Montreal, QC (WGR) - On Saturday Lindy Ruff confirmed that Jiri Kulich and Josh Norris will be in the lineup. He said he's not sure about Rasmus Dahlin for Wednesday's home game, but they're shooting to have Jason Zucker back for Wednesday.
Kulich missed Thursday's game in Toronto due to illness. He was sent back to Buffalo for tests to make sure it had nothing to do with the blood clots from last year. He of course is relieved,
"Obviously it's in my head, just making sure I'm OK."
Lindy Ruff decided to sit Kulich and Konsta Helenius out against the Utah Mammoth. He felt both players had a lot more to give. Kulich said he doesn't feel his game is where it needs to be,
"I know I'm still not on my best, I'm just trying to get there every day. I wish I could just snap my fingers and be back, but I haven't played for a year which still is not an excuse, I was working my ass off this summer just trying to get back on my game and just work as hard as I can."
The forward added, "I knew I was not good enough that game (against Dallas) and I knew the things that I should still improve."
Kulich is a natural center and plays much better in the middle than he does on wing. He said,
"I've always been a center since I was a kid, but usually on the National Team I was playing wing and sometimes I was playing center there, but I'm OK with playing both it's not really a big deal."
Kulich has only won 43.2% of his faceoffs this season, but it seems like he's won some key faceoffs near the end of games. He said it's something he's worked at and continues to work at,
"I just got stronger a little bit, watching the game for a year and watching the guys playing faceoffs too, helped me a lot."
Kulich said he used to watch video of other centers to see what they're doing and he also takes advice from teammates.
The Sabres haven't lost in regulation in three games going 2-0-1. All three have come against Atlantic Division teams including the Canadiens as Buffalo was just here on Tuesday for an overtime loss. Overall Buffalo is 4-3-1 and are three points behind the Division leading Boston Bruins. In four of those eight games including Tuesday, the Sabres have rebounded from a two-goal third period deficits going 3-0-1. That's six out of seven points. Olen Zellweger has played three very good games in a row scoring two goals and an assist and showing his speed and puck moving ability. The Sabres new defenseman had six shots against the Florida Panthers, four vs the Habs and six more against the Toronto Maple Leafs for 16 shots in three games. He had just one shot in his first four games combined.
Zellweger is new to this team, so he didn't go through the wars of the past. He knows they can't sustain getting down two goals in every game.
"It's resilience, we know we're not out of any game, we've just got to be a little bit sharper, a little bit better early on, we don't want to be in that position, we want to be somewhat in control of every game throughout the whole game, bit it's good to know, especially early on in the season that we are capable of coming back because these are good teams and we're getting points out of them which is good, but we've got details to clean up."
With Dahlin out the last two games Zellweger has played 25:49 and 24:28. Owen Power who is one of Buffalo's leading scorers with eight points in eight games has played 28:21 and 28:01 while Mattias Samuelsson has played 26:38 and 28:24. Samuelsson has a goal and three assists for four points in his last two games. Defensemen have scored five goals in the last two games and nine overall this season.
Jack Quinn and Tage Thompson also have eight points in eight games for Buffalo.
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen will play in his third straight game. In that time he's 2-0-1 with a 2.97 goals against and .902 save percentage.
Buffalo is 0-for-7 on the power play in the last two games and is 30th in the NHL at 10.3%. The penalty kill has been a lot worse as they've given up a power play goal in every game this season except one. Their 61.5% is 29th in the league.
Montreal has lost four of their last six games, but one of the two wins was Tuesday against the Sabres. Cole Caufield and Juraj Slovkovsky came into that game slumping. Both had only had points in one game all season and both left that game with two points. Caufield now had nine goals in his last nine games against the Sabres, while captain Nick Suzuki has 27 points in 22 career games vs Buffalo.
Jacob Fowler beat Buffalo on Tuesday, but he was so screened he didn't see any of the three goals the Sabres scored on him and two went in off Canadiens defenseman Adam Engstrom who is a healthy scratch for this game. Fowler is 2-1-0 with a 1.91 goals against average and .906 save percentage.
Oliver Kapanen is going to play his first game of the season. Last year, his first full season in the NHL he scored 22 goals.
Join Brian Koziol for the pregame starting at 6:00 when you'll hear from Ruff, Zellweger and Kulich
The young center is relieved his recent illness had nothing to do with blood clots
The young center is relieved his recent illness had nothing to do with blood clots
