When: 7:00 PM Eastern
Where: Keybank Center, Buffalo NY
TV: BSDETX, MSG-B
Radio: 97.1 FM The Ticket // 1270 AM
Sabres Blog: Die by the Blade
Detroit heads into a spooky Halloween matchup in Buffalo where they find themselves tied with fellow up-from-the-basement crawler Sabres in points. Buffalo stands above Detroit due to their ten points all coming from wins and with a better goal differential than the Wings (+7)
The Sabres are led by defenseman Rasmus Dahlin with five goals and ten points in their eight games so far. Alex Tuch leads the team with six goals, but winger Victor Olofsson also has more goals (5) than any of Detroit’s top scorers.
Their last game was a come-from-behind OT win against Chicago. Special teams aren’t much to write home about for this team either, but in all of the looks about a fun budding rivalry with the Senators possible due to that team’s resurgence, the Sabres are reminding us not to keep overlooking them as a team hopeful of a future identity.
With the skate being delayed, we’re going to jump right into gameday updates.
No goalie controversy in Detroit. Despite a big performance from Ville Husso against Minnesota, Alex Nedeljkovic will get the nod tonight according to HSJ:
Alex Nedeljkovic expected to start for Red Wings tonight at Buffalo Sabres.
— Helene St. James (@HeleneStJames) October 31, 2022
As for the lineup, I wouldn’t expect much of a change from Saturday’s game. Here’s how they looked:
Erne-Larkin-Raymond
Kubalik-Copp-Perron
Zadina-Veleno-Luff
Soderblom-Suter-Smith
Chiarot-Seider
Maatta-Hronek
Hagg-Oesterle
Tough Luff
Matt Luff is expected to suit up tonight despite taking a slapshot to the kisser against Minnesota. Luff lost teeth and needed over a dozen stitches according to his agent:
Detroit forward Matt Luff took an 89 MPH slapshot off the chin last night against Minnesota, losing teeth and needing 16 stitches to repair the damage. He was on the ice for practice this morning. #LuffIsTough pic.twitter.com/zsBvcUIvsr
— Allan Walsh (@walsha) October 30, 2022
As for the Buffalo Sabres, they’re down a defenseman – which means we probably won’t see Red Wings alum Riley Sheahan tonight. This is a key development, because it means Buffalo is without three of their top defensemen: Ilya Lyubushkin, Mattias Samuelsson and Henri Jokiharju.
Here is how the lineup will stackup for Buffalo
Jeff Skinner-Tage Thompson-Kyle Okposo
Jack Quinn-Casey Mittelstadt-Victor Olofsson
JJ Peterka-Dylan Cozens-Alex Tuch
Peyton Krebs-Zemgus Girgensons-Rasmus Asplund
Jacob Byrson-Rasmus Dahlin
Kale Clague-Owen Power
Lawrence Pilut-Casey Fitzgerald
While Sheahan is out, another Red Wings alum is in. It’s expected that Eric Comrie will get the start for Buffalo.