Five things to watch when the Calgary Flames take on the Buffalo Sabres:
1. An exploitable duo Things have been going pretty smoothly for the Sabres of late but one problem spot is the Tage Thompson + Casey Mittelstadt duo. Both are inexperienced, defensive liabilities and that shows in the numbers. At 5v5 they're giving up 36.5 scoring chances and 18.26 high-danger looks per 60 minutes. Making matters worse is they aren't generating much at the other end. As such, the Sabres control less than 35% of the chances when they're out there. I think the Flames have enough quality depth up front to really take advantage of the 3rd line, which wasn't the case in recent years.
2. A building block defensively The Flames played their best defensive game of the season last night. They tied a season-low allowing 11 high-danger chances (a couple of which came late on a 5-on-3) and gave the Maple Leafs nothing for the vast majority of the game. They were so good at bottling things up in the neutral zone and taking away Toronto's team speed. The Maple Leafs were forced to throw away numerous possessions by dumping it in as a result. It'll be interesting to see if they can duplicate that kind of performance in Buffalo or if they revert back to the sloppy defensive team we've seen for most of the season.
3. Mark Giordano The Flames are relying on the 35-year-old to facilitate everything offensively from the back end. Giordano ranks 2nd among all defenders in shot attempts (Hamilton ranks 1st) and he quarterbacks the entire offense, even at 5v5.
Against Toronto, for example, Giordano led Flames blueliners with five shot attempts and had more shot assists than the rest of the group combined. No player on the roster had more 5v5 shot contributions than Giordano (9). Expect him to be heavily involved again tonight.
Defense shot contribution numbers from Flames vs Maple Leafs. Giordano was definitely running the show. pic.twitter.com/DdIUxbe43m
— Todd Cordell (@ToddCordell) October 30, 2018
4. A breakthrough from James Neal The veteran sniper recorded 12 scoring chances (two high-danger) in his first six games and scored once. He has certainly taken it up a notch over the last half-dozen games piling up 20 chances (six high-danger) despite scoring only one goal. I think he's looking more and more dangerous on a nightly basis and it's only a matter of time before the floodgates really open.
5. David Rittich Despite mostly shaky play in front of Rittich, he has managed a .933 save percentage through five appearances. If he can come through with another strong effort in a B2B situation tonight, Bill Peters will have no choice but to give him more work – especially given Mike Smith's early struggles.
Here are the projected lineups:
Calgary
Johnny Gaudreau - Sean Monahan - Elias Lindholm Matthew Tkachuk - Mikael Backlund - Michael Frolik Sam Bennett - Mark Jankowski - James Neal Garnet Hathaway - Derek Ryan - Dillon Dube
Mark Giordano - T.J. Brodie Noah Hanifin - Travis Hamonic Juuso Valimaki - Rasmus Andersson
David Rittich
Buffalo (via DailyFaceoff.com)
Jeff Skinner - Jack Eichel - Jason Pominville Conor Sheary - Vladimir Sobotka - Sam Reinhart Tage Thompson - Casey Mittelstadt - Kyle Okposo Patrik Berglund - Johan Larsson - Zemgus Girgensons
Jake McCabe - Rasmus Ristolainen Marco Scandella - Zach Bogosian Rasmus Dahlin - Casey Nelson
Carter Hutton
Puck drop is just after 7:00 eastern and can be seen on MSG-B, SNF, and SNW.
Numbers via NaturalStatTrick.com and Corsica.Hockey.