Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR Sports Radio 550) - The Buffalo Sabres will be without their captain, Rasmus Dahlin, on Thursday night when they face the Winnipeg Jets. Dahlin is still dealing with back spasms, with head coach Lindy Ruff believing it will be a short-term issue, but adding you never know.
Mattias Samuelsson and Jordan Greenway both joined the morning skate with non-contact sweaters on Thursday. Both players feel like they’re very close to returning.
Greenway has missed nine games, while Samuelsson has been out for nine games and 12-of-13. In the one game he did play, he only played 6:49 against the Montreal Canadiens before suffering a knee injury.
It was announced on Wednesday that Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen will play for Finland in the 4 Nations Face-Off in February. The Sabres' No. 1 goaltender is happy to be recognized,
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"I’m really excited, really honored," said Luukkonen following Thursday's morning skate. "It’s something I think everybody wants to be part of, so it’s a really great feeling, and it’s something I’m looking forward to a lot."
This is the first time the "Face-Off" is being played, and Luukkonen loves how each team brings an All-Star squad.
"It’s best-on-best hockey, and being selected to that means a lot to me. It shows that the work is paying off," Luukkonen said.
The Sabres are coming off a complete no-show performance in Long Island against the Islanders, and then the worst home loss in team history against the Colorado Avalanche. That game against Colorado on Tuesday where for the first time ever at home, they blew a 4-0 lead and lost 5-4 in regulation.
Many are questioning why Ruff didn’t have the team practice on Wednesday and decide to go with a meeting and video review. Ruff believes in analytics and sports science, and he talked with those people to figure what will have this team at its best on Thursday against the Jets.
"There were two things," Ruff said on Thursday. "There’s three games in less than five days, we broke down where sometimes in these tough segments where we don’t have enough energy for the last game or maybe we’re practicing too much. So it was an opportunity to do both, clean the mind, move on, review some of our system stuff that got away from us. At the same time, make sure we’re ready to play today, that we have the most amount of energy for a game that’s really important."
Last season, it was the starts to games that killed this team. This year, Buffalo has outscored its opponent 24-17 in the first, but in the second period, they’ve been outscored 31-23.
"It’s the realization that it’s a tougher period. It’s a tougher period to get off the ice," Ruff said. "A change hurt us on a goal, the puck play hurt us. A lot of things change in the second period, and it is an area where we definitely have to realize that sometimes you have to make the simple play over what looks like an easy, fancy play."
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For most of the season, the Jets were the No. 1 team in the NHL. However, a four-game losing streak and seven losses in 10 games has dropped them to third with a points percentage of .692.
Many feel Connor Hellebuyck is now the best goalie in the National Hockey League. He’s 15-5-0 this season with a 2.16 goals-against average and a .927 save percentage. His backup is former Sabres goaltender Eric Comrie.
All of a sudden, Winnipeg has had trouble scoring goals. They have just six goals in their last four games, and have scored one goal or fewer in 6-of-10 games.
Kyle Connor is the team’s leading scorer with 13 goals and 16 assists for 29 points in 26 games.
Mark Scheifele has 13 goals and 14 assists for 27 points in 26 games.
Winnipeg is 8-3-1 in its last 12 games against Buffalo, and has won four of the last five.
Tune in during "Schopp and the Bulldog" for pregame coverage on WGR starting at 6 p.m. EST when you’ll hear from Ruff, Luukkonen and Beck Malenstyn.