Sabre thoughts: a great question for the goalkeeper, the score of Jack Quinn score and more

This weekend crossed Buffalo’s Sabre season. Saturday they lost 7-4 against the Fellow Conference Eastern Conference Filodelphia Flyers. Coach Lindy Ruff said the team played “Christmas hockey” by distributing gifts to flyers during the game.

The next day, the Sabre went to Washington, DC to play the capital, which are second in the NHL ranking. The Sabre won 8-5 in a game back and forth that asked the Sabre to resist multiple return efforts.

Throughout the season, Sabre have been a team that can beat any team in the league and equally able to lose against any team in the championship. In the last six games against the teams in a playoff position, the Sabre are 5-1. From the new year, they are also 8-8 against teams not in a playoff position and 10-6-1 against the teams in a playoff position. The Sabre are only 3-6 this season against the Flyers, Kraken, the predators, the Blackhawks and the unique five-team sharks below them in the NHL ranking based on the percentage of points-but are 6-3-2 against the first five teams in the NHL based on the percentage of points.

The Sabre clearly have the tendency to expect an easier night against some teams. They do not have the right to expect it to be given where they are in the ranking, but that’s what they did too often. This is one of the reasons why I am 27 ° in the NHL as a percentage of points starting from Sunday. The inability to close the games, the special teams in difficulty and the defense and the inconsistent goalkeeper have retained a team that has the third place of five out of five in the NHL.

While the Sabre end the latest games of the season, the direction must evaluate what is real and what is not when it comes to this list and make the necessary changes. And some players in particular gave Ruff and the company to think about with their recent performances.

1. Jack Quinn is again marking again.

Quinn had three back-to-back points during the weekend. Now he has points in four consecutive games and eight points in five games since Ruff has scratched him for losing a meeting and has combined his maximum career in a season with 14 goals with 34 points this season, 23 percent of his points has arrived in the last five games. It took 28 games to hit the eight points sign at the beginning of the season.

Quinn is a free free agent this summer. This end of season push should not be intense in the Sabre contractual plans for him. It is not a bad thing that Quinn is starting to find some trust. Maybe it can take it next season. But the Sabre should not ban, nor should they pay for it as a player on whom they can count among the first six, because for most of this season it has not been reliable in that role. Quinn should earn everything he gets and the Sabre should not pay in excess for the end of season production.

James Reimer celebrates the victory against capital. (Amber Searls / IMAGN images)

2. Sabre have many problems to solve this offseason. The goalkeeper should not have been one of them.

Last summer, the general manager Kevyn Adams signed the goalkeeper Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen with a five-year contract for a value of $ 4.75 million per season. Luukkonen has just been out of a season in which he started 50 games for the first time in his career. He had 2.57 goals against the average and a percentage of savings of 0.910, and was particularly good in the second half of the season after starting the third season in the depth table of the Buffalo goalkeeper. It was a Breakout performance for the choice of the second round of 2017 and Adams rewarded him with a long -term agreement.

This season has been a very different story. Saturday, Luukkonen set a new maximum career with his 52nd start. Lindy Ruff gave him the workload of a goalkeeper n. 1 high end; Luukkonen was not up to the workload. Among the goalkeepers with at least 20 games played this season, Luukkonen has 48th place in a goal saved above, according to Moneypuck. A 7-3 defeat against the Flyers on Saturday was the last example of his inconsistency this season: according to Natural Stat Trick, Luukkonen has allowed those seven goals on only 2.59 goals expected against. This is the second time in the last six games Luukkonen has allowed seven goals.

He recently had a week between departures and Ruff hoped that he would help him restore his game after an approximate patch. But Luukkonen was unable to find a furrow that played a defense he loses.

Lately, James Reimer has been the best goalkeeper for Sabre. The problem is that he has a one -year contract and recently turned 37. In the meantime, Devon Levi spent most of the season in the HL after struggling in the NHL at the beginning of this season. Will Sabre contain Levi to be the main backup of Luukkonen again or will it allow him to have more time in minors? And with the way luukkonen is playing, can you count to play 50 games again?

Sabres have enough problems to solve. They cannot afford to be disappointed through the goalkeeper in a 2025-26 season of Make-OR-Break.

3. From 1 January, only three players on the Sabre have a share of Goal scheduled for 50 percent, according to natural statistical makeup. One is Zach Benson, who leads the sabers to that category this season. Another is Rasmus Dahlin, the best player of the team.

The other is Peyton Krebs. He has only eight goals and 23 points this season that plays a defensive role, but they are two goals and four points from the career tops for him. Krebs was a healthy scratch for the first game of the season. An injury has opened a place in training for the second game, and since then Krebs has not lost a game.

He remained a year with an accessible contract and is one of the players who has constantly played with the attitude that Ruff has tried to persist from this group. What means for the next season remains to be seen, but Krebs has achieved a more important role lately due to some injuries and the way he played.

4. When you have a season like the one that Sabre are having, it is nice to have clarity on at least a few players. The Sabre have it with Tage Thompson, Alex Tuch and Dahlin. Thompson has three goals away from hit 40 for the second time in his career. Tuch now has 30 goals for the second time in his career and should reach a maximum of career this season. Sunday Dahlin, who played in his 500th NHL game, will only be shy from a point for play this season despite the fight against injuries at the beginning of the season.

(Top of Jack Quinn’s photo: Hannah Dothing / Getty Images)