How can the Buffalo Sabres replace Noah Östlund's role in the lineup?

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Östlund left Buffalo’s Game 5 loss with what appeared to be a left ankle or knee injury. He got tangled up along the boards with Bruins forward Casey Mittelstadt, and Mittelstadt fell on Östlund’s left leg. Östlund left the game and didn’t return. On Wednesday, Sabres coach Lindy Ruff didn’t have an encouraging update. “Yeah, he’s going to miss a period of time,” Ruff said. “The news wasn’t good, don’t exactly know how much we know, but he’s going to miss some time.” During Östlund’s five-on-five minutes in the series, the Sabres are outshooting the Bruins 15-6 and have 59 percent of the expected goals. Even though he was playing in his first playoff games, Östlund managed to change the way the Sabres were possessing the puck and creating scoring chances in the six and a half periods he played. He even helped spark the team’s struggling power play. The question now is what the Sabres do to replace Östlund. Josh Norris missed the last three games with an injury, but Ruff said he’s “ready to go.” The move with the least friction for the Sabres would be to have Norris take Östlund’s place on the line with Zach Benson and Josh Doan. Those three played on a line together at the beginning of the postseason. But in two games, that line had a 35 percent expected goal share at five-on-five and got outscored by the Bruins 2-0. When Östlund replaced Norris at center on that line, the trio had a 71 percent expected goal share and outscored the Bruins 2-0. So, does Ruff decide to put Norris back where he was and leave the rest of the lineup as it is, or will he make changes that could impact the rest of the lineup? “You make a good point that now we can just put Norris back in his spot, or we could shuffle,” Ruff said. “Overall, if you look at where our lines have been on the five-to-five play, all the lines have had great opportunities. Some lines have taken advantage of it, some haven’t, and there’s no hesitation with maybe flipping a piece around here or there. We’ve looked at the game. Like I said, there’s parts we need to get better at, whether we reevaluate where our lines are at and flip a few pieces around, we’ll get to that.” Ruff hasn’t made a significant change to the Sabres’ lines in a while. Peyton Krebs, Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch played more than 250 minutes at five-on-five this season, second on the team to Jason Zucker, Ryan McLeod and Jack Quinn, who played 446 five-on-five minutes. Those two lines have played together for all five playoff games as well. Will Ruff decide to disrupt one of those lines to balance things out in the absence of Östlund? Krebs has been great through five games of this series, but he was second among Buffalo’s forwards in ice time in Game 5 and didn’t register a single shot on goal. In overtime, Krebs had the puck near the offensive blue line and couldn’t get a pass through to McLeod, who would have had a chance at a breakaway. Krebs turned the puck over, and David Pastrnak took advantage with the game-winning goal. One play shouldn’t be enough to demote Krebs, but Benson has an established chemistry with Thompson and Tuch. Those three had a 55 percent expected goal share in more than 100 minutes at five-on-five this season. When Ruff talks about flipping a piece here or there, Benson is the one who can move up and down the lineup. The Sabres also have to figure out how to replace Östlund on the power play. McLeod got some of those minutes on Wednesday, but the Sabres also briefly used a two-defenseman look with Owen Power and Rasmus Dahlin out there together. Benson could also replace Östlund as a left-handed shot who excels at zone entries and has the puck retrieval and playmaking skill to help that top power play unit. If the Sabres advance deeper in the playoffs and Östlund remains sidelined, they could entertain the idea of playing Konsta Helenius, who just wrapped up his season in the AHL. Playing him one more game would burn the first year of his entry-level contract. But among the forwards in the organization, he’s the one with the skill to make an impact in the top nine. He’s still a few weeks away from his 20th birthday, but Helenius had four points in nine NHL games this season and was a point-per-game player in the AHL this season. Depth forwards line Tanner Pearson and Josh Dunne don’t offer the same skill set for a top-nine role. Regardless, the Sabres are going to need more from Norris, who appeared to be playing through injury early in this series. Norris, who makes $7.95 million per year, has the talent to play like a top-six center. But the question is whether he is healthy enough to play at that level. The Sabres haven’t gotten the best version of Norris yet in this series, but now they need that heading into Game 6. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms