Every team has dealt with injury and COVID-19 issues this season, but the Buffalo Sabres are pushing the limits of resiliency with their goaltending situation.
Their top two goalies have been out for an extended time, the next two in line are injured and the fifth option was suspended for three games for a questionable check. Buffalo was nearly down to its sixth option Saturday night in Arizona and now has to face the highest-scoring team in the NHL on Sunday night when it visits the Colorado Avalanche.
The good news is the No. 1 goaltender returned to action in the 3-1 over the Coyotes. Craig Anderson, out since Nov. 2 with an upper-body injury, stopped 27 shots, but he would be hard pressed to start two straight games after sitting out nearly three months. Dustin Tokarski could be in net after being cleared to play Saturday morning.
While Tokarski came back, Buffalo lost several other players to COVID-19 issues before Saturday’s win.
“Kind of looking at it from all angles here, it’s part serious, part comical,” Anderson said. “You don’t know what the next big surprise might be. First, it’s a couple players, then it’s some staff, and now we’re sitting here going, ‘All right, everyone is getting retested and we don’t know what the final results are going to be.’
“It’s definitely an interesting time and from my standpoint, you deal with it on a case-by-case basis, and you make the best of what you have.”
Colorado has learned to make do with several key players in and out of the lineup. The latest is Nathan MacKinnon, who suffered a broken nose against Boston on Wednesday and is out for at least a handful of games and possibly the All-Star Game next month.
Even without their best player, the Avalanche have kept rolling. They have won nine in a row, 17 straight at home and are 19-1-1 in their last 21 games. They’ve blown out some teams, but they always seem to find a way to win nail-biters, too.
“I don’t know what it is here recently, but they’re just finding ways to get the job done,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said of his players.
The Avalanche are averaging a league-best 4.14 goals per game despite MacKinnon having only nine this season. Others have picked up the slack, especially the third and fourth lines as well as the defensemen.
“There’s positives you can take from it,” Bednar said of MacKinnon’s absence. “I’m hoping Nate, who is going to miss the next couple games before the (All-Star) break and then I’m hoping he’s good to go after that, but it’s good experience, no question.”
Colorado has also received solid goaltending during its nine-game winning streak. Pavel Francouz has two shutouts in his last three starts, and Darcy Kuemper has given the Avalanche what they hoped when they traded for him in the offseason.
The two have become a solid goaltending duo as the Avalanche have risen to the top of the Western Conference with 65 points despite playing fewer games than their closest competition.
–Field Level Media
