Buffalo Sabres head coach Don Granato unveiled a rather peculiar lineup last night and it didn’t necessarily bode well in their loss to Arizona.
The Buffalo Sabres lost 4-1 last night to the Arizona Coyotes. And while they failed to get aggressive to open up new scoring lanes in the offensive zone, perhaps their curious lineup also had something to do with their inability to convert.
In case you missed it, Lance Lysowski of The Buffalo News was kind enough to Tweet out the lineup for the game, as always:
Sabres' lineup vs. the Coyotes:
— Lance Lysowski (@LLysowski) November 8, 2022
Peterka-Thompson-Mittelstadt
Skinner-Cozens-Tuch
Asplund-Krebs-Olofsson
Quinn-Girgensons-Okposo
Bryson-Dahlin
Power-Clague
Pilut-Lyubushkin
Comrie in goal
Listen, while I recently wrote an article entitled Casey Mittelstadt is playing better than you think, it didn’t mean I was endorsing him to take Alex Tuch’s spot on the first line. Instead, it was more of the fact he was performing better on paper so far this season. In fact, next to winning all six of his faceoff attempts in the loss, Mittelstadt was outright terrible last night.
Buffalo Sabres cannot split the Skinner-Tage-Tuch line
Granato especially should have never split Jeff Skinner and Tage Thompson, who have once again developed sound chemistry in the season’s early-going. Scrolling through Twitter yesterday following Lysowski’s Tweet, I also noticed many fans lamenting the fact that Mittelstadt was getting a nod on the first line as opposed to someone like Jack Quinn, if Granato wanted to mix things up.
But again, why mix things up in the first place if the Sabres were putting up high-octane performances with Skinner and Tage leading the way? Then there was the Cozens line, which thrived earlier in the year when Granato paired the center with J.J. Peterka on the third.
Overall, I have no clue what Granato was trying to accomplish against Arizona, but this lineup won’t work against the Vegas Golden Knights after the inability to put the puck in the net despite Arizona virtually giving the Sabres scoring chance after scoring chance. On the outside perimeter anyway.
Against a good team like Vegas, it would do Granato well to go back to a lineup that works instead of trying whatever it was he was experimenting with. Because it resulted in the second-worst offensive performance from a team that we know is more than capable of scoring four-plus goals per game.
Article Source: Observations: Sabres’ skid reaches three games with 4-1 loss to Coyotes by Lance Lysowski
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