Who: Buffalo Sabres (9-9-4, 22 points, 7th place Atlantic Division) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (10-6-5, 25 points, 5th place Metropolitan Division)
When: 7:00 p.m. eastern
How to Watch: Broadcast locally Sportsnet Pittsburgh, MSG-B, streaming on ESPN+
Pens’ Path Ahead: Tonight starts a stretch of three games in four days for Pittsburgh. They’ll make the quick trip over to Columbus for a game on Friday, then return home to meet the Toronto Maple Leafs at PPG Paints on Saturday. Then the calendar turns to December
on Monday (seriously!) and the Pens will be in Philadelphia.
Opponent Track: Here come the Sabres? Buffalo is 4-1-0 in their last five, including winning three of their last four games, all coming at home and against some decent opposition (EDM, CHI, CAR). Of course, the Sabres also lost to Calgary last week and are 4-5-1 in the last 10, they still keep you on your toes not knowing exactly what to expect aside from proving they’re capable of winning or losing just about any given night.
Hidden Stat: It’s the traditional Thanksgiving Eve home game for the Pens, which has treated them really well in the Sidney Crosby era. Pittsburgh is 8-2-2 at home the night before Turkey Day in the last 20 years, and they’re 4-1-0 since 2019 following a 5-4 win against Vancouver last year.
Getting to know the Sabres
Projected lines
FORWARDS
Josh Doan – Tage Thompson – Alex Tuch
Jason Zucker – Ryan McLeod – Jack Quinn
Zach Benson – Noah Ostlund – Tyson Kozak
Josh Dunne – Peyton Krebs – Brock Malenstyn
DEFENSEMEN
Mattias Samuelsson / Rasmus Dahlin
Bowen Byram / Conor Timmins
Jacob Bryson / Owen Power
Goalies: Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, Alex Lyon and Colten Ellis
Potential scratches: Jordan Greenway, Zach Metsa
Injured Reserve: Josh Norris, Justin Danforth, Jiri Kulich, Michael Kesselring
- Buffalo has a crowded crease with three healthy goalies, the team not wanting to risk their depth and waive Ellis once Luukkonen came back from an injury he suffered in the preseason (against the Penguins, though they did not outwardly cause it). Luukkonen has been coming on as of late, playing in the last two games and winning them both, allowing only four total goals and posting a .925 save% in his recent outings.
- Josh Norris has resumed practicing after getting injured in opening night and being out ever since. Big shame, he looked amazing in the preseason in the games against the Penguins. Unfortunately staying healthy has been a major issue over his career.
Season stats
via hockeydb
- The Sabres are quickly described as a few awesome players (Thompson, Tuch, Dahlin) then guy, guy, guy. It’s been repeated to infinity but still worth pointing out that for a team that has drafted so high so frequently, their NHL talent in the 20-23-ish range isn’t particularly dynamic, though it does have some nice pieces (Power, Benson, Ostlund and now Doan).
- Injuries have played into that; Benson is a nice little player who will only be in his 10th game of the season tonight, and as mentioned above Norris has been on IR all season besides opening night. Add in the starting goalie being out for the start of the year and that’s some tough cards to pull right off the bat.
- All in all, Lyon did well to hold things together as best he could while UPL was out, and Ellis was a pleasant surprise for a bit by battling and helping the team through a tough spot. Lyon, however, hasn’t played in almost two weeks since allowing two goals on three shots against Colorado and has been shuffled down the depth chart for recent games. On the contrast, Luukkonen made 29 saves on 30 shots against Carolina last game.
- They are getting some progress from younger players turning it around and stepping up. There was some outside consternation about the way Samuelsson was playing, looks like he is off to a fine season averaging almost 22 minutes per game and putting up an impressive 11 ES points in 20 games so far while carrying a team-high +9. Similarly, there were grumblings when Doan was the key piece of the summer trade that sent away last year’s 68-point scorer JJ Peterka and Doan has filled a productive spot in the lineup.
Dealing with adversity
Buffalo is riding high following their 4-1 win last Sunday against the Hurricanes. It’s pulled them out of last place and fueling some belief about something to build on for this next stretch.
“This has to be our minimum,” Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin said. “This is how we have to play every night. It’s competing, it’s skating, it’s doing the little things right, work for the team. That’s got to be our bare minimum. Then we can improve some other things.”
The Sabres still have plenty to improve, like most teams at the bottom of the standings. But the rest of the Eastern Conference has been enough of a mess for the Sabres to stay on the outskirts of the playoff picture. They’ve won four of their last five games and are 3 points behind the second wild-card and 5 points behind the division-leading Detroit Red Wings.
If they’re going to take advantage of an odd year in the conference, the Sabres will need to deal with bad breaks as well as they did against Carolina. The Sabres had a goal called off because of a questionable goaltender interference call. They also had to deal with a few other odd calls by the officials. They didn’t allow that to deter them against an already-challenging opponent.
“I think it’s something we talked about a lot last year, we couldn’t get through it,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. “It’s that dealing with adversity, where sometimes stuff isn’t going to go your way and you’ve got to move on fast. We had to deal with some tonight, for sure, and I thought we did. And the way we were playing, I was comfortable with the fact I thought we were going to still push ahead.”
#1 power play vs #1 penalty kill
Buffalo has been very potent offensively so far at even strength. Their 51 5v5 goals ranks 5th in the NHL, which isn’t out of line from the expected goals they generate. The offensive fireworks have come at the cost of defense, where they haven’t been strong to say the least (52 5v5 goals allowed also is 5th in the NHL). Buffalo and Toronto are the only teams currently averaging 3.15+ goals per game scored and 3.15+ goals allowed this season, betting the over in Sabres’ games is usually the play.
Despite that, somewhat surprisingly, their goaltending (unimpressive statistically in every other way) puts on a Superman cape while on the penalty kill. Buffalo has a NHL high .931 save% while shorthanded, by far the best in the league (only two others [TB, COL] have over a .900% while PKing). That figures to be a strong test for the Penguins, who possess the NHL’s best power play. Buffalo is only getting out-scored 8-3 so far this year while shorthanded, and generating those three SHG is probably something the Pens should be mindful about while they’re on the power play.
To complete the fickle and contradictory nature of the Sabres, their wonderful 5v5 offense dries up during the power play that has only converted 17.9% of the time. They can be all over the map like that and not always follow logic about performing well out of no where in some areas, then failing to capitalize in others.
And now for the Pens
Projected lines
FORWARDS
Connor Dewar – Sidney Crosby – Ben Kindel
Kevin Hayes – Evgeni Malkin – Anthony Mantha
Ville Koivunen – Tristan Broz – Tommy Novak
Joona Koppanen – Blake Lizotte – Danton Heinen
DEFENSEMEN
Parker Wotherspoon / Erik Karlsson
Ryan Shea / Kris Letang
Ryan Graves / Connor Clifton
Goalies: Arturs Silovs and Tristan Jarry? Also Sergei Murashov (for now..)
Potential Scratches: Bryan Rust (illness), Matt Dumba, Harrison Brunicke (AHL rehab assignment)
IR: Koivunen and Jarry (for now..), Filip Hallander, Justin Brazeau, Rickard Rakell, Caleb Jones, Noel Acciari
- Bryan Rust has been absent from practice the last two days with an illness, we’ll see if he can answer the bell and play tonight, otherwise the team prepared with the above lines that look about as game ready as they can be.
- Reinforcements look like they’re coming as soon as tonight; Koivunen might be the best note of all, considering he was deemed “week to week” just over one week ago and is already back in team practice. Sam Poulin was sent back to the AHL yesterday, a good indicator that Koivunen will be back tonight.
- Tristan Jarry worked in practice yesterday with Silovs as a typical goaltender, signifying he could be back soon, at least dressing as backup (which would bump Murashov back to the AHL) Acciari and Rakell have been on the ice in some capacity this week, though a little further behind.
- The team has announced Tristan Broz will in fact make his NHL debut tonight, so we’ll get a pregame rookie warmup lap tonight. Broz will become the fourth player to make an NHL debut for the Pens this season already (joining an impressive list of Ben Kindel, Harrison Brunicke and Sergei Murashov having done the same) and become the ninth player with rookie status (the three mentioned above, plus Hallander, Poulin, Koivunen, Pickering and Silovs) to suit up for the Pens tonight.
