Sabres notebook: Noah Ostlund’s demotion, Owen Power’s slump, lineup shuffles
Sabres notebook: Noah Ostlund’s demotion, Owen Power’s slump, lineup shuffles
Shaking up the lines will ideally help the Sabres maximize their forecheck as the western Canada road trip continues.
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Despite putting up good metrics beneath the hood, Owen Power has been held without a point in 11 games and counting.
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The reality of the Buffalo Sabres’ situation is starting to set in. Whether it’s the 2-8-2 road record, the .464 points percentage or the fact that the team is in last place in the Eastern Conference standings, the Sabres are already feeling the urgency of the season in early December.
After a 5-1 win over the Winnipeg Jets at home Monday, the Sabres hit the road for a six-game road trip that spans 13 days. The Sabres started this trip with two straight losses, a 5-2 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers and a 4-1 loss to Winnipeg.
“You don’t want to get too low, but there’s also situations where you need a sense of urgency,” Sabres alternate captain Mattias Samuelsson said after practice Sunday. “Yeah, we’re not going to get too low, but we need to f—ing turn it around. There’s a balance to that. It’s a long year. We’re only a third in. You can go on a heater and change everything. But you have to go do it. You ride the waves of the year. There’s 82 games. There’s going to be games where you don’t have it that night and it’s not the end of the world. But you need to limit those and get points when you’re not your best. That’s what good teams do and that’s what we’re trying to consistently do.”
Samuelsson acknowledged you can only write off so many games as one of 82 before they start to add up “real quick.” That has started to happen for the Sabres roughly a third of the way through the season. As Tage Thompson put it, the Sabres have just been “teetering back and forth” with a win or two here followed up by two or three losses. They don’t have a three-game winning streak all season, haven’t won a game in regulation on the road and have spent only five days above a .500 points percentage this season.
“You need to have urgency and desperation in your game in order to win hockey games,” Thompson said.
That was the theme of coach Lindy Ruff’s practice on Sunday in Calgary. On Monday night, the Sabres play a Flames team that is 6-3-1 in its last 10 games, which includes a 6-2 beating the Flames handed the Sabres in Buffalo a few weeks ago. The Flames are still down near the bottom of the NHL standings, but they are a veteran team that is going to play what hockey types refer to as a “heavy game.” They’re going to forecheck hard and play with a tenacity and desperation the Sabres have often lacked.
It’s no secret the Sabres need more from their best players, too. Thompson hasn’t scored in six games. Tuch has one goal in that stretch and two in his last 10 games while struggling defensively. Zach Benson has been getting top-line minutes but hasn’t scored a goal yet this season.
“I think it comes down to our intensity,” Thompson said. “How hard do we want to play? Winning puck battles, defending hard in our own zone, closing time and space. I think we do those things, offense and stuff will take over naturally because we have a lot of skilled players. We’re in a streak here where we’re struggling to find the back of the net. When that happens, that is in my opinion probably the toughest thing in hockey, when you’re not scoring to find ways to stay positive and not grip the stick too tight. We get a couple guys going, myself first and foremost, with one or two, we can get rolling a little bit.”
Tage Thompson says he’s among the Sabres that could use a goal to get rolling again.Eric Hartline / Imagn Images
Here’s what else we’re seeing and hearing.
1. Ruff decided to shuffle his lines ahead of the western Canada portion of this trip. This is what the lineup looked like on Sunday.
Jordan Greenway – Tage Thompson – Alex Tuch
Zach Benson – Josh Norris – Josh Doan
Jason Zucker – Ryan McLeod – Jack Quinn
Beck Malenstyn – Peyton Krebs – Tyson Kozak
Ruff kept the defensive pairs the same. He made it clear after practice that he’s looking for more desperation from his team. He wants players who can “stick the puck in their teeth and dive into the net headfirst” if that’s what it takes to get it over the goal line. He noted that a few too many loose pucks were hanging around Winnipeg’s net during the 4-1 loss on Friday.
That was on Ruff’s mind when he decided to put Jordan Greenway on the line with Thompson and Alex Tuch. Greenway has just one goal and two assists in 14 games this season while working his way back from offseason hernia surgery, but Ruff anticipates a forecheck-heavy game against the Flames and views Greenway as a player who can retrieve and protect pucks.
Meanwhile, Josh Norris will center two of Buffalo’s most consistent forecheckers in Zach Benson and Josh Doan. And Tyson Kozak appears to be getting healthy enough to return to the lineup.
2. The Sabres got through the first two games of this road trip without an extra defenseman, but they couldn’t risk having only six defensemen while playing more than 2,000 miles away from home. On Sunday afternoon, the Sabres recalled Zach Metsa and sent 21-year old center Noah Ostlund back to Rochester.
Sending Ostlund down was the easiest move in the sense that he doesn’t require waivers to go down to the AHL. But Ruff noted as recently as last week that Ostlund had been helping the Sabres win games. The crafty center had a shootout winner in the 3-2 win in Minnesota. He had six points during this 20-game stint in the NHL and was carrying a 55 percent on-ice expected goal share at five-on-five.
But like Isak Rosen before him, Ostlund went down because he didn’t need to pass through waivers. The same wasn’t true of other forwards like Josh Dunne and Tyson Kozak. Of course, Ostlund and Rosen can both benefit from more time in the AHL. If this makes them hungrier for the next call-up, that’s not a bad thing, either.
The question is whether this decision allows the Sabres to ice the best possible lineup. It’s fair to view the decision to send down Ostlund as one that allowed general manager Kevyn Adams to delay making a tougher decision elsewhere on the roster.
Right now, the Sabres are still carrying three goalies despite the fact none of the three have stepped up to take hold of the job. Making a decision there would create room on the roster for Ostlund or Rosen. It’s understandable that Adams wouldn’t want to put Dunne or Kozak on waivers, because both serve specific roles in the bottom six. But there’s still a way to get Ostlund on the roster if the Sabres make a decision on the goalies.
For now, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen was in the starter’s net at practice, so it looks like he’ll get another chance after stopping 19 of 22 shots against the Jets.
Ukka-Pekka Luukkonen seems poised for another chance at the starter’s net in Calgary.
Joe Hrycych / Getty Images
3. Owen Power has an 11-game pointless streak. Power’s game has drawn deserved criticism for his shortcomings in the defensive zone, but his ability to generate offense has typically been a strength. He set a career high with 40 points last season and has at least 33 points in each of his first three NHL seasons.
With seven points in Buffalo’s first 28 games, Power is on pace for just 21 points. He’s also posting his lowest average time on ice in his career at 20:47. And last game, he didn’t get any power-play time.
“He’s about 80 percent in on the offense,” Ruff said after practice Sunday. “He’s been involved in the play but he hasn’t joined to where like Bo Byram has joined and made that total commitment. He’s kind of joined and been outskated at that last 30 feet. And if you’re in and you’ve gotten that far up, I think he’s one of the guys that could have piled it into the crease on the Winnipeg play. That’s kind of the reference I’m saying. We have to get heavy on those. We have to get desperate. You’re there, but you have to be committed to being all-in.”
To Power’s credit, the Sabres have earned 62 percent of expected goals when he’s on the ice at five-on-five during this pointless streak. Buffalo is also outscoring teams 9-6 with him on the ice during that stretch and has 105 scoring chances.
“I feel like I’ve been creating a lot but pucks aren’t going in,” Power said. “It’s part of the game. I can’t worry too much about it. Just continue to play good hockey and try to create as much as you can, and they’re going to start coming.”