St. Louis, Mo. (WGR Sports Radio 550) - One thing has been lost throughout this eight-game winning streak for the Buffalo Sabres: The vastly improved play of defenseman Bo Byram.
For part of this season, Byram was struggling mightily, and it was bringing down every partner he had. His biggest problem was his puck management, as it was leading to multiple turnovers and also goals-against.
Everything has changed for him, as he’s been spectacular at both ends of the ice. That has put Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff on notice.
In Saturday’s win over the Boston Bruins, Byram played 27:52 of ice-time. In the game before that against the Ottawa Senators, he put in 24:18 of work.
Byram has been a big part of the league’s third-best penalty kill, and helped the Sabres cut down on their goals-against as they’ve gone from 27th in the league to 20th.
Byram has won the Stanley Cup playing for the Colorado Avalanche, so he knows what the top of his game is and what it took to get back to it.
"Sometimes it seems whatever you do, something goes wrong. It doesn’t mean you’re not trying hard or working hard. Sometimes that’s just the way it goes," said Byram following Sunday's practice. "You really just have to bear down and work hard to get out of those types of ruts. When I feel like I have a stretch of games that aren’t my best, I just try to go back to playing simple, playing hard, playing physical. Usually when you start to do that, things start to come. So that’s what I’ve been focusing on: Skating and competing."
Byram mentioned it wasn’t from a lack of trying, but that leads to the question, was it the more he tried, the worse it got?
"For sure. That definitely happens," Byram admitted. "I think it’s kind of human nature, but you’ve just got to work and focus on simplifying. That’s something I’ve been emphasizing to myself, so that’s what I’ll continue to do moving forward.
“It’s a little tough coming off a three-day break. You’re not going to feel how you usually feel during or after a game, so you just try your best to recover as best as you can. Nothing really changes, depending on the minutes. Just make sure I’m consistent at it, and it seems to work for me."
Losing has become a huge habit for the Sabres for the last 14 years. When it keeps happening over-and-over again with no end in sight, it makes it miserable to even come to the arena for practices and games. Some fans forget these players are human too, and you can only handle so much losing.
Byram was very honest in talking about it, and says with what’s been happening lately, it’s been a pleasure to come to work now.
"At the end of the day, we’re very blessed to do what we do and come to the rink, and do what we love. But at the same time, it is a job, and when you’re losing, it sucks coming in," Byram said. "So when you find some success and everyone’s playing well, you’ve got to do all you can to hang onto that and identify why you’re having and what’s creating that success. We just have to find a way to put forth those types of efforts consistently the rest of the year. It’s been a lot of fun winning, everyone’s playing hard and playing for each other, and it’s been really enjoyable.
"Everyone is happy we’ve won eight games in-a-row, and we’re going to continue to do that the rest of the season if we want to make the playoffs, because it’s a real tight race. You can’t have any off nights right now."
Playing for each other. It makes a huge difference when one player makes a mistake, his teammate is right there to help him out. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen that in Buffalo.
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen gave up one goal on Saturday in the 4-1 victory over the Bruins. Ruff indicated on Sunday both Luukkonen and Alex Lyon will play on this upcoming three-game road trip.
Buffalo has won five in-a-row on the road and are 7-4-0 in the last 11 away from Western New York. Overall, Buffalo is 7-9-2 on the road this season.
As you know, Buffalo acquired Tage Thompson from St. Louis in the Ryan O’Reilly trade back in 2018. In nine games against his old team, Thompson has three goals and four assists for seven points. Recently, Thompson has points in 8-of-9 games, scoring six goals and six assists for 12 points.
Rasmus Dahlin spent a few extra days in Sweden with his fiancée and was excused for Saturday’s game. He’s scheduled to be in St. Louis and play Monday’s game.
There’s also a chance Jason Zucker could return after missing eight games with two injuries. Before getting hurt, he had played nine games after missing two weeks with a severe illness and scored five goals and six assists for 11 points. He had points in seven of the nine games played.
Josh Norris has played in 10-of-12 games since getting injured opening night, scoring five goals and six assists for 11 points.
When the Blues came to town on Nov. 6, they were the third-worst team in the NHL. Yet, they used a goalie with some of the worst numbers in the league and beat Buffalo, 3-0.
This is just one of the examples Jarmo Kekalainen was talking about the day he was introduced as the Sabres' new general manager. He said there were too many games where the Sabres were the better team, but they didn’t put forth the effort and lost.
Including that win in Buffalo, the Blues are 11-8-6 in their last 25 games. That’s a points percentage of .560.
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The Blues are 12th in the Western Conference with a points percentage of .487. The Seattle Kraken are in the eighth and final playoff spot with a points percentage of .528.
Recently, the Blues are 3-1-1.
St. Louis is last in the NHL when it comes to goal scoring, and 27th in goals-against.
Robert Thomas leads the Blues in scoring with nine goals and 20 assists for 29 points in 35 games.
Joel Hofer got the shutout for St. Louis in Buffalo. He’s 8-7-2 this season with a 2.86 goals-against average and a .900 save percentage.
Meanwhile, Jordan Binnington is 7-9-6 this year with a 3.44 goals-against average and an .870 save percentage.
Join Brian Koziol for pregame coverage on WGR starting at 7 p.m. when you’ll hear from Ruff, Byram and Zach Metsa.
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