GDT: #65 – Lightning at Sabres – Sat Mar 4, 7:00PM ET – MSG-B

[26CornerBlitz]

VS.

Lightning (29-26-8) at SABRES (27-26-11)

SAT MAR 4, 2017 @ 7:00 PM ET

TV: MSG-B

RADIO: WGR 550

Sabres Digital Press Box Game Preview

CURRENT INJURIES – (Man Games Lost: 310)

Player (injury, first game missed) – total games missed
Cody McCormick (blood clots, Oct. 13; injured reserve) – 64 games
Johan Larsson (wrist, Jan. 3; injured reserve) – 28 games
William Carrier (knee, Feb.4; injured reserve) – 14 games
Kyle Okposo (ribs) – 0 games

TRANSACTIONS IN PAST 7 DAYS
2/26: Recalled G Linus Ullmark from Rochester (AHL)
2/28: Acquired D Mat Bodie from NY Rangers in exchange for F Daniel Catenacci
3/1: Assigned G Linus Ullmark to Rochester (AHL)

UPCOMING GAMES
Sunday, March 5: Buffalo at Pittsburgh, 5 p.m.
Tuesday, March 7: Philadelphia at Buffalo, 7 p.m.
Friday, March 10: Buffalo at Columbus, 7 p.m.
Saturday, March 11: Columbus at Buffalo, 7 p.m.
Tuesday, March 14: Buffalo at San Jose, 10:30 p.m.

TONIGHT’S GAME

LIGHTNING at SABRES
This is the third of four meetings between the Sabres and Lightning this season.
Last meeting: Tampa Bay defeated Buffalo 4-2 in Tampa on Jan. 12
Next meeting: Sunday, April 9 in Tampa
The Sabres are 1-9-0 in their last 10 games vs. the Lightning; 2-6-2 at home.
This is the 93rd game all-time between Buffalo and Tampa Bay; Buffalo has a 52-33-7 series record.
The Sabres are 24-17-4 at home against the Lightning all-time.

Morning Skate: March 4, 2017 at 10:00 am – 11:00 am at KeyBank Center






[NHL2]/c-49937403[/NHL2]

[NHL2]c-49937303[/NHL2]

Here's how Buffalo's lines stacked up in full on Friday:

9 Evander Kane - 90 Ryan O'Reilly - 12 Brian Gionta
82 Marcus Foligno - 15 Jack Eichel - 23 Sam Reinhart
63 Tyler Ennis - 71 Evan Rodrigues - 26 Matt Moulson
56 Justin Bailey - 28 Zemgus Girgensons - 44 Nicolas Deslauriers

Defensemen: 29 Jake McCabe, 55 Rasmus Ristolainen, 77 Dmitry Kulikov, 47 Zach Bogosian, 4 Josh Gorges, 6 Cody Franson, 41 Justin Falk

31 Anders Nilsson

Click to read more...

 

[La Cosa Nostra]

So before this 1-9-0 stretch against Tampa we were 51-24-7?? Wow, let's go back to dominating them please. They need to start winning toss up games. 4-3 Sabres, Eichel extends his point streak to 9.

And playing deslauriers even on the fourth line and not even calling up Baptiste has me furious. Baptiste makes this a better team period. Deslauriers is actually a negative valued player and makes us worse. He can't even be relied on to take a shift because he is so bad. I am trying to wonder why the **** that scrub is still here and not waived. Knowing we traded McNabb essentially for this guy is sickening. The 2 2nds were obviously Faschings cost so we traded a legit NHL dman who would easily be our ld2 right now for literally the worst player in the entire nhl.

 

[NotABadPeriod]

So before this 1-9-0 stretch against Tampa we were 51-24-7?? Wow, let's go back to dominating them please. They need to start winning toss up games. 4-3 Sabres, Eichel extends his point streak to 9.

And playing deslauriers even on the fourth line and not even calling up Baptiste has me furious. Baptiste makes this a better team period. Deslauriers is actually a negative valued player and makes us worse. He can't even be relied on to take a shift because he is so bad. I am trying to wonder why the **** that scrub is still here and not waived. Knowing we traded McNabb essentially for this guy is sickening. The 2 2nds were obviously Faschings cost so we traded a legit NHL dman who would easily be our ld2 right now for literally the worst player in the entire nhl.

Vanek used to make the Lightning his *****.

 

[enthusiast]

So before this 1-9-0 stretch against Tampa we were 51-24-7?? Wow, let's go back to dominating them please. They need to start winning toss up games. 4-3 Sabres, Eichel extends his point streak to 9.

And playing deslauriers even on the fourth line and not even calling up Baptiste has me furious. Baptiste makes this a better team period. Deslauriers is actually a negative valued player and makes us worse. He can't even be relied on to take a shift because he is so bad. I am trying to wonder why the **** that scrub is still here and not waived. Knowing we traded McNabb essentially for this guy is sickening. The 2 2nds were obviously Faschings cost so we traded a legit NHL dman who would easily be our ld2 right now for literally the worst player in the entire nhl.

Well, he's been uninspiring at W, C, and D. Give him a shot at G, you never know.

 

[dotcommunism]

So before this 1-9-0 stretch against Tampa we were 51-24-7?? Wow, let's go back to dominating them please. They need to start winning toss up games. 4-3 Sabres, Eichel extends his point streak to 9.

And playing deslauriers even on the fourth line and not even calling up Baptiste has me furious. Baptiste makes this a better team period. Deslauriers is actually a negative valued player and makes us worse. He can't even be relied on to take a shift because he is so bad. I am trying to wonder why the **** that scrub is still here and not waived. Knowing we traded McNabb essentially for this guy is sickening. The 2 2nds were obviously Faschings cost so we traded a legit NHL dman who would easily be our ld2 right now for literally the worst player in the entire nhl.

Teams only have four regular recalls after the deadline, and the Sabres have already used at least one. I see little reason to be concerned about them not wanting to use another one already, especially if Okposo's injury isn't going to keep him out for long. Wasting one of their recalls just to play Baptiste for a game or two would be silly.

And can we not bring up the Fasching trade every single time Deslauriers's name gets mentioned? It's tiresome.

 

[ForsbergMoDo21]

This is so tiresome. I know Okposos out now but even when the lineups healthy he just can't stop changing things. They won? Change the lines. They lost? Change the lines. One player is out hurt? Change every line again. Last year the excuse was new coach and lots of new players so he wanted to look for chemistry by mixing it up. Maybe chemistry would emerge if he let players play together for more than a period or two at a time. Is this just what Byslma thinks coaching is?

Seriously is there any other team in the league that shuffles players around THIS much even when injuries/call ups don't necessitate changes? Is it any wonder why they so often look out of sync with one another?

 

[stokes84]

If you are so inclined to care about our playoff hopes, it couldn't have gone better for us last night.

 

[kirby11]

Another must win game against a not great opponent? Guaranteed 4-2 L

 

[RobRayzor]

Poor Girgs, 4th line again. Put him on the wing or something.

 

[AustonsNostrils]

Teams only have four regular recalls after the deadline, and the Sabres have already used at least one. I see little reason to be concerned about them not wanting to use another one already, especially if Okposo's injury isn't going to keep him out for long. Wasting one of their recalls just to play Baptiste for a game or two would be silly.

And can we not bring up the Fasching trade every single time Deslauriers's name gets mentioned? It's tiresome.

What's the rationale for restricting the number of callups after the deadline? Makes no sense to me.

 

[Sansbacon]

If you are so inclined to care about our playoff hopes, it couldn't have gone better for us last night.

I really want to just say F the rest of the season, but the optimist in me won't let it happen.

Goddamn!

 

[LaxSabre]

 

[Aladyyn]

Poor Girgs, 4th line again. Put him on the wing or something.

He can't play wing, we don't have enough centers

 

[Sabre Dance]

He can't play wing, we don't have enough centers

I must say this whole ERod to center thing is strange, yet no one in the media has asked Murray and Bylsma why? I think there were injuries before, but now? Were they surprised with how well he performed at center?

Maybe they did comment on it and I missed it. Only comment I remember is Murray kind of taking a shot at ERod, saying he shouldnt be our best player but he was in those losses to Colorado and Arizona.

 

[Zip15]

I'd go Nilsson tonight. You have to play both goaltenders this weekend and Nilsson is far better at home than on the road.

Shrug.

 

[26CornerBlitz]

PROJECTED LINES

Lines are from Friday's game against the Penguins. The Lightning didn't hold a morning skate on Saturday. Subject to change.

Forwards

Ondrej Palat - Tyler Johnson - Nikita Kucherov

Alex Killorn - Brayden Point - Jonathan Drouin

Greg McKegg - Vladislav Namestnikov - Adam Erne

Gabriel Dumont - Cedric Paquette - J.T. Brown

Defensemen

Victor Hedman - Jake Dotchin

Jason Garrison - Anton Stralman

Braydon Coburn - Andrej Sustr

Goaltender

Andrei Vasilevskiy expected to start

 

[Baccus]

I must say this whole ERod to center thing is strange, yet no one in the media has asked Murray and Bylsma why? I think there were injuries before, but now? Were they surprised with how well he performed at center?

Maybe they did comment on it and I missed it. Only comment I remember is Murray kind of taking a shot at ERod, saying he shouldnt be our best player but he was in those losses to Colorado and Arizona.

Jesus...It wasn't a shot at ERod, Murray even specifically said it was great for him, but for the team, he expected other players to be performing. Love how people feel the need to twist words around

 

[Aladyyn]

I must say this whole ERod to center thing is strange, yet no one in the media has asked Murray and Bylsma why? I think there were injuries before, but now? Were they surprised with how well he performed at center?

Maybe they did comment on it and I missed it. Only comment I remember is Murray kind of taking a shot at ERod, saying he shouldnt be our best player but he was in those losses to Colorado and Arizona.

During a recent game someone quoted Bylsma as saying that playing C really brings out ERod's best attributes.

But Reinhart is still not allowed to play his natural position

 

[26CornerBlitz]

 

[Sabre Dance]

Jesus...It wasn't a shot at ERod, Murray even specifically said it was great for him, but for the team, he expected other players to be performing. Love how people feel the need to twist words around

Yeah, he said it was great for him but he shouldn't be one of our best players. Truth, but kind of a kick in the nuts to ERod. I don't really see what I twisted.

 

[Sabre Dance]

During a recent game someone quoted Bylsma as saying that playing C really brings out ERod's best attributes.

But Reinhart is still not allowed to play his natural position

What makes it more difficult is Sam was playing so well at center.

 

[Baccus]

Yeah, he said it was great for him but he shouldn't be one of our best players. Truth, but kind of a kick in the nuts to ERod. I don't really see what I twisted.

It was a "shot" at the better players on the team, not at ERod, for not showing up. If it's the truth, and he specifically complimented how great it was for ERod, it's a twist to then say it's a shot at him.

 

[26CornerBlitz]

 

[LaxSabre]

LaxSabre - Not sure how many of you watch the pre-game shows but there will be a interview with Jack Eichel sometime during tonights pre-game show.
Also there will be a new Beyond The Blue And Gold to be shown either first or second intermission - a look at Kyle Okposo representing the Sabres at this years All-Star Game.

@Dan_Dunleavy - Pre-Game - I talk with @Jack_Eichel11 about bending ear of a great NHL set up man and Samson on being in front of the net.

 

[SabresBillsBuffalo]

I really can't believe we didn't call someone up