The New Jersey Devils are feeling pretty good about themselves following the sweep of a home-and-home series against the Carolina Hurricanes.
Tonight they begin another as they're in Buffalo to take on the Sabres before returning home to play them again tomorrow at the Prudential Center.
Jack Eichel has been out since the first couple days of the season, Evander Kane just returned from an opening night injury, Zach Bogosian is out and Ryan O'Reilly is banged up yet the Sabres have somehow stayed afloat in the Eastern Conference.
I had them penned as one of the worst teams in the league, which still could turn out to be true, but they enter tonight's game with a respectable (all things considered) 5-5-3 record. They've been playing decent hockey, too, as they're controlling a little more than 50% of the scoring chances at full-strength.
Given the injuries they're dealing with, and the fact their roster wasn't overly deep to begin with, that is pretty impressive.
I'm still not high on the Sabres this season but to their credit they've stayed in the race early despite a lot of things working against them.
We'll see if they continue to do so this weekend.
Here is a look at the lineup the Devils are expected to go with:
Taylor Hall - Travis Zajac - P.A. Parenteau Pavel Zacha - Adam Henrique - Kyle Palmieri Beau Bennett - Jacob Josefson - Mike Cammalleri Sergey Kalinin - Vern Fiddler - Nick Lappin
Andy Greene - Damon Severson Yohann Auvitu - Ben Lovejoy John Moore - Kyle Quincey
Keith Kinkaid
And the expected lines for the Sabres:
Evander Kane - Sam Reinhart - Kyle Okposo Marcus Foligno - Johan Larsson - Brian Gionta Will Carrier - Zemgus Girgensons - Matt Moulson Cole Schneider - Derek Grant - Nick Baptiste
Josh Gorges - Rasmus Ristolainen Dmitry Kulikov - Casey Nelson Jake McCabe - Cody Franson
Anders Nilsson
A few notes:
1) Nilsson is off to a decent start this season but he has a ~.901 career save percentage at the NHL level, which is well below league average. If the Devils test him and get a steady stream of pucks on net he should crack.
2) The Devils are third from last in shot attempts per 60 at 5 v 5 and the Sabres are 4th. They are both bottom-5 in scoring chances per 60 as well. Don't expect a high-event, high-scoring game.
3) Gorges has been a huge liability to the Sabres in the early going. He can't make plays with the puck and he doesn't have the foot speed to keep good gaps defensively, which means he essentially backs off and gives extra space. At 5 v 5 the Sabres are controlling less than 40% of the shot attempts with him on the ice. The Devils need to get the Hall line out against him as much as possible.
Tonight's game is scheduled for 7:00 pm eastern and can be seen on MSG+ and MSG-Buffalo.