Time: 7:00 Eastern
Place: KeyBank Center, Buffalo NY
TV: BSDET, MSG-B
Radio: 97.1 FM The Ticket  //  1270 AM
Sabres Blog: Die by the Blade

Preview

We’ve got quite the battle brewing in the middle of the Atlantic so far here in early November. The Buffalo Sabres jumped out of the gate to a three game winning streak and  nine points in their first six games – a stretch that included a 5-1 win over Tampa.

Since then, they’ve come back down to Earth hard.  They just returned from a four-game Western road trip in which they earned an overtime win against the Ducks before losing three straight to the Kings, Sharks, and Kraken. This will be their first game back East since then.

Newcomers Alex Tuch and Peyton Krebs will have as much impact on this game as the outgoing Jack Eichel would have, considering none of them are expected to play. Tuch is on IR and Krebs is assigned to the Rochester Americans.

In terms of how they’ve done it, the Sabres are only middle of the pack in terms of scoring goals, but are tied for 11th in preventing them.  Detroit is behind the Sabres in both categories, well behind in both special teams departments.

The Wings skated with Pius Suter on their first line in practice yesterday. No update as of yet in terms of when we can expect to hear from Dylan Larkin again so we’ll just stand by for news there. In the meantime this is a winnable game for Detroit if they can play like they want it.