The Buffalo Sabres won just five of 14 games in the month of December. They struggled to string together wins, unable to win more than one game in a row in the month.
Undoubtedly, the Buffalo Sabres now look to the month of January – and the year of 2016 overall – to be a stronger one.
The Sabres face 12 games against 11 teams in the month of January, a schedule that includes just five home games at First Niagara Center.
Heading into the month of January, the Sabres have gone 8-11-2 at home. While that’s certainly not the worst they could do, there’s still plenty of room for improvement.
But here’s a thing to keep in mind when looking at this Buffalo Sabres team in the month of January: they’re almost guaranteed to be better than the team of January 2015, which went 0-11-0.
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The upcoming month (including Saturday’s game which has already passed) sees the Buffalo Sabres face 11 different teams, with the Detroit Red Wings on tap twice this month.
It’s largely a month of facing teams the Sabres have already seen this season, but there’s a few new ones in there.
The Sabres face their first meetings of the season with the Winnipeg Jets, Minnesota Wild, Colorado Avalanche and New York Rangers this month.
All of those games are on the road and are the first of two meetings between the teams this season.
The Sabres also face the Ottawa Senators, a team they haven’t seen since early October with the first game of the season. After this month’s game, they’ll face the Sens twice more this season.
The Sabres also face the Boston Bruins, Florida Panthers and Chicago Blackhawks again this season.
The Sabres have lost their sole meeting with the Hawks so far, but beat the Panthers once (and lost another time) and beat the Bruins in their meetings so far.
Through January 2, the Buffalo Sabres sit last in the Atlantic Division and second-last in the Eastern Conference with a record of 15-20-4 and 34 points.
As they near the midway point of the season,
Ryan O’Reilly leads the Buffalo Sabres with 33 points, including a team-leading 15 goals, in 39 games. Rasmus Ristolainen leads the team with 19 assists, while rookie Jack Eichel has registered 25 points (13-12) this season.
Only a handful of players – seven, to be exact – have appeared in every game so far this season for the Buffalo Sabres: O’Reilly, Ristolainen, Eichel, Jamie McGinn, Sam Reinhart, Cody Franson and Josh Gorges.
Can the Buffalo Sabres have a strong showing in the month of January? If they can register even one point, it’ll already be an improvement over January 2015 — and I think they’ll get there, and better. How about you?