The Sabres are 2-1-1 in their last three games and have been playing well since Jack Eichel returned from injury. He has been skating well and has settled the power play. In 2 of the last 5 games, Rasmus Ristolainen scored huge Power Play goals to give the Sabres wins. With Eichel, Okposo and O’Reilly on the Power Play, big plays are starting to become, can I say, routine? This is what we were waiting for since the beginning of the season and at the ¼ mark, it’s great to see the Power Play starting to click.
On Saturday night in Carolina, the Sabres were shut out for the majority of the game. However, they skated hard and played physical, and were able to grind out a goal towards the end of regulation. Evander Kane got the tip in with less than 2 minutes to play for his fifth goal of the year. He looks to be heating up, and as I mentioned before, this can only help the Sabres. Let’s continue to support him. We need him if we are going to get back into the playoff picture.
We ended up losing in the shootout but we were happy with getting the point. Unfortunately, we don’t seem to have much shootout skill. There isn’t really anyone on the team who we can count on to score in the shootout. Ennis is on the shelf and Eichel and Okposo haven’t really shown that they can come through consistently in the shootout. Maybe Bylsma needs to give guys like big Z or Foligno a shootout opportunity and see if we can find lightning in a bottle. We are ending up in a lot of overtime games and we need shootout goals to try to win those extra points. Maybe with Bogosian’s return, the defense will be better able to finish off games in which we have the lead, and we will start to see more wins in regulation.
Sabres vs. Panthers, 7:30 PM, Tonight, MSG, WGR550
Go Sabres!