Nashville, Tenn. (WGR Sports Radio 550) - The Buffalo Sabres came to the arena on Tuesday morning getting ready to face the Nashville Predators, but only a few skated. One that did skate was Michael Kesselring who had tweaked his injury and didn’t play Monday in Carolina. Ruff said he’ll see how the defenseman gets through the skate to see if he can play.
Jordan Greenway didn’t play Monday due to his maintenance program. Ruff is still hesitant to play him in back-to-back games so he likely will play Tuesday.
Ruff has said that Alex Lyon will play on this trip. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen played Monday and played very well, but he won’t go back-to-back, but Lyon backed him up. I think an educated guess would be that Lyon gets back into the crease on Tuesday.
Lyon’s last game was Dec. 29. Including that game he’s won his last seven games. With Lyon out Luukkonen went 4-2-1 and Colten Ellis went 2-1-0.
Buffalo is 2-2-1 in its last five games, but are still in the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 Wild Card with a points percentage of .594. That puts them at 10th overall in the NHL. The Boston Bruins are in the second Wild Card position at .592. The Sabres are 15-3-1 in their last 19 games.
Rasmus Dahlin has points in five straight games scoring three goals and three assists for six points. Tage Thompson has nine points in five games.
Until the last five games the Sabres penalty kill and been in the top two in the NHL. In the last five they’ve only killed 9-of-15 penalties which is 60%. That has put them down to seventh in the league at 82.6%.
Nashville has been playing much better going 17-9-0. They’ve won four of their last six. The Preds are 11th in the Western Conference with a points percentage of .521.
Juuse Saros plays most nights and is 19-15-3 with a 2.94 goals against and .898 save percentage. Ryan O’Reilly leads Nashville in scoring with 44 points in 48 games.
Join Brian Koziol and myself for pregame coverage on WGR starting at 7 p.m. when you’ll hear from Ruff, Lyon and Owen Power.
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