The Buffalo Sabres play their third game in four nights to start the season, this time against the Eastern Conference power house Pittsburgh Penguins.
Continuing with their inability to score a big goal, Buffalo was shutout last night against the Ottawa Senators, falling 1-0. Two games in, the Sabres have generated just one goal on 55 shots, and have yet to score a power play goal in 11 chances.
The one bright spot is the play of pending free agent goaltender Ryan Miller. Albeit early, it seems Miller has returned to his Olympic form of four years ago. His movement, awareness, and pure focus in net has been phenomenal. In two games Miller has given up three goals on 80 shots, with many acrobatic saves to keep Buffalo close to their opponents. After the amount of work seen by Miller early on, it would not be a surprise to see backup Jhonas Enroth play tonight in Pittsburgh.
The Sabres hit the road to play a team with which they showed much success last season, winning two of three meetings. One of those wins, was an impressive 4-1 win at the Consol Energy Center on April 2nd, to end the 15 game win streak of the Penguins.
The Penguins come into tonight’s matchup 1-0-0, notching a 3-0 win against the New Jersey Devils on October 3rd in their season opener. Fleury was strong in net, making 27 saves in the shutout.
Pittsburgh will be without Kris Letang, Matt D’Agostini and Tomas Vokoun, who are all on IR. James Neal left the game early against the Devils after only five shifts, and it is unknown how serious the upper body injury is or if he will play against Buffalo.
The Sabres are having injury problems of their own, adding another to the list after the game last night against Ottawa. Henrik Tallinder left the game early with an upper body injury, and appears to be out for tonight’s game at minimum. Alex Sulzer has been recalled for tonight’s game.
The first key to the game for Buffalo, will be to get to Pittsburgh early. Scoring on Fleury early will get him off his game, as we have seen in the past. He can lose focus with a bad goal, and that can lead to a win for the Sabres.
Second, the Sabres will also need to continue the strong physical play tonight against one of the top forward teams in the NHL. Lastly, the power play needs to get on the board. Without an operating power play, it will allow teams to continue to take liberties on the ice with Buffalo, knowing that they cannot make their opponents pay for taking the penalties taken.
Scoring a few goals tonight and beating a quality team like Pittsburgh, could go a long way to boost the confidence of a young, injury laden team. Faceoff is 7 p.m., and will be aired on MSG Network.