The Buffalo Sabres have put together another ugly stretch of five games. The previous five-game recap we talked about no wins. This time around we’re going to talk about no goals.
Recent Five-Game Stretch
The Sabres matched up against the Columbus Blue Jackets, Minnesota Wild, Edmonton Oilers, Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning. They went 1-4-0 picking up their only win against a struggling Oilers club.
The hot topic of the recent group of games is the lack of goal scoring. Over the previous five games, they scored only seven goals (1.4 goals per game). The team is entering tonight’s game being shutout in two straight.
On the flip side of things, the Sabres haven’t been terrible at keeping the puck out of their net. They had a rough night against the Wild giving up five goals in a loss. In total, they gave up 14 goals over the recent stretch (2.8 per game). However, Robin Lehner has played pretty well and if you take out the Minnesota game that Chad Johnson started. They only gave up nine goals (2.3 per game).
Rock Bottom
In most situations that should win you a lot of games, but when you score one goal or less it obviously doesn’t. We seem to be at the low point of the season right now. Both from an appearance and in the standings itself. The Sabres are tied for last place in the league with the Arizona Coyotes.
Besides Evander Kane, the big names have been inconsistent with their scoring. Then when you throw in no goals from the defense and the frightening looking bottom six it’s hard to envision things getting much better this season.
Next Five Games
Looking ahead to the next five games the Sabres have a pretty difficult schedule ahead of them. It starts with a home and home series with the two time defending Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins.
Then they’ll continue their four-game road trip against a few tough Western Conference teams. The first game will be a visit out west to face the Colorado Avalanche. Then the team will wrap up the trip with two games against the Chicago Blackhawks and St. Louis Blues.
The opponents in this five-game stretch rank 11th, 20th, 16th and 2nd in the NHL entering play on Thursday night. All these teams also rank in the top half of scoring in the league and three of the four opponents rank in the top half for goals against. Chicago and St. Louis rank fourth and sixth respectively in goals against entering play on Thursday. If the Sabres hope to have any chance at picking up some points, they’ll need to find their scoring touch.
If you’re looking for some good news the defense finally looks to be healthy. Zach Bogosian appears to be headed towards making his season debut tonight. We’ll finally get to see the defense group we planned for this season. It only took 25 games to get to see it.
How many points will the Sabres pick up in the next five games?
| 7-10 | 6 |
| 4-6 | 27 |
| 0-3 | 99 |