Game #82
Buffalo Sabres (35-39-7) vs Philadelphia Flyers (33-38-10)
Puck Drop: 7:00 PM ET | KeyBank Center, Buffalo NY
TV: MSG-B, ESPN+
Know Your Opponent
Philadelphia Flyers
Record: 33-38-10 | 76 PTS
Last Game: 3-0 loss against Blue Jackets
Division Ranking: 8th, Metropolitan
PP: 30th, 14.6% (31/212 opps) [Sabres: 24th, 18.9% (43/228 opps)]
PK: 20th, 77.5% (155/200 killed) [Sabres: 23rd, 76.6% (183/239 killed)]
What to Watch
1. Win To End Season
The Sabres have had four straight defeats and come into the last game hoping to not make it a fifth loss in a row. It would also be nice to not send the home crowd away for the summer with the bitter taste of no postseason hockey with a defeat in the last game.
That the opponent is the Flyers does make things worse, they somehow have had our number this season with heavy 5-2 and 7-4 defeats against the Broad Street bunch.
Also, if you’re at the game tonight don’t forget to say bye to the players, there might be a few of them that will not be returning come the fall.
2. 4th Line Punishment
Isak Rosen and Noah Ostlund have been up at the senior club for some time now, playing four and seven games respectively over the last few weeks or so and averaging 9:30 and 10:43 respectively, grinding away on the fourth line with only the one assist for the former. The Sabres season has been over for some time now, so the staunch refusal to give them minutes with better quality linemates seems to be a real headscratcher to many Sabres fans.
Rosen leads the Amerks in scoring with 55 points in 60 games while Ostlund is top twenty in rookie scoring with 36 in 44 games. What they are expected to learn grinding away on the bottom line I will never know, but not playing a single shift with quality teammates just makes no sense to me. They’ll be going back down soon to join up with Rochester as they start the playoffs, having them in good scoring form would have been a sensible play.
3. The NHL Draft Lottery
The Sabres look destined to end up anywhere between sixth and ninth from the bottom, depending on how results go tonight. After that there’s the matter of the secretive lottery which could see them pushed down to tenth, up to first, or anywhere in between.
It’s not often that a first round pick in the NHL is traded away for players that contribute right away, unlike in the NFL. That said, General Manager Kevyn Adams is bound to feel the pressure of making a trade that improves the team right now. Whether that will be packaging a draft pick or prospects out of the stable, he’s got to make some moves.
Projected Lineups
Buffalo Sabres
Forwards
Zach Benson – Jiri Kulich – Tage Thompson
JJ Peterka – Ryan McLeod – Jack Quinn
Jason Zucker – Peyton Krebs – Alex Tuch
Isak Rosen – Noah Ostlund – Sam Lafferty
Defense
Mattias Samuelsson – Rasmus Dahlin
Bowen Byram – Connor Clifton
Jacob Bryson – Jacob Bernard-Docker
Goalies: Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, James Reimer (projected starter)
Philadelphia Flyers
Forwards
Tyson Foerster – Noah Cates – Bobby Brink
Matvei Michkov – Sean Couturier – Travis Konecny
Jakob Pelletier – Ryan Poehling – Owen Tippett
Nicolas Deslauriers – Karsen Dorwart – Garnet Hathaway
Defense
Nick Seeler – Travis Sanheim
Cam York – Jamie Drysdale
Egor Zamula – Emil Andrae
Goalies:
Samuel Errson (projected starter), Aleksei Kolosov