After a disappointing effort coming out of their 10-day break on Tuesday against the Ottawa Senators, the Buffalo Sabres will look to return to form on Thursday night against the Montreal Canadiens at KeyBank Center.
In Buffalo's first game since Jan. 18 against the Nashville Predators, the Sabres got off to a sluggish start against the Senators, and never really got their feet fully going until later parts of the game. One factor that has killed the Sabres in some games this season, and killed the team on Tuesday, was their faulty play on special teams. The Sabres ended the night just 1-for-4 on the man advantage, while giving up three straight power play goals against and ending the night just 1-for-4 on the penalty kill.
While the Sabres didn't lose any ground in the playoff picture, which currently sees the team 10 points behind the Florida Panthers in the Atlantic Division and the Carolina Hurricanes in the Wild Card race, Buffalo now has played the same amount of games this season as the Hurricanes, while Florida now has a game in hand. With 32 games remaining in the season, the ability to close the gap in the playoff race now becomes a bit more difficult.
Despite the loss on Tuesday to start the final stretch of the season, the team believes that the rust has been shaken off and Thursday will be a much more spirited contest.
"There's no question that we knew that it would be questionable on how we would perform in Game 1 coming out of the break," Sabres head coach Ralph Krueger said on Thursday morning. "I've learned a lot also my first time through that process, but we're back at it. Yesterday you could feel it already in practice and in the meetings today, and everybody is back in the routine and we feel poised for a good game here tonight."
"We did have a couple of practices before [Tuesday's] game, so it's not really an excuse to be rusty," Sabres forward Zemgus Girgensons said ahead on Thursday's game. "It's not easy jumping into a game with that many days off, but we feel good about ourselves tonight and it's a big game. We're tied in points with them, so it's definitely a must win,"
The Sabres and Canadiens currently sit with 51 points each in the standings heading into the night, but Montreal has played one more game than Buffalo with a 22-22-7 record.
While Buffalo has been fairly good at home this season with a 14-7-3 record, the Canadiens have been better on the road than on home ice, going 12-9-3 this year away from the Bell Centre. However, Buffalo has fared pretty well against Montreal in their own building, going 5-3-2 in their last 10 games.
One of Montreal's road losses came earlier this season in Buffalo when the Sabres beat the Canadiens 5-4 in overtime back on Oct. 9 at KeyBank Center. That night saw Marcus Johansson scoring the game-winning goal for the Sabres at the 1:30 mark of overtime just after a power play chance expired for Buffalo. Sabres captain Jack Eichel scored twice that night in the second period, while Jeff Skinner and Victor Olofsson also found the back of the net. However, Buffalo held on to a 4-2 lead after Skinner scored 47 seconds into the third period when the Canadiens found a way to come back and tie the game with 7:06 to go in regulation.
Since then, the Sabres and Canadiens have gone down a very similar path to this point of the season with some up-and-down stretches on play. Over the last 10 games for both teams, the Sabres have gone 5-5-0, while Montreal went 4-5-1.
Heading into Thursday's matchup, Eichel is just one goal away from eclipsing the 30-goal mark for the first time in his career. His second period goal on Tuesday night against the Senators was his 29th of the season and a new career-high for the 23-year-old.
With another goal for Eichel, he would become the first Sabres player to record 30 goals and 30 assists in a season since Jason Pominville last did so in the 2011-12 season. He'd also become just the sixth player in franchise history to reach the 30/30 mark in 50 or less games played in a season.
In his recent four matchups with the Canadiens, Eichel has recorded a multi-point game with three goals and seven assists for 10 points.
Along with Eichel, Sam Reinhart has been carrying the load offensively for the Sabres. In his last 22 games, Reinhart has been a point per-game player with nine goals and 13 assists. The 24-year-old is currently riding a four-game point streak, while picking up points in eight of his last nine games.
Skinner is looking to get back on track with his game after returning to the lineup on Tuesday night against Ottawa. He played in 18:33 of action with one shot on goal, a minus-2 rating, and he also took a penalty that cost his team a goal-against. The 27-year-old has only scored 11 goals this season and registered just 19 points in 40 games this season, and he has not scored in 12 consecutive games.
If there is one team that he has a chance to snap the skid against is Montreal. In 20 career games since the 2013-14 season against the Canadiens, Skinner has 14 goals and six assists for 20 points. In the five games that he has faced the Canadiens as a member of the Sabres, Skinner has five goals and three assists for eight points.
Linus Ullmark had been playing very well for the Sabres in goal in the last several games, but will now be out 3-4 weeks after suffering a lower-body injury on Tuesday night. That means that Carter Hutton will get a chance to carry some of the load for the Sabres going forward.
It has been a very tough stretch for Hutton since his last win on Oct. 22 against the San Jose Sharks. After a 6-0-0 start to the 2019-20 season, Hutton has since gone 0-7-4 with a 4.27 goals-against average and an .865 save percentage.
However, one of Hutton's wins this season did come against the Canadiens in that Oct. 9 matchup, where he turned away 23 of 27 shots faced.
Hutton will get the start for the Sabres on Thursday, while recently called up rookie Jonas Johansson will back up Hutton while Ullmark is recovering from injury.
The Canadiens come into Thursday's game off a 4-2 loss to the Washington Capitals on Monday night in Montreal. The Canadiens got out to a quick 1-0 lead just 1:55 into the first period, but ended up giving up three unanswered goals through the second period of play. Dale Weise closed the gap with a goal in the third period, but the Capitals eventually put the game away with an empty-net goal with 23 seconds left in regulation.
Thursday night will mark the return of former Sabres defenseman Marco Scandella to Buffalo. The 29-year-old was traded to the Canadiens back on Jan. 2 for a fourth round pick in the 2020 NHL Draft, which was later then flipped to the Calgary Flames for forward Michael Frolik.
Scandella has only appeared in 10 games so far for the Canadiens, picking up just one assist and registering 10 shots on goal.
In his 31 games with the Sabres before the trade, Scandella was picking up his game and putting up a decent season with three goals and six assists for nine points. He said that the trade a few weeks back came as a bit of a shock to him, but he had to be prepared for a possible move while being on the final year of a contract.
"I knew it was a possibility," Scandella said after the morning skate. "We had a lot of [defenders] in Buffalo, but I was happy to be traded home.
"It's going to be fun. It's going to be competitive. I'm sure everyone's going to want to say hi, but it's an important game for both teams, so we have to come in ready. That's what I'm focusing on."
Scandella had spent parts of three seasons with the Sabres since being acquired from the Minnesota Wild back in the offseason of 2017. In that time, he saw a number of talents come and go in the Buffalo locker room, but he still believes that it's only a matter of time before things start to click for the Sabres, especially under the leadership of Eichel.
"There's a lot of talent in that locker room, great coaching," Scandella said. "I feel like it's inevitable that it's going to happen soon. I wish them the best moving forward.
"Watching [Eichel] develop over the two-and-a-half years I was here, just the monumental leaps that he's taken with leadership on and off the ice. He's a special player. Not every team has a Jack Eichel. He's proving the type of player that he is this year."
Montreal's leading scorer this season has been veteran Tomas Tatar, who has scored 17 goals and picked up 27 assists for 44 points in 51 games. Following Tatar on the scoring list is Phillip Danault, who has 36 points (12+24) in 51 games played this year.
The Canadiens' lone All-Star representative this year was defenseman Shea Weber, who's putting up a decent year on the blue line with 12 goals and 21 assists for 33 points in 51 games. He has already matched his point total from last season, where he scored 14 goals and amassed 19 assists in 58 games played.
Carey Price has not had an excellent season in goal for the Canadiens, going just 20-17-4 with a 2.85 goals-against average and a .909 save percentage. The 32-year-old had a four-game win streak snapped on Monday against Washington, but before that had gone six straight starts without a win.
Montreal's other option in goal is Charlie Lindgren, who had spent most of the 2019-20 season in the American Hockey League with the Laval Rocket. In three games this season, Lindgren is 0-3-0 with a 3.41 goals-against average and a .892 save percentage.
It will likely be Price, though, who gets the call against the Sabres.
Canadiens head coach Claude Julien said following the morning skate that forward Brendan Gallagher would return to the lineup on Thursday after missing the last six games with concussion-like symptoms.
Max Domi will also play on Thursday after he missed the last two practices with an illness.
Tune in for the Paul William Beltz Pregame Show at 6 p.m. where you will hear from Krueger, Girgensons, Scandella and Jonas Johansson.
