DUNLEAVY: Good habits forming as schedule heats up

A number of random thoughts from the play-by-play booth, the hallways and the locker room….

For me, the bottom line on this year's Buffalo Sabres group seems to be that they are a team that battles every night. That is the first step in a long process of building a winner. I am not saying they are good enough on every night or that they battle hard enough every shift. But I do feel the intent is there and the will is there.
As the team gets healthier, we are at least seeing a habit developing of being in hockey games. Bad habits are easy to fall into, while good habits can be harder to maintain.
This is where I sense your Sabres are at this point in the 2016-17 season. Perhaps that is where I expected they would be: Trying to avoid the traps of bad habits and searching for a manner in which to maintain the good ones that will lead to winning on a more consistent basis.
Injuries are indeed a factor for any team's success in sport, and the Sabres have fallen prey to the unfortunate circumstance of injuries to players who were expected to be part of the good-habit-forming core of players assembled by general manager Tim Murray.
The Sabres management team, in my opinion, has done an extremely good job in making sure that every player who has had to play NHL games knows what is expected of them. It starts with the terrific job being done by Rochester Americans head coach Dan Lambert.
The preparedness of the call ups has been outstanding, and exactly what any franchise needs in order to weather storms like these.
Taylor Fedun, Justin Falk, Cole Schneider, Hudson Fasching, Cal O'Reilly, Nicholas Baptiste, Evan Rodrigues, William Carrier, Erik Burgdoerfer, Justin Bailey, Casey Nelson and Brendan Guhle (when he was up on emergency recall from the WHL), have not looked out of place when called upon by Dan Bylsma to fill a role within the framework of the team's game plan.

Could some of their play been better at times? Could there have been hopes of more offense at times and better defensive play? Well, of course. But when you have so little time to practice in this era of NHL scheduling and travel, I would say the job done to hold down the fort has been a success.
We all have seen what is on the horizon for Buffalo when the starters all get back to good health. Some of what we have seen has shown itself to be in need of grooming in the AHL and there is NOTHING wrong with that. I am certain the GM and the coaching staff have a better read on where their prospects are at because of their rushed call to duty.
Yes, there are teams to leap frog over to be a real Wild Card contender (and even second place in the Atlantic Division is still in play). A five or six game winning streak, really, is what has to happen for the Sabres to put themselves in the serious thick of it when it comes to mid-January.
When you look at a healthy Buffalo roster and say to yourself, "Should this group be as good as Philadelphia, New Jersey, Boston, Detroit, Tampa and Florida," what is your answer? At the moment these teams are among those ahead of Buffalo in the standings - and not by a mile. Ottawa and Boston both have 34 points while the Sabres sit six points back with a game in hand on the Senators and two games on the Bruins.
You don't make these differences up with a win here and a loss there and another win here. That winning streak of five to six games is a must. It not only puts Buffalo in a good place in the standings, it would signify that good habits are being developed.
And Buffalo has a chance to make up some ground this month as their next nine games are against Eastern Conference foes. Four of them are against Atlantic Division opponents, including a home and home set against Boston to close out the calendar year.
I spoke with one Sabre player who admitted it's been tough to battle through games where only one or two goals are scored. You hang in there the entire game seemingly - with everyone battling their hardest - only to have that one moment get away from you and signify who you are right there and then: The second best team on that night and cemented where you started the night in the standings because of it.

I'm sure last night's six-goal outburst has the players feeling better about the offense they are capable of manufacturing. They battled back from a two-goal deficit and did not let those little mistakes snowball.
But it is hard to score in the NHL on most nights it would seem. When teams are 5-on-5, there seems to be so little room to get the puck through to the net because of the "structure" of most teams' game plans. I miss end-to-end rushes in the game I watched growing up.
Nowadays, when Jack Eichel gets the puck and lifts his head at his own blue line, I can sense the entire rink along with me is hoping, quietly saying to ourselves, "Take that puck all the way to the net Jack!"
He will have moments he manages to split the other teams D or take it wide down the wall, but those moments - even for Jack - will be harder and harder to come by as teams get more accustomed to his being back in the Sabres lineup.

Sam Reinhart, at this point, appears to be who he is. That is, a player who is going to score his goals in tight rather than roaring down the wing. Tip-ins or crashing away at the side of the net is where 23 seems to be cashing in. What is impressive is that those are not easy areas to get to, and quite frankly it's a sign of some of those "good habits" being formed by Sam to get there on a nightly basis.
Kyle Okposo is everything you could ask for in being a solid player on the ice and a real pro to have around your younger future core players.
Ryan O'Reilly is winning 58.5 percent of his faceoffs, which is second among all NHL players with at least 500 draws taken. Add that to his offensive production (third on the team with 17 points) and he is as solid a two-player as you could ask for.
Marcus Foligno and Johan Larsson's habits are improving as well. I still credit that to their willingness to learn from captain Brian Gionta, their leader on that line.
Every chance I call a game, I refer to that line as the most reliable one Dan Bylsma can send over the borders on most nights. He certainly starts them on many nights to, I would guess, set a tone for how to play the game honestly and the right way.
I also wanted to share my thoughts on the play of Jake McCabe. I see this player as being a real cornerstone for this franchise on the blue line for many years to come. His play, in my eyes anyway, keeps on improving. Tenacity, positioning, passing, confidence - all improving on a nightly basis. Add to that, Jake does not want any part of losing a 1-on-1 battle for the puck along the boards.
His play of late alongside Rasmus Ristolainen has proven to me that his game has indeed gotten better. He shouldered the added ice time in wake of those injuries very well.
If you are one who thinks goaltending is an issue in Buffalo, we are definitely on different pages there. And that is OK. But for me, the play of Lehner and Anders Nilsson has been very good. As a team with these two back stopping them, Buffalo is in the top 10 for goals against average.
I had a chance to chat with Andrew Allen, Buffalo's goaltending coach, before yesterday's game.

No game is easy for the opponent. I know that is of little consolation to you the long-time die-hard Sabre fan. But trust me, it's the right direction this team is headed down.