Mike Harrington: Sabres are still bought in, no matter what the standings say 1 hr ago 1

Mike Harrington: Sabres are still bought in, no matter what the standings say

The Sabres have won five in a row at home for the first time since the 2019-20 season and are 8-2 downtown since Christmas. That includes 5-1 against Metropolitan foes and wins vs. Washington, Carolina, New Jersey and the defending Presidents' Trophy champion Rangers.

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Sometimes the old adage that you play how you practice really is a thing.

The Buffalo Sabres worked in solitude last week while the hockey world focused on the 4 Nations Face-Off. They battled to get their nine days of rust off on Tuesday and got a planned wind sprint treatment − not a punitive one − from coach Lindy Ruff at the end of practice on Wednesday.

"No joke with the skates," a smiling center Ryan McLeod said after Saturday's 8-2 pancaking of the New York Rangers in KeyBank Center. "He really got us ready with our bodies."


Buffalo Sabres winger Tage Thompson (72) celebrates his goal against the New York Rangers during the first period at KeyBank Center on Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025. Harry Scull Jr./Buffalo News

By Friday in LECOM Harborcenter, the Sabres were absolutely flying and maybe we should have figured they would have a huge leg up on the disjointed Rangers, who had four bedraggled veterans just back from Thursday's Canada-USA classic.

That was one of the best practices I've seen since, well, the last time Ruff was coaching here. There was absolute breakneck pace in the cozy secondary rink, chatter aplenty, banging on the boards by coaches for every goal and good play.

It was noisy in there and looked and felt nothing like a last-place team. Ruff said Saturday he was confident it would translate and he wasn't kidding.

The Sabres had a 1-0 lead at the 11-minute mark of the first period, then scored four goals in a 6:23 span to knock Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin from his crease for the second time this season. Rasmus Dahlin and Greenway were dominant and Tage Thompson embarrassed New York defensemen Adam Fox and Ryan Lindgren in the corner before schooling Shesterkin with a deke.

Remember that old friend/Rangers GM Chris Drury was an assistant to Bill Guerin on Team USA, when the likes of Rangers Vincent Trocheck and Chris Kreider were picked over Thompson for the 4 Nations event. Thompson said Friday his push for Italy 2026 starts right now and he sure showed it.

"All week in practice as you guys probably saw we were looking to get up and down the rink a lot," said Greenway, an absolute beast in his first game since mid-December. "Play quick. I think that's a big strength of our game. We said, 'Let's go out there, transition quick, get the puck going, don't let them set up. Just keep them on their heels the whole game, especially in the first 10 minutes, and try to run them out of the building.' We executed it pretty well."

That's for sure. A full house saw the same speed Saturday that the media saw in Harborcenter on Friday afternoon.

"That all paid dividends," Ruff said. " ... There's been a pretty good track record of when we've had real good practices about how we play. And I tend to err on the side of really hard versus backing off. It was just a well-deserved win by our group with the way we played."

Ruff and I were probably both thinking to a key connection to this season. Yours truly was the only Western New York scribe on the scene when the Sabres slumbered in Seattle last month and angered their coach so much that he had a full practice for a gameday skate the next morning in Vancouver, when most teams would not have gone on the ice at all.

That sure seems like a key moment in this stage of the season. The Sabres rallied past the Canucks that night and are 6-3 in this stretch, with every loss up for grabs; they entered the third period tied in both Calgary and Edmonton, and had a tying goal in Nashville wiped out late in the third by an offsides challenge.

All the Sabres can do is keep playing. When you're in a spot like the one they have cooked themselves into, you have to cling hard to any slivers of sunshine you can find. Oddly enough, there's a good number of them going on right now.

The Sabres are 5-1 in their last six games and 12-8-1 since the end of the ghoulish 13-game winless streak that turned this season upside down, most likely for good.

They've won five in a row at home for the first time since the 2019-20 season and are 8-2 downtown since Christmas. That includes 5-1 against Metropolitan foes and wins vs. the division's top three teams (Washington, Carolina and New Jersey) and the defending Presidents' Trophy champion Rangers.

"I feel like everybody is just buying in right now," Dahlin said. "Everybody really wants to make a push here. You see it off the ice too. Guys are working really hard in the gym and everybody wants to take that next step. We have to continue to build."

Saturday, Feb. 22, is a pretty big day in recent Sabres history. It was 18 years ago Saturday that Ruff told Ottawa coach Bryan Murray to not "go after our bleeping captain" during that infamous brawl with the Senators.

It was 14 years to the day owner Terry Pegula cried at the sight of Gilbert Perreault and said, "Starting today, the Buffalo Sabres' reason for existence will be to miss the playoffs every year."

Or something like that. Sorry, couldn't resist.

This Feb. 22 win set the Sabres up for lots of interesting chances ahead. The Anaheim Ducks are here Tuesday, fresh off an overtime triumph in Boston. The Sabres play Thursday in Carolina, where they haven't won since 2016, and then have a home-and-home with Montreal. The Habs have won seven of the last 10 meetings, including both this season. Then comes a home game against uber-struggling San Jose.

One game at a time. And perhaps more important, one practice at a time. Vancouver was Game 47 and maybe it took that long for some of Ruff's messages to sink in. We're starting to see a lot of the impact.

 

[HipKat]

The Athletic: Sabres show they haven’t given up on season after dominating Rangers: 6 takeaways​

Sabres show they haven’t given up on season after dominating Rangers: 6 takeaways

Buffalo was dominant from the drop of the puck, racing out to a 5-0 first-period lead on its way to an 8-2 win over New York.

www.nytimes.com

Before the Sabres returned from a two-week break between games, Lindy Ruff wasn’t speaking like the coach of the last-place team in the Eastern Conference. He talked about breaking the season into five-game segments and getting 7 out of every 10 possible points the rest of the way to climb back into the race. The Sabres began Saturday 12 points out of the second wild-card spot with only 28 games to play, a near-impossible climb.

“I know it’s hard, I know it’s a difficult task, but I think you have to set goals and make this your playoff push,” Ruff said.

Ruff pushed the Sabres through three tough practices this week, and the team responded by racing out to a 5-0 first-period lead on its way to an 8-2 win over the New York Rangers. They were dominant from the drop of the puck. It should be noted that four Rangers played for Team USA less than 48 hours prior in the 4 Nations Face-Off championship game. But the Sabres took full advantage of their added rest and practice time. Slim as their chances may be, the Sabres haven’t shown signs of quitting.

“Absolutely not,” Sabres forward Jordan Greenway said. “No need to. One, it speaks volumes to the guys we have in the room. But yeah, we’re not quitting. No way. Absolutely not. We still have a lot of hockey left. Anything can happen.”

It’s easy to say that, it’s another to play the way the Sabres did Saturday. Jack Quinn scored less than two minutes into the game, and the Sabres took off from there. They had four goals before the Rangers had four shots on net. Before the end of the first period, Igor Shesterkin had allowed five goals, and the Rangers pulled him from the game. Amazingly, this was the second time this season the Sabres have chased Shesterkin from a game. The Sabres scored five goals on Shesterkin in November before he was pulled from that game in a 6-1 Buffalo win.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1893431893099421946

One lopsided win won’t pull the Sabres out of the hole they dug early in the season, and the only way a late-season push will appease the fan base is if it inexplicably ends up with a postseason berth. But the Sabres have won five of their last six games. It’s likely too late to matter, but the Sabres at least gave a sellout crowd a quality showing on Saturday.

“We see every game as a playoff game,” Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin said. “That’s how we have to play to win games.”

Takeaways​

1. When Dahlin got back from the 4 Nations Face-Off, he was ticked off. He wasn’t happy Sweden’s tournament ended early after a pair of overtime losses spoiled its chances at playing in the championship game. But the early exit helped make sure he had no hangover from the event. He scored twice in the first period of this game and assisted on another goal. Through two periods, the Sabres outshot the Rangers 15-5 when Dahlin was on the ice at five-on-five. Dahlin now has 45 points in 47 games this season and revealed after the game that he’d been playing through an injury that made it difficult for him to shoot effectively until recently. That might explain his recent uptick in goals.

2. What a difference a healthy Greenway makes for the Sabres. Greenway played his first game since December after he needed surgery for a mid-body injury. He was all over the puck in the first period and made a great play on Buffalo’s second goal. He won a puck battle, stickhandled through multiple Rangers in the offensive zone and bought enough time to take a shot from the point. Dahlin deflected it in to give the Sabres a 2-0 lead. The Sabres had 80 percent of the expected goals when Greenway was on the ice at five-on-five. He led the team with six hits.

“I was excited today, all week truthfully,” Greenway said. “I was fired up. No other way to say it.”

His performance likely piqued the interest of contending teams who need a reliable defensive forward at the trade deadline. But it’s also clear how much Ruff values having him as part of this roster.

“I personally couldn’t wait to get him back,” Ruff said. “Just a big, strong, physical guy that can dictate play.”

During the Sabres’ 13-game winless streak earlier this season, they were without Dahlin and Greenway for nine games each. Two injuries shouldn’t cause a skid like that, but who knows how different this season would look if they’d stayed healthy.

3. Jason Zucker blocked a shot in the third period and briefly left the game. He returned quickly and assisted on the Sabres’ seventh goal. You can bet Sabres general manager Kevyn Adams was holding his breath when Zucker went down the tunnel. A pending unrestricted free agent, Zucker might be Buffalo’s best asset at the NHL trade deadline if the two sides don’t come to an agreement on a contract extension before then.

4. Tage Thompson is now playing at better than a point-per-game pace. He had two goals and an assist against the Rangers and now has 51 points in 49 games played this season. His first goal was a terrific individual effort during which he won a puck battle and fought his way to the front of the net for the goal.

5. In the third period, Alex Tuch took a hard hit from K’Andre Miller into the boards and was down in a lot of pain. He left the game and didn’t return. After the game, Ruff said he wasn’t “too concerned” after a conversation with Tuch but he still needs to be evaluated further.

6. Sabres color commentator and former enforcer Rob Ray, who stands between the benches during games, took a puck to the face in the first period. The puck broke Ray’s glasses and left a massive lump on his head, but Ray didn’t miss a second of game action. He did let out an audible expletive on the broadcast and then later took a jab at Ruff, who left a game last season after getting hit with a puck while coaching the Devils.

“He said that’s the difference between Eastern Canadians and Western Canadians,” Ruff said with a laugh. “The Western Canadian had to leave the game and he stayed in.

“Rob’s puck hit him at approximately 15 miles an hour. The one that hit me hit me at about 100. And here’s the difference: When the puck hits Rob’s head, it breaks. When it hits my head, it just absorbs it.”

 

[swiper]

We've seen this movie before.

Blow in November/December, then show you're awake after the All-Star break only to be too far out in the standings due to your prior suckage.

It's like groundhog day. If I was Alex Tuch, I would demand a trade away from this Jekyl & Hyde nightmare.