“I think a lot of it is just being responsible, and then a lot of the time if you can defend hard and pretty quick, you still give yourself a chance to go have some offense and still have some juice for offense,” Zucker said. “But then again, that’s kind of when our speed can take over.
“So, it’s been good. Again, hopefully we can just keep building that aspect of our game, the chemistry of our game, and keep getting better.”
2. The Sabres remain without a power-play goal through their first eight games, but Ruff said postgame on Tuesday that he liked the quality of chances they generated on their one opportunity against the Stars’ top-ranked penalty kill. They maintained possession in the offensive zone and had five shot attempts during that power play, including one that hit the post.
Zucker said he’s seen progress in the Sabres’ approach with the extra man as the season has progressed.
“I think we’re generating more,” he said. “We’re keeping it a little bit more simple and I think to start we were trying to make seam pass after seam pass, make things really complicated. Now, it’s becoming a little bit more simple, focusing on getting more pucks to the net, bodies to the net – creating a little bit of chaos for the penalty kill and then from there hopefully we can capitalize. I think last game we hit a post, we had a couple nice chances, and ultimately we just got to bear down. We’ve got to hit one of these, and then hopefully they’ll just start falling after that.”
3. The Sabres spent a portion of practice working on defending 6-on-5 opportunities. It was relevant considering the game on Tuesday, when the Stars – trailing by three goals – pulled goaltender Jake Oettinger for the first time with over five minutes remaining and ended up scoring twice.
While Ruff did point out areas he felt the Sabres could have been stronger 6-on-5 against the Stars – particularly neutral-zone and defensive-zone pressure – the situational work at practice was simply the continuation of a season-long theme.
“To be quite honest, we’ve practiced it almost every day,” Ruff said. “I’ve made it a point since day one of camp, just for the fact I’ve told them that when teams get down, every line has to be ready to play because they’re pulling the goalie now with five, six minutes like they did last night. Nobody can be surprised when all of a sudden the goalie’s out with five minutes and we don’t know how to react.”
4. The Sabres took the ice in black-and-red practice jerseys, readying their equipment for Saturday’s home game against the Detroit Red Wings. It will be the first of 15 appearances for “goathead” third jerseys this season.
