Coming off a three-game winning streak, the Buffalo Sabres return to Key Bank Center to face two of the NHL’s best road clubs, starting with the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday. The Sabres are holding onto the second wildcard spot in the Eastern Conference with an 11-9-1 record and will get leading scorer Tage Thompson back in the lineup after missing five games with a lower-body injury.
“(Tage) felt he needed a couple of really good practices. You go into the last couple of games and you’re not practicing as a team and you’re not practicing in between (games). It was going to be hard to evaluate really where he was at.” Ruff said on Tuesday.
Thompson skated in his usual spot between JJ Peterka and Alex Tuch without any flareups on Wednesday and Ruff indicated that the center was good to go.
Related: Sabres First Quarter Report Card – Center
The Sabres are holding on to the final Eastern Conference wildcard spot with 23 points (tied with Boston, but Buffalo has two games in hand) and are hoping to stay in that spot because the chances of making the playoffs if they are in the top 8 are between 75 – 80%. Earning a victory coming off a lengthy road trip is traditionally a difficult hurdle for a club, and that will be especially difficult against the Wild, who are in second spot in the Central Division and have only one regulation loss in 13 road games.
“We gave (the players) the extra day to try to recover,” Ruff said. (Tuesday’s) practice didn’t look that good. I thought today actually look better. Normally it would be optional, today we just wanted to get out there, get the feet and hands going, and try to execute better than yesterday.”
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, who has won five games in a row (Devon Levi took the loss against Montreal after Luukkonen was pulled after two periods against Montreal), will get the start for Buffalo. Filip Gustavsson will be between the pipes for Minnesota.
Related: Sabres First Quarter Report Card – Defense
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