After snapping the Blue Jackets’ eight game winning streak on Saturday night, the Sabres are in Pittsburgh for their 2nd meeting of the season with the Penguins. Pittsburgh took the first game back in October by a 4-1 score.
The Sabres snapped their own five game losing streak with the victory on Saturday, but will need another great performance to beat the Penguins.
”It feels good. It feels good to be a spoiler,” Foligno said. ”The odds were against us, they were on a roll and have been playing pretty well. Their power play’s been good and we got two goals off of it, which is great.”
The Penguins are coming off of a 3-0 loss to Dallas, in a game where Kari Lehtonen was perfect on the night.
From a statistics standpoint, this game favors the Penguins, but will Buffalo’s recent scoring outburst carry over? Pittsburgh has a 21-4 record on home ice while the Sabres are 5-14-3 on the road.
The Penguins sit atop the Eastern Conference at 74 points and are one of the top scoring teams in the league. With Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, James Neal and Chris Kunitz just to name a few, the Pens certainly have options.
Ryan Miller has gotten used to facing a high amount of shots. While his save percentage hasn’t been dampened, a game against a potent offense could be trouble.
It won’t be easy, but if the Sabres want to make it two straight victories, they’ll have to hold off a high-powered offense in the Consol Energy Center.
Buffalo did not practice on Sunday, but Ville Leino and Drew Stafford are both expected to miss tonight’s game.
This is the first of four games this week for the Sabres. Buffalo will host the Capitals on Tuesday and pay visits to the Coyotes and Avalanche on Thursday and Saturday.