Buffalo Sabres Look To Regain Winning Form Versus Predators
The Buffalo Sabres look to get back to their winning streak form as they stare down the best of the west in the Nashville Predators.
The Buffalo Sabres are coming off of a couple of tough losses to the Florida teams, but they haven’t looked bad in those games. Versus the Tampa Bay Lightning, the offense was solid, and the defense was a little shaky, it was ultimately Carter Hutton‘s out of character average play that lead to a one goal loss there.
The loss versus the Panthers was tough to swallow as well. Sam Reinhart played his heart out and scored two points, but the effort of the Sabres top line was not enough to get them through it. After a blunder play in the defensive zone in overtime, Aleksander Barkov wide open on the back door buried the game winner.
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Tonight, the Buffalo Sabres will forge on to another tough game against the Nashville Predators. Nashville has claimed a nice grip of the top of the western conference, and they sit third in the league with 37 points; Buffalo also has 37 points. This means that a higher league standing is up for grabs tonight for the Sabres, and we can expect them to fight it out until the last buzzer.
The force for the Buffalo Sabres to contain will be star forward Filip Forsberg. The Swedish sniper has 14 goals and 22 points this season, and is undoubtedly their primary scoring weapon. The player that may provide help for the Buffalo Sabres in this game will be Mattias Ekholm. Ekholm has been playing some big minutes this year, and at times it has come back to bite him in the mid to late game. If Buffalo continues their offensive onslaught, Ekholm faltering leaves a great hole in the Nashville defense.
The Buffalo Sabres will once again look to the likes of Jeff Skinner and Jack Eichel for primary offense, but they will not win this game on their backs alone. The key to beating a tough team like Nashville, who are big and heavy, will be to use the checking lines well. Head Coach Phil Housley coached the Predators defense for a few years and he may know their weaknesses too. Using that knowledge will benefit the checking lines, and will allow the scoring lines to be that much more effective.
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Puck drop will be at 8:00pm EST. I think the Buffalo Sabres come out on top in this one. This game should yield a few goals so I’d predict a 4-2 win tonight. What do you think?