With the holiday break behind them, the Blackhawks return to the ice with a road trip to the northeast to face the Buffalo Sabres.
It’s hard to find a team in a worse predicament than the Sabres are right now … maybe Detroit? Wait, yeah: let’s stop and laugh at Detroit a bit …
Wasn’t that fun? Anyway, Buffalo’s spent the last month plummeting down the standings, losing THIRTEEN games in a row from roughly Thanksgiving until just before Christmas. A 7-1 blowout win on the road against the New York Islanders ended the misery but a team that was supposed to take steps forward this season has just 28 points, which is tied for 30th in the league with the San Jose Sharks. That bakers’ dozen of blunders came right after Buffalo won seven of nine and was sitting in a wild card spot on American Thanksgiving, which is typically a harbinger of a postseason appearance to come. But it’s now going to take a Herculean effort in the second half to undo the damage from the last month.
This was supposed to be the season Buffalo snapped its lengthy postseason drought (none since 2011) after flirting with a wild card spot last spring, but there just aren’t many things this team does well right now. The Sabres are mediocre at scoring goals (2.94 per game, tied for 19th), bad at preventing them (3.4 against per game, 27th) and neither special teams unit is any good (power play ranked 29th at 14.7 percent, penalty kill 24th at 77.0 percent). Tage Thompson leads this side with 26 points (17 G, 9 A) in 30 games, although he still lags behind the pace he set in that breakout 2022-23 season when he had 94 (47 G, 47 A) in 78 games. The blue line is overflowing with high draft picks, including 2018 No. 1 pick Rasmus Dahlin and 2021 No. 1 pick Owen Power, each of whom have been performing fairly well in their roles. The players behind them, though, don’t inspire quite as much confidence, and that includes 2019 No. 4 pick Bowen Byram, who was traded to Buffalo from Colorado in March but still doesn’t seem to have fully realized his potential on the verge of his 200th NHL game. There’s a similar story up front, where 2019 No. 7 pick Dylan Cozens has been the subject of trade rumors after another season falling behind the bar set during the 2022-23 season when he had 68 points (31 G, 37 A) in 81 games.
That’s probably the main part of the story here for Buffalo: younger players who were supposed to be carrying the torch going forward have either flatlined or taken a step back in their developmental arcs, and it’s made for a pretty bleak month of hockey in western New York. The goaltending hasn’t been much better, whether it’s been starter Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen (9-11-3 record, 3.03 goals-against average, .895 save percentage) or backup Devon Levi (2-6, 3.97, .876), although each of those players does have enough youth on their sides that future seasons with more experience under their belts could yield more positive results. Other than that, though … at least the Bills are really good?
Here’s Buffalo’s lineup from the morning skate, where Luukkonen was in the starter’s net:
Sabres' lines and pairs at the morning skate: Zucker-Thompson-Tuch Peterka-Cozens-Quinn Benson-Kulich-Krebs Malenstyn-McLeod-Lafferty NAK is the extra Dahlin-Byram Samuelsson-Power Bryson-Clifton Gilbert-Jokiharju
— Lance Lysowski (@llysowski.bsky.social) December 27, 2024 at 9:34 AM
As for the Blackhawks, they’ve been a little more competitive since the midseason coaching change and even picked up some wins of late but remain dead last in the NHL standings. Friday’s morning skate brings news of a little lineup change, with Philipp Kurashev returning to action while Joey Anderson moves to the press box. Kurashev will join the fourth line with Lukas Reichel and Pat Maroon, while the top three lines look like they have for the last handful of games. Petr Mrazek also heads back to the net:
Blackhawks lines in morning skate at Sabres:
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) December 27, 2024
Hall-Bedard-Bertuzzi
Foligno-Nazar-Donato
Teravainen-Dickinson-Mikheyev
Maroon-Reichel-Kurashev
Anderson
Vlasic-Murphy
Allan-Jones
Korchinski-Brodie
Crevier
Mrazek
One win may not have cured all of the Buffalo’s woes, so this seems like a game very much within Chicago’s grasp if it’s willing to reach for it. Plenty of youth up and down the Blackhawks lineup these days, which makes every watch a little bit more intriguing than it was earlier in the season.
Let’s go Hawks.
Blackhawks — Statistic — Sabres
45.32% (31st) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 51.16% (10th)
45.73% (28th) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 48.56% (23rd)
2.57 (28th) — Goals per game — 2.94 (t-19th)
3.2 (t-23rd) — Goals against per game — 3.4 (27th)
43.6% (31st) — Faceoffs — 48.7% (24th)
22.5% (10th) — Power play — 14.7% (29th)
85.3% (t-3rd) — Penalty kill — 77.0% (24th)
(All stats from this season)
How to watch
When: 6 p.m. CT
Where: KeyBank Center, Buffalo
TV: ESPN2
Webstream: ESPN+
Radio: WGN 720