Now, they seem to be doing better with it, but Granato says they certainly aren’t where they need to be yet.
"We need to play to our identity and through stress," said Granato following Monday's practice in Buffalo. "We’ve been able to internalize that better, but we’re still young. To my observation, we are not doing it consistently enough to my liking, period."
When things start to get better for the Sabres, it's because they simplify what they're trying to do.
"Every single game comes down to having a clear picture on what you need to execute, "Granato said. "Two weeks ago, we were struggling, and I told this room I had 100% confidence that we were going to resolve it.
"After two bad losses I was getting lots of questions and said, 'There’s no doubt they will be able to fix this, because the resolution is very simple and very straight forward. It's just getting back to how we play.' It’s not changing things, there’s nothing wrong with the system. It’s just we were in our own heads, and we weren’t paying to our identity."
There was no morning skate on Tuesday, so no word on if Devon Levi would be in goal for the Sabres. There were indications in Monday's practice that would suggest it will be Levi, but Granato downplayed that without saying who will start.
Of course it was the Panthers who traded Levi and a first-round pick (Jiri Kulich) in the 2022 NHL Draft to the Sabres for Sam Reinhart. For that reason, Levi said it would mean extra for him to play the team that drafted him.
"Obviously I was drafted there, and it would be fun to play in that building against that organization and a really good team," said Levi on Monday. "That would be really cool."
Levi wasn’t in the Panthers organization very long, so the trade came as a surprise when it happened.
"I wasn’t upset, it was more of a shock," Levi said. "It’s pretty rare you get traded right after the draft, so I hadn’t been given an opportunity. I got traded and I was like, 'Whoa, that’s weird.' But I ended up in such a good organization, and it was the best thing that could’ve happened."
Just from the little bit we’ve heard from Levi since he’s arrived in Buffalo, you just know he wants this start badly.
"I’m ready. I’ve been waiting for this moment," he said. "I’m dialed in, and I’m just really excited if I get the call.
"I didn’t come just to debut and play one game. I want to play more, and I want to be able to give the team a chance to win."
Levi is only 21-years-old, but he seems to laugh in the face of pressure. It seems like he always has. I wondered where he learned how to handle pressure at such a young age.
"I’ve just always been like that," Levi said. "I’ve always wanted to be the guy that people relied upon. Put me into the situation, and I’ll figure it out. It’s the best part of hockey, and that’s why I’m a goalie, because the pressure’s on the goalie. I think that’s why I revolved to the position when I was young. Everything about the mental game and the position just called my name, so there’s nothing I’d rather do."
Tage Thompson had a good day of practice on Monday, so things were pointing in a positive direction for him to maybe play Tuesday. He’s missed three games due to an upper-body injury.
Alex Tuch has helped pick up the slack with five goals and three assists for eight points in six games. In those six games, Jeff Skinner has scored four goals and picked up five points.
Florida is without its top-two goalies in Sergei Bobrovsky and Spencer Knight.
Alex Lyon has played three-straight games, winning them all and giving up just four goals. Before that, Bobrovsky had played three-straight losses and gave up 13 goals.
This season, Lyon is 6-3-1 with a 3.24 goals-against average and a .901 save percentage.
Matthew Tkachuk leads the way for Florida, as he’s fifth in league scoring with 38 goals and 64 assists for 102 points.
We may see a lot of goals in this game, as the Sabres are third in league scoring, while the Panthers are fifth. They both have good power plays and horrible penalty killing units, although Buffalo has been perfect on the P.K. for four-straight games. In their last six games, the Sabres have killed 13-of-14 penalties.
Join Schopp and the Bulldog for pregame coverage on WGR starting at 6 p.m. ET when you’ll hear from Granato, Thompson and Levi.
