Nashville, Tenn. (WGR Sports Radio 550) - The Buffalo Sabres came to the arena Tuesday morning getting ready to face the Nashville Predators, but only a few skated.
One that did skate was defenseman Michael Kesselring, who had tweaked his injury and didn’t play Monday in Carolina against the Hurricanes. Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff wanted to see how Kesselring gets through the skate to see if he can play.
Sabres winger 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 goalie Alex Lyon will play on this five-game road trip. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen played Monday and played very well, but he won’t go back-to-back. Lyon was able to back him up in the loss in Carolina.
I think an educated guess would be that Lyon gets back into the crease on Tuesday.
Lyon’s last game was Dec. 29 against the St. Louis Blues. 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 Sabres are 15-3-1 in their last 19 games.
The Boston Bruins are in the second Wild Card position at .592.
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 as of late, going 17-9-0. They’ve won four of their last six contests.
The Preds are currently 11th in the Western Conference with a points percentage of .521.
Juuse Saros plays most nights in goal, and is 19-15-3 this season with a 2.94 goals-against average and an .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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