The Sabres' third defensive pair has been a question and weakness for the better part of the entire season. They have rotated players frequently for the majority of the series, but the recent play of the pair of Logan Stanley and Conor Timmins has been excellent against the Boston Bruins.
Over the course of the season, that third pairing has included some combination of Timmins, Stanley, Luke Schenn, Zach Metsa, and Michael Kesselring. They never really found sustained success from any pairing, partly due to injuries that kept players like Timmins and Kesselring off the ice for extended periods of time.
As the playoffs quickly approached, the Sabres were still trying to figure out the pair before settling on Timmins and Stanley. It has worked out tremendously for the Sabres as these two have played really well and done the little things that make a defense successful.
Lindy Ruff finds the right physical balance with Logan Stanley and Conor Timmins
On Saturday, head coach Lindy Ruff was asked about this pair and when he knew these were the players he wanted to go with. "Once we got to the last couple of games. The left-right combination, the ability to kill penalties, Timmons had been such a great penalty killer for us until he got hurt."
"We felt like that five-six set needs to have a physicality to it, which Stanley has really helped us out and penalty killing. The ability that Timmins has to get up the ice, in tight gaps on entires has been good."
As Lindy Ruff noted, Timmins and Stanley have been great on the penalty kill and have seen plenty of time in these situations. Timmins is second on the team among defenseman in total PK time on ice at 9:10, while Stanley is fourth at 6:55.
Even with the extended minutes, both have done a great job helping limit the Bruins' scoring chances as Stanley is tied for the fewest at four and Timmins is third at six, according to Natural Stat Trick.
However, it is not only the penalty kill as these two have allowed only one goal in 23:55 of ice time together in 5v5 situations, but the Sabres have had a positive scoring chances advantage of 11 to 8, according to Natural Stat Trick.
For most of the season, it looked like the Sabres were going to need to lean on their Top 4 with heavy minutes. The performances of Logan Stanley and Conor Timmins have helped limit that workload, and the Sabres have benefited from that this series.
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