Montador back in the lineup
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Steve Montador will be back in the lineup on defense for the Buffalo Sabres tonight against the Carolina Hurricanes after sitting out three times in the last seven games. Two were healthy scratches and Montador missed Tuesday's game against Boston after tweaking his hip Saturday in Columbus. Andrej Sekera will join Nathan Paetsch and Patrick Kaleta as the scratches.
"Hopefully we'll get a good solid game from him," coach Lindy Ruff said of Montador after the team's pregame skate today in the RBC Center. "We want him to get back into form. He missed one game because of injury and hopefully he can give us what he's given most of the year."
Like most of the Sabres' blueliners, Montador began to struggle mightily on the team's West Coast trip and has yet to snap out of the funk. Buffalo enters tonight's game on an 0-4-1 slide and just 2-7-2 in the last 11.
"The biggest thing is details," Montador said. "We're playing well at times. On that long trip, we played well enough to win more games but made too many big mistakes to eventually lose them. And I think that's stayed in our game more that we wanted to. You're going to make mistakes but it's how we recover for them and limit them as much as possible.
"It's been going well in stretches of games, sometimes for two or 2 1/2 periods. So we know it's there. It's close. It's just a matter of staying mentally focused and doing it for 60 [minutes]."
In the final road game before the Olympic break, Ryan Miller will be in goal for Buffalo trying to snap out of his February funk (0-31, 3.47 GAA, .891 save percentage). He'll be opposed by Carolina's Manny Legace, who beat the Sabres last week in HSBC Arena and is 4-0 in his career against Buffalo.
The Hurricanes, meanwhile, will be trying to equal their season high of four straight wins. They're 7-2 in their last nine games and 17-13-2 since the calendar hit December. Carolina opened the season 5-17-5, essentially ending its playoff hopes in the first 27 games.
---Mike Harrington
(www.twitter.com/bnharrington)
