Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR 550) – When you score 38 goals in a season, you are going to receive extra attention from the opponent.
In the Buffalo Sabres' first two games of the 2022-23 season, Tage Thompson had trouble getting into an offensive flow. There were a few spurts, but he says he knows how to make it even better when facing the opponent's best defensive pair.
“It’ll be a challenge, but it’s something I’m excited for," said Thompson following Monday's practice. "For me, it's just simplify the game and not try to do too much right away out there, and just wear them down. Once you do that, you’ll wear on them and they’ll make mistakes. That’s when you get your offense.
“When we get into trouble as a team, and me in particular, is when I try to force offense and try to go out and score every shift. That’s usually where you make mistakes and then they capitalize.”
Sabres head coach Don Granato has said many times he tries to tell young players you can’t try to score on every shift.
“They just jump over the boards and are trying to score, but you have 20 shifts in a game and you can’t score 20 goals. So stop trying to score and actually read a play, and figure out what needs to happen. That’s playing efficient, where you start to wear on the other team instead of wearing yourself out,” said Granato on Monday.
The Sabres have had trouble in the first two games on the power play, and entries have been a problem. Granato says it’s more with the first until than the second.
“I think just to get in and not complicate things," Thompson said of the power play struggles. "I think we’ve tried to do a little too much and over complicated it. I think we’ve just got to get back to being simple and maybe a little more direct, just having that focus to shoot pucks early and then seams and chances will open up from there. And on the entry too, maybe we have to chip a puck in and go get it, and then from there, other things will open up.”
Granato switched up the lines for practice on Monday, but sent word up to the media not to look too much into it.
“It’s why I want guys comfortable playing different positions," he said after practice. "We have decisions to make for tomorrow’s lineup, yet, we have to have peak performance for practice today. So we don’t want any negative psychology coming in with our players.
“When you look at our practice, that’s factored in, and we don’t need to look at our lines for tomorrow because there are higher priority for emphasis in that practice, rather than who’s playing with who. We needed their attention somewhere else.”
Monday's lines looked like this:
Forwards:
Skinner – Thompson – Tuch
Asplund – Mittelstadt – Olofsson
Peterka – Cozens – Hinostroza
Quinn – Girgensons – Okposo
Bjork – Krebs – Sheahan
With Riley Sheahan ready to come off Injured Reserve, the Sabres waived Anders Bjork to try to send him to the Rochester Americans.
Many thought the Sabres would just pick up where they left off in April, but sports don’t always work out that way.
“Unfortunately, you can’t take off where you left off last year when things started to feel easy, only because of all the work the guys put in," Granato said. "But now we’ve got to put that work back in, because it all went away. With a younger team, you’ve got to learn that you don’t just flip a switch and you come back in October and it all works like it did in April. I'll judge this trip on how well we work towards that initiative, because we need to be challenged. We’re nowhere near where we were at the end of last year.”
Granato says there is a lot of work to do to get back to where they were.
“Looking at the game the other day, there were lots of little increments in the game where we did things that will eventually wear us out, and they were our decisions just pressing - pressing for offense, cheating. It’s unnecessary,” he said.
The team left for Edmonton on Monday afternoon to play the Oilers on Tuesday.
