Alex Lyon is expected to start again for the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday night, giving Buffalo the same goalie it used when it pushed through a close game in Chicago. The Sabres meet the Dallas Stars at 8 p.m. EST at American Airlines Center, and Lyon’s second straight start arrives with Buffalo still looking for a way to turn better stretches into points.
Buffalo enters at 8-7-4 and is winless in its last three games at 0-2-1. The Sabres were beaten 8-3 by Tampa Bay on Wednesday before taking Chicago to overtime on Thursday, and Lyon returned from injury in that game to stop 22 of 25 shots. Lindy Ruff said there was “a lot of good on the defensive side of it,” but added that Buffalo missed chances to make better use of its offensive-zone time. For the Sabres, the search is not simply for more offense or more caution, but for a balance that keeps them in the game long enough to cash in when chances come.
That task gets harder against a Dallas team that has been one of the league’s stronger defensive clubs, allowing just 23.3 shots per game and 1.72 high-danger chances per game. Even so, the Stars come in after an 8-3 home loss to Winnipeg on Thursday, a result that cut against the usual shape of their game. Jake Oettinger was pulled after allowing six goals on 27 shots in that defeat, though he had posted a 26-save shutout in Buffalo last month. Dallas also expects to be without Miro Heiskanen because of an upper-body injury, even after he took part in Saturday’s morning skate, while Lian Bischel is also expected to be unavailable after exiting Thursday’s loss.
That leaves the Stars trying to steady a defense-first structure that was badly exposed in their last outing, while Buffalo tries to press without handing over easy chances the other way. The result should tell more about where both teams really are than the records suggest, because this matchup pairs one club trying to rediscover its scoring touch with another trying to prove a rare collapse was a one-night problem.
