Maybe some sun and some struggling opponents will be the cure for the Buffalo Sabres' road

woes.

The Sabres open a four-game Southern swing tonight in Atlanta against a quartet of teams

currently on the outside of the playoff race. The Thrashers, who have not lost a regulation

decision to Buffalo at Philips Arena since 2006, have dropped six straight (0-5-1) to slip to

11th in the East.

The Sabres then play Thursday at No. 10 Tampa Bay, Saturday at No. 12 Florida and Sunday at

No. 14 Carolina. But that hardly means things are going to be easy.

"We're playing teams that are fighting for a playoff spot or fighting for their pride,"

said winger Jochen Hecht. "And those are dangerous teams, too."



Road struggles have become a critical issue for the Sabres the last two months. They fell

to 1-6-3 in their last 10 road games with Saturday's 3-2 overtime loss at Detroit. The only

teams with worse road marks in their last 10 are New Jersey, Edmonton (both 1-8-1), and the

New York Islanders (1-9).

But coach Lindy Ruff took the glass is half-full approach after practice Monday at the Amherst

Center by pointing out his team has three of the last four points away from HSBC Arena,

combining Saturday's game with the March 7 overtime win at New York.

"There's a great opportunity," Ruff said of the trip. "Down the stretch, we want to make

sure our road play is better. Three out of the last four points on the road, getting a win in

New York and coming back and playing as well as we did the last 50 minutes in Detroit was

encouraging. We want to play as good as a road team as a home team."



"We want to play our system for 60 minutes, not change it up and get frustrated," said

Hecht. "Especially on the road when the home team is coming on strong, you don't want to

create chances for them."



The Sabres haven't been close to .500 on the road lately and they can largely blame the

special teams for those problems.

The Sabres are 24th in the NHL on the power play — 11th at home and 27th on the road.

Same story on the penalty kill, where Buffalo is fourth overall and No. 1 at home. But on the

road, the PK unit is just 21st.

Brian Rafalski's overtime goal Saturday came on a Detroit power play, a four-on-three

situation to start the OT after Tyler Myers' delay of game penalty with 1:13 left in

regulation.

"If you want to point to one thing, the one area I haven't been really able to change

enough is our road special teams," Ruff said. "We're going to continue to work on it. We went

back to a more basic setup today. The message I've been sending obviously hasn't been working

on the road."



The power play was 0 for 3 Saturday and that means it's 2 for 42 the last 13 games.

"We've sometimes shot when we could have passed," Ruff said. "We've talked about attacking

more when there's been seams that have been open. That area is my responsibility."



While the power play continued to confound the Sabres, they were happy to bounce back from

an early 2-0 deficit in Detroit. The Red Wings scored both goals in the first 3

minutes and had several other chances to score before the first of Hecht's two goals snapped

the Sabres back to attention.

"The first 10 minutes, they came out really hard," Hecht said. "They were snapping the puck

around, moving it quickly and we had a tough time adjusting to it. Once I got the goal,

everybody settled down a little bit and we fell into the game and got it close."



Tonight's game will be the first for the Sabres against ex-teammate Clarke MacArthur, who

was traded to the Thrashers at the March 3 deadline. He has two goals and is minus-4 in seven

games with Atlanta.