Chicago, Ill. (WGR Sports Radio 550) - The Buffalo Sabres are in Chicago on Saturday to finish a three-game road trip against the Chicago Blackhawks.
This road trip has seen the Sabres play three winnable games, but Buffalo lost the first two contests against the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Buffalo is, once again, in the bottom of the league at 28th overall with a .250 points percentage. Only the Colorado Avalanche, San Jose Sharks and Nashville Predators are worse through the early portion of the season.
Sabres winger Jack Quinn will return to the lineup on Saturday and play on the left wing with Dylan Cozens and Jiri Kulich.
Meanwhile, winger Zach Benson didn’t take line shifts in the morning skate, but did practice on the power play. Some of the forwards may be sick, and Ruff says he’d have to see who gets through the pregame warmup.
"We’ve got a couple of guys that will have to be game-time, just based on health," said Ruff following the morning skate.
As far as Benson goes, Ruff believes he'll play, in all likelihood.
"We’ve got one other guy that’s hurting too, so we’ll get through warmup and see if he can play," Ruff noted.
Quinn, of course, was not happy he got pulled from the lineup for Thursday's game against the Blue Jackets. The winger was not quite sure what he needs to do on Saturday.
"Just a little more compete on puck battles, which will let me have the puck a bit more, and a little bit better puck management was the message from Lindy. Maybe those two things," said Quinn following the morning skate.
I wondered if Quinn used that time to re-set and watch video.
"I guess it sounds good to do that, but to be honest, it’s pretty tough. It’s more just frustrating, and you’re just waiting to get back in the lineup and have another crack at it, to be honest with you," Quinn said.
It seems this season that the team can defend well, but not score goals and turn the puck over and make horrible decisions, which results in getting scored on all night. On this trip, Buffalo has given up 12 goals, and has gotten bad goaltending and scored nine themselves.
The Sabres are 21st in league scoring, averaging 2.83 goals per-game, while they’re 26th in the league with a very bad 4.00 goals-against average.
Another huge reason the Sabres remain one of the worst teams in the NHL is they’re one of two teams without a power play goal. That should come as no surprise since in most of his years coaching the Dallas Stars and New Jersey Devils, Ruff didn’t have good power plays.
The team has also given up, at least, one power play goal in every game since Game 1. The penalty killing is ranked 26th at 71.4%.
Ruff realizes his group must be better at both the power play and the penalty kill. He says they’ve had some very good kills right up to the point where they make one major error, and then it’s in the net.
Buffalo is second in the NHL in 5-on-5 goals with 14.
Alex Tuch is 18th in league scoring with six points.
It’ll be Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen’s turn in goal once again on Saturday. He had two solid games, and one game where he struggled against the Penguins in his last performance.
Luukkonen is 0-2-1 this season with a 3.69 goals-against average and an .874 save percentage.
Kulich scored his first NHL goal against the Blue Jackets, which will help him stay in the lineup.
The Sabres are 5-0-1 in their last six games against Chicago.
The Blackhawks are 2-2-1 with wins over the Edmonton Oilers and Sharks. After playing their first four games on the road, Chicago is now home for four-straight games.
Arvid Soderblom gets the crease for the Hawks on Saturday. He’s 0-0-1 this season with a 1.98 goals-against average and a .943 save percentage. The 25-year-old was signed as a free agent in 2021.
Connor Bedard and Teuvo Teravainen both are leading the way with seven points for Chicago.
The Blackhawks have a potent power play, as its fifth in the league at 31.3%. The Hawks' penalty killing is also decent, currently 10th at 83.3%
Join Brian Koziol for pregame coverage on WGR starting at 7 p.m. ET when you’ll hear from Ruff, Quinn and Bo Byram.