BUFFALO | Artturi Lehkonen is not the most talkative in a press briefing. Sometimes, we even wonder if it does not make a point of being dull so as to be less in demand.
• Read also: CH: Jeff Petry admits his faults
His time in the tiny Buffalo Bandits locker room, where half a dozen reporters were waiting for him, Thursday at noon, was no different. Except that in three minutes, he managed to launch the most meaningful sentence of the day when called upon to speak out on the problems the team is going through.
“The atmosphere is bad. Losing makes you sweat, ”dropped the Finn.
“It’s heavy, admitted Jeff Petry, following his teammate on the podium. It’s no fun being in our position. “
This position is the penultimate in the Eastern Conference. They are 10 points behind the Pittsburgh Penguins, eighth and last place holders leading to the playoffs. It is to be in terrible shape on the day of American Thanksgiving.
As illustrated in these pages, in our edition of November 8, since 2013-2014, 93.7% of teams that took part in the playoffs were already in the playoff portrait or were behind by a maximum of four points in the playoffs. the fourth Thursday in November.
The 2013-2014 Stars, eight points behind, and the Blues, with seven, are the teams with the biggest turnaround.
The right way
Except that these teams had respectively three and two more games to play than their rivals. This is not the case with the Canadian.
“We are aware of the situation. But can we afford to look too far? You have to go one day at a time and focus on tomorrow [vendredi], argued Ducharme. We can talk about where we want to be on Thanksgiving and where we want to be at the end of the year, but there is a way to go and a way to do it. “
Working in the right way, putting in effort and energy would be good starting ingredients.
“The Sabers will not take pity on us. It’s our responsibility to get out of it. Sometimes the structure is there. Other times it’s not there. It’s like we’re thinking too much, trying to be too perfect, ”said Petry.
No, the Sabers will not take it easy. And we saw it clearly during the Montrealers’ first visit to the shore of Lake Erie, at the start of the season. The Canadian had been washed 5 to 1.
The Canadian driver did not want to reveal the identity of the goalkeeper who will face the Sabers’ shots. A decision will be taken in the morning.
In addition, Ducharme made slight changes to his first two lines. Jonathan Drouin now finds himself with Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield, while Tyler Toffoli occupied the left of Christian Dvorak and Josh Anderson.