The Buffalo Sabres need to improve their defensive play in order to defeat Carolina.
The Buffalo Sabres can’t allow that to continue tonight as they struggled in the net and on defense in their 6-4 loss to the St. Louis Blues on Thursday.
Priority one for the Buffalo Sabres needs to be to stop giving up goals early and disintegrating so easily when they don’t have the puck. The early goal allowed by them predicted a disappointing evening as they forced themselves to play catch-up hockey early on, even though they eventually tied the game at three in their 6-4 loss to the St. Louis Blues.
The Carolina Hurricanes had 43 shots on goal compared to New York’s 16 in their previous game, despite losing to the Islanders in a high-scoring match. That being said, anticipate that the Canes will attack the puck with intensity in this game, particularly if they want to capitalize on the Sabres’ poor defensive play in the opening minutes of some of their games.
Against the Hurricanes, the Buffalo Sabres cannot afford another subpar defensive performance.
Fortunately, the last time the Sabres faced Carolina, they played one of their better defensive games. They managed to escape with a point from the game despite losing in overtime, but it’s difficult to have faith in a team that surrendered six goals on Thursday and once gave up two goals in a 24-second period.
This team has a lot to overcome when they don’t have the puck because in the first period they not only gave up an early goal, but the Blues also scored again at 5:02. The Buffalo Sabres don’t need to drop another game to begin December and further regress in terms of win-loss (and points) totals.
The good news is that this team was very hot in December of last year, so maybe they can find their explosiveness again this year. Let’s hope the Blue and Gold play better when they don’t have the puck because that doesn’t mean they can afford to be careless defensively.
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The Tampa Bay Lightning have a 10-9-5 record going into December, and their last four games have shown a lot about the team’s inconsistency in 2023–24. Following an overwhelming 8-2 win on Nov. 24 over the Carolina Hurricanes, the team traveled west and experienced a power outage. As a result, they only managed to score one goal in each of their two losses on Nov. 27 and Nov. 28 against the Colorado Avalanche and the Arizona Coyotes, and on Nov. 30 against the Pittsburgh Penguins, they were unable to hold a league at home.
The current team statistics show a few problems that have contributed to the inconsistent play of the Lightning. Their extreme difficulty in 5-on-5 matches is the first thing that jumps out. During their initial
Andrei Vasilevskiy’s return should help the Lightning’s defensive statistics, but they still need to perform better in front of him than they did against Jonas Johansson and Matt Tomkins. This season, the Lightning have allowed an average of thirty shots on goal, ranking them 21st in the league. Only the Nashville Predators have allowed more high-danger scoring opportunities than the Lightning with those thirty shots per game.
Not shocking at all, particularly considering that he was named the NHL’s first star for November after being named the league’s second star for the week that ended on November 26. Kucherov recorded six multi-point performances, the most notable of which were five points on November 4 against the Ottawa Senators and four points on November 6 against the Toronto Maple Leafs in back-to-back games. Then, on November 24 at the Carolina Hurricanes, he tied a franchise record with six points. This was the first time an NHL player had recorded six points since December 7, 2022 (Tage Thompson, who had five goals and one assist with the Buffalo Sabres). In Lightning history, Kucherov’s 28 points ranked as the fourth-highest in a calendar month. Whatever the team’s problems are, it is
Head coach Jon Cooper gave everyone the reassurance that the team’s lack of offensive production had nothing to do with their effort following the two losses to the Avalanche and Coyotes. It’s simply been difficult for us. Not that the guys aren’t making an effort. We have to start forcing some of these pucks into the net at some point. Although that makes sense as an explanation, a review of the Coyotes game statistics shows that Lightning losses this season have followed a similar pattern. Despite managing 32 shots on goal, the team did not generate many high-danger opportunities from those attempts.
The team’s inability to handle the puck properly, which has hindered their efforts this season, was also evident in the defeat to the Penguins. The Lightning blew a commanding two-goal lead in the first period, but turnovers gave the Penguins plenty of chances to get back into the game and ultimately win. Cooper referred to these as “crazy, poor decisions” after the game. These two problems have been present in almost all of the Lightning’s losses this season.
If you look at the individual stats for turnovers, defensemen make up three of the top four Lightning players in that category. It is noteworthy that Kucherov leads the team in turnovers by a significant amount. On the other hand, he typically makes mistakes when trying to set up a goal on the offensive end or during a power play.
The defensive players’ mistakes, particularly during breakouts, have been a major factor in the Lightning’s inability to win the puck possession battle in their losses, even though those numbers do need to decrease. In this category, Erik Cernak, Victor Hedman, and Mikhail Sergachev are the three Lightning who lead the defense.
Point had a slow start to the season, but he has since picked up his scoring for the Lightning, leading to a hat trick in the team’s victory over the Hurricanes. With thirty, he now trails Kucherov in the team’s scoring lead with forty-nine. In his last five games, he has five goals and two assists.
Point and Kucherov have actually been a very dynamic combination. During the offensive explosion against the Hurricanes, they became the second pair of Lightning teammates to score five or more points in a single game. When Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis did the same against the Atlanta Thrashers on December 7, 2006, they joined them.
Be Ready: Matt Tomkins
The 29-year-old goalie deserves a little recognition for how well he handled being demoted to the Syracuse Crunch. On November 28, Tomkins led the Crunch to a 4-3 victory by stopping 21 of 24 shots, including all three Laval Rocket attempts in the shootout. He triumphed again on Friday (Dec. 5) after that performance.
December 2 and 4 are the Lightning’s back-to-back games against the Dallas Stars before a rematch with the Penguins on December 6. The Lightning, who are currently in fifth place in the Atlantic Division, must take care of these problems as soon as possible to avoid losing ground in the playoff race.
