The Dallas Stars head into their game against the Buffalo Sabres 2-4-1 in the past seven games and are coming off a 5-4 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Saturday. The Stars came back from being down 4-0 to tie the game before losing. "That could've easily been one of those games you saw around the league that's 10-1 last night," coach Lindy Ruff said. "But you've got to give these guys some credit, they hunkered down, they battled hard to get back in the game and it seems to be the theme for the whole year. We're battling hard; we'll lose a game or we lose a couple and battle hard to get to .500, a game above .500, two games above .500. I think because of how close it really is, we haven't put a string together. Most teams that have got by the hurdle put a string of games together and we haven't been able to do that yet." Antti Niemi gave up three goals on the first three shots he faced before he was pulled for Kari Lehtonen, who may start against the Sabres. The Stars have scored 22 goals in the past seven games, but have been shut out once and had one goal in a 3-1 loss to the Florida Panthers on Dec. 31. "I'd say some of our recent woes have been the scoring," Ruff said. "I thought we had a ton of opportunities to finish off St. Louis in St. Louis, even in the third period. I look at the Anaheim game, we didn't score. It was a 1-0 game, we didn't score. So for me I look at our road scoring first and then our special teams battle when we hit the road."
