3 – Don’t let an injury get you down
It’s no coincidence that the Buffalo Sabres struggles started with Alex Tuch went down. They’ve won two of their last eight contests following Tuch’s lower-body injury suffered following Buffalo’s win over the Florida Panthers a few weeks back.
Since then, the Sabres bought at the trade deadline with the physical Riley Stillman and Jordan Greenway coming in and playing well. But really, nobody he could have traded for would have replaced Tuch. Nope, not even Timo Meier, who is currently playing in Jersey.
But if the Sabres want to climb that next rung and play meaningful games throughout crunch time, they have got to play better even in lieu of an injury to one of their stars. Even if you can’t truly replace them, you need to be better than the 2-5-1 team they’ve been since Tuch started missing time.
If multiple stars go down, it’s a different story. But when it’s just one player, even one of Tuch’s caliber, they need to at least find ways to circumvent things. They didn’t do that, and it’s why their playoff hopes are all but gone.
Source: Mike Harrington: After a tough-luck effort, it feels like Sabres’ playoff chase is toast by Mike Harrington, BuffaloNews.com.