(WGR 550) – The Buffalo Sabres have only played well in one of their four games played, to this point, of their five-game road trip, which ends Sunday night in Calgary against the Flames.
Buffalo beat the Seattle Kraken this past Monday, 6-2, but they also played pretty poorly in losses to the Detroit Red Wings, Vancouver Canucks and Edmonton Oilers.
They were still able to hang in there in those three games, and good teams would’ve, at least, gotten a point in two or three of those contests. However, the Sabres haven’t been able to do that all season long.
Now the team has been idle for two days, with all the other teams around them in the Eastern Conference standings playing some of their games in-hand.
Detroit is still seven points ahead of Buffalo for the eighth and final playoff spot, but no longer holding any games in-hand. The Washington Capitals still hold two games in-hand, and are six points ahead of the Sabres. The New York Islanders are four points up with one game in-hand, while the New Jersey Devils have no games in-hand and are one point in front of Buffalo.
Along with the Sabres in action on Sunday includes Washington hosting the Winnipeg Jets, while the Devils are in Long Island to face the Islanders.
I mention the standings because it’s my job, but Buffalo had a 3-2 lead in Edmonton on Thursday with 3:04 left in the second period. The Sabres then proceeded to give up six unanswered goals in an 8-3 loss.
That’s when I think the reality set in for this team that it just don’t have enough, physically or mentally, to make a final push for the playoffs this season.
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One thing that should help the Sabres on Sunday is Calgary played in Vancouver on Saturday, and lost, 4-2. Buffalo is also 4-1-0 in their last five games in Calgary.
The Flames this season are 0-5-1 in the second game of back-to-backs.
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen’s team totally abandoned him in the final five minutes of the Edmonton game, and the Oilers scored three easy goals.
It’s the first time Luukkonen has had a game like that since Dec. 19 when he gave up five goals in 32:12 of work. In that game, the Columbus Blue Jackets scored nine goals.
Luukkonen is now 23-18-3 this season with a 2.52 goals-against average and a .912 save percentage.
I thought after playing in Vancouver, Devon Levi might go back to Rochester, but he still remains with the Sabres.
Tage Thompson is one of the few players producing lately for the Sabres, as he has eight points in his last seven games.
On the four-game road trip, Alex Tuch has six points.
The Sabres' penalty kill has given up a goal in three-straight games, but the Flames' power play is 30th overall in the NHL.
The Sabres are 23rd in the NHL with a points percentage of .500, while the Flames are 21st at .514.
On Oct. 19 in Buffalo, Calgary scored first, and the teams just went back-and-forth until Adam Ruzicka got the game-winning goal at the 4:35 mark of the third period on Levi.
That was another game, in a long list of contests, that the Sabres needed to get to overtime and get a point in.
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Calgary has lost 5-of-7 games, and have given up 30 goals in those seven contests.
Dustin Wolf played in goal for four-straight games before Jacob Markstrom played in Vancouver. It would make sense that Wolf plays in the back-to-back against Buffalo.
Wolf is 22-years-old and was a seventh-round pick by the Flames in the 2019 NHL Draft. He’s played 11 NHL games, with 10 of them this season, where he's 3-4-1 with a 3.25 goals-against average and an .897 save percentage.
Nazem Kadri leads Calgary in scoring with 23 goals and 36 assists for 59 points in 69 games.
Both Blake Coleman and Yegor Sharangovich have 28 goals this season, and both were draft picks of the Devils. Sharangovich came over in the Tyler Toffoli trade this past summer, while Coleman signed as a free agenty in July of 2021.
Earlier on Sunday, the Americans added some more youth depth with 2023 second-round pick Anton Wahlberg being assigned to Rochester.
Wahlberg became available for Rochester because his team in the Swedish Hockey League, the Malmo Redhawks, didn't make the playoffs. The 6-foot-3, 194-pound 18-year-old forward had five goals and five assists for 10 points in 43 games this season with the Redhawks.
To make room on the Amerks' roster, Olivier Nadeau was sent to the Jacksonville Icemen of the ECHL.
Nadeau was a fourth-round pick of the Sabres in the 2021 NHL Draft, and only played five games this season with the Amerks, scoring one goal. In 32 games with Jacksonville, the 21-year-old has nine goals and 10 assists for 19 points.
Join Brian Koziol and myself for pregame coverage on WGR starting at 8 p.m. ET.
