Sabres look to end scoring drought in New York

NEW YORK - Following a loss at home to Montreal on Friday, Phil Housley called upon the leadership group of the Buffalo Sabres to step up and get the team on track. The message from their coach, Jack Eichel said, was received and even welcomed.
"We're all professionals," Eichel said. "We're all grown men. I don't think anyone's feelings are getting hurt. I don't think anyone's got a problem with that and holding people accountable. It needs to happen. It's happened on a lot of teams I've played on and there's no reason it shouldn't happen here."

The Sabres will look to end a three-game slide when they visit the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night. Buffalo has scored just one goal in those three games, including shutout losses to Nashville and Montreal.
The Sabres outshot the Canadiens, 35-24, on Friday and had multiple grade-A scoring opportunities that they were unable to capitalize on. It's the details of their game that left Housley disappointed, such as one-on-one battles and their presence at the Montreal net.
"Shot mentality, that's going to create offense," Housley said. "More important is getting to zone one. Even though we had all those attempts, we had the shots on net, we had the chances, there wasn't a lot of second opportunities.
"Yeah, we had some glorious looks. We didn't finish. That's going to happen in games but if we keep pounding the message of getting to zone one, getting traffic in front of the net, eventually that's going to crack."
Buffalo's lineup will remain the same, with the exception of Robin Lehner getting the start in net. It will be Lehner's first appearance since March 15, when he made 34 saves in a loss to Toronto. The goaltender missed time with an injury in addition to being part of a three-man rotation with Chad Johnson and Linus Ullmark.
The Sabres are 0-1-1 against the Rangers this season, with both losses having come in one-goal games.

"They've come out in both games that we've played against them and they were able to get that one or two-goal lead," Housley said. "We fought and battled back, which is great on our part, but I think just being ready to play, we gave up a goal early in the first period here right on our first shift.
We can't afford the luxury of chasing games, so we're going to try to come out and have a good start, establish our forecheck and create some momentum off it."
Coverage on MSG-B begins at 6:30 p.m., or you can listen live on WGR 550. The puck drops at 7.

Projected lineup

20 Scott Wilson - 90 Ryan O'Reilly - 23 Sam Reinhart
28 Zemgus Girgensons - 15 Jack Eichel - 29 Jason Pominville
17 Jordan Nolan - 71 Evan Rodrigues - 13 Nicholas Baptiste
67 Benoit Pouliot - 22 Johan Larsson - 21 Kyle Okposo
6 Marco Scandella - 55 Rasmus Ristolainen
45 Brendan Guhle - 8 Casey Nelson
4 Josh Gorges - 93 Victor Antipin
40 Robin Lehner
35 Linus Ullmark