Granato stays with remixed lines against New York
The Buffalo Sabres are wearing their throwback Red, White, and Black jerseys for the first time on Saturday against the New York Islanders, and the club is hoping that is not the only thing their fans will see change.
The Sabres faced the Islanders one week ago in their season opener at the UBS Arena and lost 3-2 on a disputed third-period goal from Casey Cizikas. This time around, New York will not have their Vezina Trophy-nominated goalie in Ilya Sorokin between the pipes and the Sabres will not have prized rookie Devon Levi in goal. Sorokin played at home on Friday in a 5-4 overtime loss to New Jersey, while Levi is recovering from a lower-body injury suffered in a 4-3 loss to Calgary on Thursday.
Sabres head coach Don Granato shook up his forward lines at practice on Friday and indicated on Saturday that he will keep those combinations against the Isles.
The Sabres top line remained split up, with Tage Thompson centering Jordan Greenway and Dylan Cozens, and Casey Mittelstadt centering Jeff Skinner and Alex Tuch. Victor Olofsson skated on the third line with Tyson Jost and J-J Peterka, and Peyton Krebs shifted back to centering the fourth line with Zemgus Girgensons and Kyle Okposo.
"They were the lines that we finished the year with last year, in the last seven or eight games when Thompson had an ankle injury (and) was struggling taking face-offs because of the injury. We put Cozens with him, and Mittelstadt with Tuch and Skinner. They were good a year ago, so for me, I went back to some familiarity with all of us." Granato said. "We absolutely need to get out of our heads a little bit and just play. We did not look and play the style we have played to our identity yet this year and you ask yourself as a coach, what are the reasons that could be contributing to this."
Granato indicated that he has liked the improvement the club has paid on the penalty kill, but there continue to be growing pains five-on-five, where they gave up all four goals against the Flames.
Backups Eric Comrie and Semyon Varlamov will make their first starts of the season for Buffalo and New York.
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