Lindy Ruff is not waiting around for the Buffalo Sabres to sort themselves out.
After a 4-0 loss to the Dallas Stars dropped Buffalo to 2-2, Ruff made it clear Saturday’s matchup with the Utah Mammoth would come with a different look. The Sabres have yet to string together a complete 60-minute effort in the opening stretch of the season, and the coach is reaching for lineup changes in search of some life.
The biggest switch is in goal. Colten Ellis, who turned in a strong showing in Buffalo’s 3-2 overtime win over Minnesota earlier in the week, was in the starter’s net during Saturday morning skate and is expected to get the nod over Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen. Through three starts, Luukkonen is 1-2-0 with a 4.02 GAA and a .782 save percentage.
Alex Lyon was also on the ice Saturday, but Ruff said he is not close to returning. That leaves Ellis with a real chance to carve out more playing time if he can follow up his earlier performance against a Mammoth team that was hammered 6-1 by the Boston Bruins on Thursday.
Buffalo is also trying to squeeze more energy out of the bottom and middle of the lineup. Tyson Kozak will make his season debut, while veteran Sam Carrick is set to enter the mix as well. Both skated with Beck Malenstyn on the fourth line.
The top line also got a makeover. Josh Norris and Jack Quinn moved up, with Tage Thompson sliding to center. Elsewhere, Zach Banson and Noah Ostlund were paired with Josh Doan, while Peyton Krebs worked on the wing with Ryan McLeod and Justin Danforth.
Ruff said the message was about competition, details and winning the little battles that have been slipping away from his team.
“I think (with) any young player, (it) comes right down to some competing process. There's a lot of details that go into every shift, whether it's 50/50 help on face-offs.
So the compete part, the heavy compete on pucks, where I thought we got smoked (against Dallas)." Ruff said, "I don't think we've done a good job as a group... as a whole group, we haven't done a good job as first on puck and winning puck battles and staying in the battle.
The message this morning was about staying in the battle, or we're going to be a team that's going to score two goals a night. We got to get more of those on time.
We've got to win more battles."
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