Kraken vs. Buffalo PREVIEW: End this Blighted Homestand

The Need to Knows

• The Time: 7pm PT
• The Place: Climate Pledge Arena in Beautiful Seattle, Washington
• Place to Watch: ROOT Sports Northwest, MSG-Buffalo, Sportsnet+/ESPN+
• Place to Listen: KJR 93.3-FM
• An Opposing Viewpoint: Die by the Blade

Know Your Enemy

• The Sabres have a 32-31-5 record, which is good for 69 points (nice), and 6th in the Atlantic Division. As of right now, they’re the only team in the Atlantic with a shot of making it that has not yet locked up a playoff spot.
• So the Sabres have all this up-and-coming young talent, and you figure Tage Thompson or JJ Peterka or Dylan Cozens must be leading the team in points, right? Well, guess what; the Sabres are actually being led by defender Rasmus Dahlin, he of some truly embarrassing highlights has turned it around to become a tidy little backend scoring threat! He’s got 50 points in 67 games.
• Where Peterka is leading the Sabres however, is in the goalscoring department. He and Jeff Skinner share this spot on Buffalo with 21 goals in 60 games.
• The Sabres’ goal has been defended with care by one Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen; who has a .915 SV% in 40 starts, but given Seattle’s record over the last few games…I wouldn’t be surprised if Devon Levi got the call to start. He’s got an .891 SV% in 19 starts.

Game Preview

Well. Last game sure occured. Definitely a real “things happened” kind of game.

The Buffalo Sabres are deep into their season and don’t have a ton to show for it. Individual talents are once again dazzling like Rasmus Dahlin or Tage Thompson, but they’ve had goalie issues, systemic defensive problems, and have fallen behind badly in the playoff race and need to catchup; especially after dropping a stinker to the Red Wings that robbed them of crucial points.

They will be desperate, and that’s something the Kraken need to take advantage of…because they’re desperate as well.

The Kraken over the last four games have managed to only conjure 6 goals over the last 200+ minutes of hockey played; and most of them were created against the Knights. It’s been a gruesome few games that the Squids have had to subject us to, and if they want to break this 4 game skid, they need to start taking advantage of Buffalo’s deeply inconsistent play, or they’re going to be ending this homestand without a single victory…and then they have to go out into the desert to face Vegas.

Which would not be advisable to show up in low spirits to.

Buffalo’s issues with holding leads and misfiring offense are well documented (where have we heard that before), but they will be pushing the Kraken to the brink here in order to get back into the race. If they wanna start playing spoiler, now’s the time to start.

Let’s Go Kraken.