(WGR 550) – It’s going to be an uphill climb for the Sabres to break their two-game losing streak on Saturday in Minnesota. The Wild were home on Friday and beat the Colorado Avalanche in a shootout, 3-2. That was Minnesota’s seventh straight win while Buffalo’s best this season is two-straight. The Wild have points in 10 consecutive games going 9-0-1. The only blemish was a 2-1 overtime loss to the San Jose Sharks.
Buffalo has fallen back to last place in the Eastern Conference and to 29th in the NHL with a points percentage of .458. On Friday, Terry Pegula was in the building to see his team get water boarded by the New Jersey Devils 5-0. Loud chants of "Fire Adams" and "Sell the Team" greeted the Sabres owner. Since he does nothing about it, he’s obviously is not unhappy with what he’s seeing. It’s also obvious that him being heard by Kevyn Adams is more important than winning and Adams does listen and treats him very well.
Playoffs have pretty much been gone for two weeks, but if you’re wondering the Sabres are six points behind the Ottawa Senators for third place in the Atlantic Division. They’re seven points out of the two Wild Card spots held by the Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers. The ninth place New York Islanders also have 29 points. The Avalanche lead the NHL with 40 points. That’s almost double than the Sabres who have 22. That’s how much of a failure Adams five-year rebuild has been.
Buffalo has only given up two power play goals in the last six games and three in the last nine but have fallen to second in the league behind the Lightning. Tampa Bay is at 88.5% while the Sabres are 88.1%. Buffalo is 27th in goals against at 3.50 goals per game and are 19th in goals for averaging three goals per game. The power play is 21st at 17.4%.
Alex Lyon played against the Devils and gave up five goals on 23 shots. That means either Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen or Colten Ellis will get the call Saturday. Ellis hadn’t played in 10 days before that game.
Buffalo is 6-3-1 in their last 10 against Minnesota and 5-4-1 in St. Paul.
Minnesota is 12-5-4 in their last 21 games vs. the Sabres.
Goaltending has been stellar for Minnesota lately. Filip Gustavsson is 5-1-1 in his last seven with a 2.09 goals against and .920 save percentage.
Not to be outdone, 23-year-old Jesper Wallstedt has three shutouts in his last five starts. In his last six games he’s 6-0-0 with a 1.14 goals against and .967 save percentage. In that same time period Gustavsson is 3-0-1 with a 1.69 goals against and .929 save percentage. Wallstedt was Minnesota's first-round pick in 2021. He was 20th overall and while Buffalo to this day is still struggling to find a No. 1 goalie, they took Isak Rosen 14th overall in the same draft. Zach Bolduc went 17th and Wyatt Johnston went 23rd.
Karill Kaprizov has a six-game points streak scoring six goals and eight points.
Kaprizov is 10th in the NHL with 30 points in 25 games. His 16 goals are No.
3. Matt Boldy is also having a great season with 14 goals and 14 assists for 28 points in 25 games. Boldy was the 12th overall pick in the 2019 NHL Draft. Buffalo and Jason Botterill took Dylan Cozens seventh. In 310 NHL games Boldy has 272 points while in 386 games Cozens has 229 points. Just another in the long line of draft mistakes for the Sabres. Other players taken after Cozens were Philip Broberg (8th overall), Trevor Zegras (ninth overall), Spencer Knight (13th overall) and Cole Caufield (14th overall).
Join Brian Koziol and me for the pregame starting at 7:00.