The Buffalo Sabres have faced numerous trials over the past month-and-a-half, dealing with a gauntlet of playoff contenders and performing well.
While the Buffalo Sabres dropped three of their past four games, they don’t quite resemble the same old Sabres. Yeah, they lost back-to-back games in regulation for the first time in a month.
But let’s cut them a break. They faced the Carolina Hurricanes and the Florida Panthers, the Eastern Conference’s best hockey teams.
Last month, the Sabres lost three games in regulation and opponents outscored them 15-2. Their most recent losses came by a combined score of 14-9. Vast improvement, but it also tells us they have no excuses to lay down and let the struggling Tampa Bay Lightning skate all over them.
The Buffalo Sabres face a tough test in Tampa
Since March, the Lightning are 9-9-1, and they have lost their past four contests. However, Tampa remains a playoff-caliber team heading into the regular season’s final stretch.
Now that the Sabres have shown they can hand any NHL team a solid challenge on any given night, it’s time for them to prove they can defeat superior teams who are entrenched in a slump. But, they need to figure out how to hold those leads that they’ve built, something that haunted them twice in their current road trip.
To maintain a lead against a struggling Tampa Bay Lightning, the Sabres need to get aggressive and stay aggressive. For players like Mattias Samuelsson and Casey Fitzgerald to exert their physicality.
On offense, they need to gain and maintain puck possession. One reason they let Florida back into the contest is because they allowed an astounding 30 shots on goal in the game’s final 40 minutes. Meanwhile, the Sabres logged just 10.
While theoretically it’s smart to pass the puck around and try for fewer shots when you build a lead, the Sabres cannot afford to let opponents continually give themselves opportunity after opportunity to rally.
The Panthers beat the Sabres 4-3 on Friday. But the Sabres converted13.6% of their shots. The Panthers scored on just 9% of theirs. It was the second time in as many games the Sabres converted a higher scoring percentage, yet lost the game.
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If the Sabres wants to beat the Lightning, they need to limit Tampa’s scoring opportunities. Let’s see if the blue and gold are up to the challenge.