Sabres look to take a two games to none lead over Montreal

Buffalo, NY (WGR 550) – The Buffalo Sabres host the Montreal Canadiens on Friday hoping to take a two games to none lead in their best of seven Stanley Cup second round series.

Buffalo played pretty well in Game 1, but to a man they've been saying they can be better. Where they were better was the line of Ryan McLeod, Jack Quinn and Jason Zucker. McLeod mentioned before Game 1 that there were things they needed to clean up and they did it to be Buffalo's best line on Wednesday. Zucker said,

“I think for us we're just trying to play as a connected unit of three, if you're not staying close together and helping each other out, coming to pucks and making little plays, and winning battles, together as a unit, you're not going to have much success and I don't think we did a good enough job of that in Boston, so I thought last game was a step in the right direction, but we've still got some more work to do.”

As far as what does it take to make their line good Zucker said,

“The three of us all play different games and I think that creates a pretty solid line for the most part, I'm around the net a majority of the time, you've got McLeod who is crazy fast and flies up the middle, he's really good at lugging the puck up the middle and kicking it out to his wingers and then 'Quinny' is our shooter, he's the guy that's always looking to get open and find those soft areas, so I think we have a good balance as a line and when we're on our game it makes it harder to defend.”

Lindy Ruff liked what he saw against Montreal,

“I thought they skated well when they had the opportunity through the neutral zone, but I thought in the offensive zone they kept their feet moving, they got away from man-on-man coverage and some high cycle.

“I thought the group stayed tighter together it didn't allow them to get smothered and taken out of the play.”

Tage Thompson has had good moments in the playoffs. He has seven points in seven games and was a key part in shutting down the Suzuki line in Game 1. Thompson has gone six games without a goal, but Ruff said he doesn't accept that he's not playing well,

“You're only one game away from a Game 6 where I thought that line was great, now we're evaluating a game where they were only OK, I understand it's the time of the year, McDavid went three games without a point, so it's part of the playoffs.

“If the puck isn't going in the net then what else can you do to help your team, whether it's set up, look at the plays he made (Thompson) to set up the two goals in Boston were great plays. I think if you're going to solely focus on goals, your always going to find one or two good players on every team that teams are looking at this time of year to say, 'Boy, we need more out of them,' and a lot of times those players are getting the extra attention.

“I'm not making any excuses, Tage has had his chances that haven't gone in. Does he want to be better? He wants to be better. Alex Tuch in a conversation we had yesterday said that he needs to be better, so all that goes hand in hand, and now you see what they've got tonight, but I'm probably not as concerned as you guys are.”

Ruff told me the Thompson line only gave up one scoring chance to the Suzuki line and he liked how they defended them. Tuch said,

“Personally I think our line was just OK, defensively we were pretty good, but offensively we could've definitely created more. I thought we were good in our D-zone keeping them to the outside and I also think we didn't give up too many rush opportunities, so we're going try to continue to try to be hard to play against and continue to try to generate a little more offense.”

In seven games Tuch has three goals and four assists for seven points and Thompson has two goals and five assists for seven points.

For Montreal, Nick Suzuki has two goals and five assists for seven points in eight games.

Alex Lyon continues to be second in the NHL in goals against and save percentage. Freddie Andersen of the Carolina Hurricanes has a goals against of 1.02 and a save percentage of .957. Lyon is 4-1 with a 1.30 goals against and .950 save percentage.

The Sabres are fifth in playoff scoring averaging 3.43 goals per game. They're second in goals against at 2.00.

Montreal is fifth on the power play at 21.4%.

Join Mike Schopp for the pregame at 6:00 when you'll here from Ruff, Lyon, Rasmus Dahlin, Tuch and Zucker.