After resuming the NHL season with an impressive sweep of a three-game road trip, the Buffalo Sabres return for their first home game in almost a month when they host the Pacific Division-leading Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday.
The Sabres, second in the Atlantic Division four points behind the Tampa Bay Lightning, last played at home on Feb. 5 when they dropped a 5-2 decision to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Not that they’re complaining. Buffalo is 16-2-1 in its last 19 road contests. The Sabres are on a road point streak of nine games, one off the team record, including an impressive 6-2 victory at Tampa Bay on Saturday.
Josh Norris scored two goals and Rasmus Dahlin had a goal and two assists on Saturday to lead the Sabres, who jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the first 22 minutes en route to snapping the Lightning’s 10-game home win streak. The win capped a road trip that started with a 2-1 victory at New Jersey on Wednesday and featured a 3-2 win over the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers in the front end of a back-to-back on Friday.
“It just shows that we’re a really good team. We’ve known that for a while now,” Norris said when asked what kind of statement the successful trip made. “I think we have a lot of belief in ourselves right now, and it’s a lot of fun playing.”
The Sabres, looking to snap a 14-year playoff drought, are 24-5-2 over their last 31 games. They needed just 14 shots to score five goals and chase Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, who leads the league with a 2.22 goals-against average.
“I think we played the right way … and we played so fast,” Dahlin said. “I don’t know, maybe they weren’t ready, or we just took it to another level, which was unreal. It was fun.
“We don’t get too high, we don’t get too low,” Dahlin added. “We just stick with it and work really hard. There were a lot of goals today, a lot of blocked shots, a lot of good box-outs. We played the right way. It’s hard to play against us right now.”
Vegas will be playing the fourth game of a five-game road trip that started with a 6-4 comeback win at Los Angeles, followed by back-to-back losses at Washington (3-2) and Pittsburgh (5-0) on Friday and Sunday.
Slow starts have become a trademark for Bruce Cassidy’s squad this season. The Golden Knights needed a five-goal third period to pull out the victory over the Kings and have been outscored 9-1 in the first two periods over the first three games of the trip.
“It’s not a great stat,” Vegas defenseman Brayden McNabb said. “It’s been addressed, and we need to keep working to figure it out.”
The Golden Knights head into Tuesday’s game with just a one-point lead over second-place Anaheim in the Pacific Division and could be without captain Mark Stone.
Stone, second on the team in scoring with 60 points, left Sunday’s loss late in the first period and didn’t return after getting hit across the upper left arm with a stick during a neutral zone check by Penguins defenseman Kris Letang.
“He’ll be day-to-day,” Cassidy said of Stone following an optional team practice on Monday. “He was going to get treatment this afternoon.”
