Malacaro: Sabres got back to winning formula on Monday

Buffalo, Ny. (WGR) - The Buffalo Sabres started off their weeks’ worth of Atlantic Division play with a 5-3 victory over the Florida Panthers on Monday afternoon at KeyBank Center.

Buffalo’s offensive attack was noticeable right from the start of the game and helped create several scoring chances in the opening minutes. A host of players have been struggling to produce offense through five games, but two of the key forwards for the team scored their first goals of the season in the win.

Josh Doan was such a spark plug for what Buffalo did in the second half of last season on their way to a division championship. His play at both ends of the ice was strong on Monday, helping him score his first goal of the year. His first scoring chance off of a rebound was stopped by Jacob Markstrom to keep the game scoreless.

However, Doan helped lead an odd man rush out of his own zone with Peyton Krebs that resulted in the first goal of the game and a 1-0 Sabres lead. It was plays like that last season that helped the forward reach 25 goals in his first season with Buffalo.

The team recorded 11 shots on goal in the first period. Their shoot-first approach was a reason why they were able to take the play to Florida. After the first I asked Doan what the team needed to do to sustain that effort.

He thought that the team needed to continue, “being confident with the puck, that’s something as a group we’re trying to find our confidence again here and I think you saw a lot of that kind of come back in that period, so build off of what we finished there.” That was evident on Ryan McLeod’s first goal of the season that came in the second period.

McLeod received a pass from Olen Zellweger and proceeded to beat Akira Schmid with a nifty stickhandling play. Goals for Doan and McLeod should help them build that confidence needed to continue to provide that offensive touch the team will need.

Speaking of offense, Noah Östlund scored one of the Sabres two power play goals in the victory. Good vision by Zach Benson to find his young linemate open on the back door proved to be the game-winning goal. Östlund was asked postgame on how important it was for the team to be skating as well as it was on Monday.

He acknowledged the importance, and added that, “sometimes they’re there [skating legs] and sometimes they’re not but you’ve got to give everything you have whether they’re not there, we’re happy with the win.” Östlund has two goals and four total points in six games this season.

Owen Power helped set up Buffalo’s final goal of the game, while Rasmus Dahlin also scored on the power play before leaving the game early due to injury. When asked about the role the defense played in creating offense, Östlund said that “It helps a lot, that’s what you don’t want to play against when you play defense so it helps a lot and we’re happy with that.” Power now has seven points and is tied with Tage Thompson for the team lead.

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen did not start on Monday afternoon, but after a shot got through Colten Ellis and resulted in a power play goal for Florida, head coach Lindy Ruff pulled Ellis in favor of Luukkonen.

Even though it was not an ideal situation for a goaltender coming into the game cold off the bench, Luukkonen thought in some respect it might have helped him. He thought that “there is any difference, sometimes it even helps you that you don’t have too much time to think about it, so you know I think the team played well in front of me and it was kind of easy to get into it [the game].” He made 13 saves on 14 shots across 33:34 in goal for Buffalo.

Dahlin left the game with an upper body injury in the second period and did not finish the game.

Ruff told us postgame that the Sabres captain is day-to-day with an upper body injury and was not scheduled to fly with the team on Montreal today so that he could receive treatment for his injury.

While not specifically ruling Dahlin out for Tuesday’s game against the Canadiens, it sounds unlikely that he will play. Check back in to WGR and wgr550.com when Paul Hamilton chats with Ruff ahead of the 6:30 p.m. face-off at Bell Centre.