The Buffalo Sabres will take on the New York Rangers for the first time this season tonight in Buffalo. The Sabres are yet to win a game at home this season, but the Rangers haven’t won a game on the road so far. Someone is bound to change their luck tonight.
The Rangers are currently 1-3-1 and at the very bottom of the East Division. They are currently on a three-game losing streak, so they will be very hungry to get a win tonight against the Sabres.
I expect both of these teams to put the puck on net as much as possible as they are both in the top five in the league in shots on goal per game. The Sabres are ranked second in the league with 34.8, and the Rangers are not far behind in fourth with 33.2 shots per game.
Even though both of these teams shoot the puck plenty of times, they both rank in the bottom half of the league in goals per game. Buffalo averages 2.83 which is good enough for 17th in the NHL, while New York is averaging 2.60 goals per game, which is down at 24th in the league.
It is hard to talk about the Rangers without mentioning their power duo of Mika Zibanejad and Artemi Panarin. Zibanejad only has one goal and one assist so far this season through five games, but he is always someone that you need to be wary of when you play against him. Panarin has been on fire so far this season, with two goals and four assists through five games and he is also averaging 21 minutes of ice time per game.
The number one overall pick by the Rangers in the 2020 NHL Draft, Alexis Lafreniere, is yet to score a point so far this season. But he has been getting plenty of ice time and I expect him to be desperate to record a point, so he is another name to keep an eye on for these next two games.
The Sabres have sent goalie Jonas Johansson back to the team’s taxi squad, which is a sign that Carter Hutton is healthy and ready to rejoin the team. This would leave only Zemgus Girgensons on the Sabres injury list, as he is out for the season.
The only member of the Rangers that is on their injury report is center Filip Chytil. He is listed as “out” with an upper-body injury.
The expected goalie matchup is that Alexandar Georgiev will start for the Rangers and that Linus Ullmark will be in net for the Sabres.
Date: January 26th
Time: 7:00 PM
Where: KeyBank Center, Buffalo NY
TV Broadcast: MSG
Radio: Sabres Radio Network (channels vary in different cities, check the list here)
Streaming: fuboTV
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