3 things that went right in win over Montreal the Buffalo Sabres must parlay into the weekend
We are on Take 15 in the Buffalo Sabres quest to string together a pair of back-to-back wins, something they haven’t done in over two months.
At 16-19-4, the Buffalo Sabres are still seven points from snagging a spot in the wild card as they now have 36 on the year, which is amazing considering how turbulent things have been in 2023-24. Now that we’ve established the Blue and Gold are still very much in this, they will only reach that evasive pinnacle if they find consistency in the new year.
But hey, they’re 1-0-0 in 2024, so at least they started things correctly, and you couldn’t ask for anything better than a 6-1 blowout win. It also gave us a few major takeaways that this team must get consistent with heading into Saturday’s showdown with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
One of them is something the Sabres have failed miserably at the first two times they faced Pittsburgh, even if they snuck away with a win the second time around. As for the other two, it’s all about offense, so that’s your hint.
3 things the Buffalo Sabres must stay consistent with come Saturday
1 - Special teams
The only real blemish on the Sabres special teams came when Rasmus Dahlin mishandled the puck, which Joel Armia turned into a goal for the Canadiens. But other than that, the Blue and Gold’s man advantage was picture-perfect scoring on back-to-back opportunities for the first time in forever.
Buffalo methodically moved the puck up-ice to score the game’s opening goal with Casey Mittelstadt doing the honors while Jeff Skinner and Rasmus Dahlin provided the helpers. Something identical happened on Skinner’s goal less than a minute-and-a-half later, with assists coming from Alex Tuch and Tage.
Meanwhile, the struggling penalty kill also saw a renaissance last night, finishing the game a perfect 3 for 3. Buffalo’s PK unit was hot toward the beginning of the year if you remember correctly. And on Thursday night, it once again showed off its prowess and perhaps it means they will start tanking opposing power plays once more.
2 - Chemistry between the top scorers
The Sabres top-six enjoyed a phenomenal outing, and you can argue it was their best all season sans perhaps their 9-3 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs. We already talked about Skinner, Tage, and Tuch connecting on the power play, but what about JJ Peterka and Jack Quinn, who put together several good looks, even if they didn’t always find twine?
One of them did, however, and it occurred at the 6:45 mark of the third period when Quinn and Peterka did a little back-and-forth with blueliner Connor Clifton joining in. It ended with Quinn’s fourth goal of the year, and he would later cap things off with an assist.
To be frank, if the Sabres top-six keeps this momentum going this Saturday, then they will more than set the stage for a far more successful January and leave the first half of this season in 2023 where it belongs. Now that Quinn should be fully acclimated at this point and the top-six appears to have gotten out of this game healthy, there are no more excuses - good hockey is mandatory.
3 - Playing for 60 straight minutes
A few times in the first half of the season, the Buffalo Sabres gave us 60 quality minutes against the league’s toughest teams, and they ended up scoring W’s that few would have expected. Last night, for the first time since perhaps their 6-4 win over the Ottawa Senators back in October, they played a 60-minute game, or better yet a near-60-minute game.
The last two times they squared off against the Pittsburgh Penguins, they gave us about 20 solid minutes in each contest. In the first matchup, they looked good in the opening stanza before things went haywire. Ironically, their first two frames were horrendous in their most recent matchup, but they ended up scoring a comeback win.
Just like they managed last night against the Canadiens, the Blue and Gold must give us solid play from the opening faceoff in the first period to the final whistle in the third. Maybe it will translate into a small winning streak, maybe it won’t, but it will surely put them in position to snag a second win in a 48-hour span.
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(Statistics and information provided by Hockey-Reference)