Sabres, Canadiens renew rivalry in Buffalo

The Buffalo Sabres (3-9-1) continue its four game home-stand on Wednesday night with a matchup with the Montréal Canadiens (8-4-1) at the First Niagara Center.

Wednesday’s game is the first of four match-ups between the Sabres and Canadiens in the 2014-15 season. Last season, the Canadiens swept the four game series between the two clubs. Montréal outscored the Sabres in the four games 10-3, and shut out the Sabres in the final two games of the season set. The Sabres have not scored a goal against the Canadiens in 135:56. That is right, almost 136-minutes without a goal against Montréal. Zeugmas Girgensons scored the last goal on December 7th at the Bell Centre in a 3-2 loss.

The Sabres have fallen back into the basement of the National Hockey League. With Carolina’s win over Columbus on Tuesday night, Buffalo now sits alone in 30th with seven points on the year.

Montréal currently sits tied for the lead in the Atlantic Division and also in the Eastern Conference with Tampa Bay. The Canadiens have a game in-hand on Tampa Bay coming into Wednesday night’s tilt.

The Sabres are coming off of a shootout win against the Detroit Red Wings on Sunday evening. After falling behind in the third period, Sabres forward Chris Stewart tied the game 2-2 with less than seven minutes left in the game. The Sabres eventually forced overtime and the shootout where Zemgus Girgensons scored the game-deciding goal in the third round of the shootout. Michael Neuvirth made 36 saves on 38 shots faced, and kept the Sabres alive throughout the game.

For the Canadiens, they were shut out at home by the Chicago Blackhawks 5-0 on Tuesday night. Corey Crawford stopped all 28 shots thrown his way by the Canadiens in the shutout.

Tonight is the first time that both Brian Gionta and Josh Gorges will face their former team. Gionta was signed by the Sabres this past offseason, and Gorges was acquired by the Sabres on July 1st for a 2016 2nd-round pick.

Buffalo has put up some really bad numbers through the first 13 games of the season. In the 13 games played, the Sabres have only averaged 20.9 shots, which is nearly six shots less than the next worse team in the NHL. The Sabres have also averaged 36.6 shots against this season, which is also a league worse total. With the lack of shots, the lack of goals have also taken its toll on the Sabres. Buffalo is averaging 1.08 goals per game, which is another league worst. Tyler Ennis and Drew Stafford are tied for the leading scorers on the team (six points each), while Chris Stewart leads the Sabres with 32 shots. Patrick Kaleta is expected to sit in Wednesday night’s game, but could be expecting a return as soon as Friday against Edmonton.

The Canadiens are losers of three of its past five games, and have been outscored 18-6 in that span of games. Previous to the team’s recent downfall, the Canadiens were winners of four straight games. The Canadiens have gotten scoring and offensive contributions from the players who need to contribute such as Tomas Plekanec, Max Pacioretty, P.K. Subban, and Alex Galchenyuk. Carey Price’s stats may not show it, but he has been solid in the nets for Montréal going 7-3-1 in eleven starts this season with a 2.94 GAA and a .907 save-percentage. The Canadiens have been able to stay healthy, but need to get more production from its depth players.

Buffalo is going to keep the same lineup from Sunday night as they look for its first two-game win streak of the season. Michal Neuvirth is expected to get the start once again in-between the pipes. For the Canadiens, they will look to snap its three-game losing streak with a win. Dustin Tokarski could get the start in net for the Canadiens on back-to-back evenings. Opening face-off is scheduled for 7:30pm. The game can be seen on MSG Network.

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