BUFFALO – Fresh off Thursday’s embarrassing 4-0 loss to the Dallas Stars, you expected the Sabres to change their lineup for tonight’s game against Utah Mammoth.
Sure enough, coach Lindy Ruff will be scratching young forwards Konsta Helenius, 20, and Jiri Kulich, 22, and inserting Sam Carrick and Tyson Kozak.
Meanwhile, goalie Colten Ellis is expected to start tonight. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, who played three of the first four games, has a ghastly .782 save percentage.
Ellis made 16 saves in Tuesday’s 3-2 overtime win against the Minnesota Wild.
During his chat with the media this morning in KeyBank Center, Ruff made it clear the Sabres need a higher compete level, especially from Helenius, a rookie, and Kulich, who missed most of last season recovering from a blood clot.
“Any young player, it comes right down to compete, compete on pucks,” Ruff replied when asked about Helenius. “There’s a lot of details that go into every shift, whether it’s 50-50 help on faceoffs. So the compete part is the heavy compete on pucks, where I thought we got smoked the other night.”
Helenius offered immediate contributions last season when the Sabres utilized him in the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
“He’s gonna be a good player,” Ruff said. “I think just part of young guys (is) just that up and down, the consistency part. Some of it is the details for the game.”
Ruff offered the same response for scratching Kulich, who briefly left Thursday’s game with a possible hand or arm injury.
“You come back in, it’s the hand-to-hand combat, it’s the puck compete around the pucks,” he said. “Everybody gets a little beat up. I’d like to see that part of his game be a lot more tenacious.”
Ruff said Kulich is healthy enough to play.
Of course, more established players must give the Sabres a higher-octane effort.
Ruff said he met this morning with wingers Zach Benson and Josh Doan “about just what they brought to our team, that tenacity, the puck pressure they created, first on (pucks).”
“I don’t think we’ve done a good job as a group, not just those two,” he said. “As a whole group, we haven’t done a good job as first on puck and winning puck battles and staying in the battle. The message this morning was about stay in the battle, or we’re going to be a team that scores two goals a night. We got to get more O-zone time and we got to win more battles.”
The Sabres’ depth gives them the luxury of moving pieces in and out and around. Kozak sat out the first four games as a healthy scratch.
Center Justin Danforth, who sat out early in the season, will center the third line tonight. It’s easy to turn to Carrick, a big contributor down the stretch last season.
“Danny’s penalty killing has been really good,” Ruff said. “If you look at scoring chances, he had more scoring chances than a lot of other guys. I thought his puck battle, his tenacity was excellent. I thought he skated really well. PK faceoffs, he’s done a good job stepping in, and he’s won a lot of key faceoffs on that right side.
“So we’ve got some personnel, if you want to stay in the lineup, you’ve got to play hard, and you’ve got to be bring something to the table every night.”
The rest of tonight’s forward lineup is below.
– Josh Norris, Tage Thompson and Jack Quinn
– Zach Benson, Noah Ostlund and Josh Doan
– Ryan McLeod, Justin Danforth and Peyton Krebs
– Kozak, Carrick and Beck Malenstyn