The Buffalo Sabres came into Friday's game against Washington on a three-game winning streak, two coming in overtime and Wednesday's shootout victory against Pittsburgh. Then the game against the Caps went to a shootout.
The common-thread: Coach Don Granato ran out checking line center Cody Eakin to take the opening draw to get possession and then come off the ice.
Eakin cleanly won the draws in Calgary and Vancouver as the Sabres dominated OT possession, jousted Sidney Crosby to an even battle as the Sabres regained the puck on Wednesday and then bested Washington's Evgeny Kuznetsov on Friday.
"I just had the hot stick for the game and ended up playing a couple and the trend continues," Eakin said before Friday's game. "It may not be me every time but it's mostly working so I guess (it may be)."
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Eakin said he didn't automatically jump over the boards when it was time for OT Wednesday, but waited for Granato to give him the signal to go out against Crosby. The pair initially battled before Crosby's stick broke and Eakin drew the puck back. And he stayed on the ice as the Sabres entered the offensive zone.
"He actually had my number for most of the night, especially on his forehand," Eakin said. "However, you got to do it, just try and go strong and you want that possession especially against guys like that on the opposing side.
"And if there's a 2-on-1, you're not gonna change. That would be a bit of a bonehead play. It didn't end up panning out so you go off after that. But you've just got to try to read it and get off the ice when you can."
Among players who have taken at least 500 draws this season, Eakin entered Friday's game tied for 15th in the NHL in faceoff percentage at a team-high 55.9%, the best mark of his career. He went 11-10 on Friday.
Among Buffalo's other regular centers, Casey Mittelstadt entered Friday at 44.6%, Dylan Cozens was at 43.8% and Tage Thompson was at just 41.1%. As a team, the Sabres were last in the league at 46.2%.
"It's certainly an asset within a game," Granato said of Eakin's faceoff prowess. "We have three three guys in Cozens, Mittelstadt and Thompson that are learning the importance and value of having a center that can win draws because he's getting ice time they're not getting."
The Sabres were 1-7 this year in overtime-winning goals before the two victories on the Western Canada trip and have been appreciably better in extra time in recent games.
"The confidence has to come before the results," Granato said. "If you're waiting for results to become confident, then you're probably in trouble and I felt our guys went into those overtimes confident and executed the way they need to execute. So I obviously like the fact that they've been rewarded for it, but we've looked better, too."
Eakin on jerseys
The Sabres wore their Heritage Classic jerseys Friday night and Eakin said it brought back good memories of the 5-2 win over Toronto outdoors at Hamilton's Tim Hortons Field on March 13.
"That was a real fun day. Real fun weekend," Eakin said. "We got there, the practice was cold, windy, we said, 'Oh, this is gonna be a tough one.' The wind cooled down, we had a little light snow and turned out to be perfect with a good win and a lot of laughs and joking around throughout the weekend. So it's one we want to remember."
Eakin was mainly responsible for the Sabres' grand entrance that day, as he engineered the team wearing basketball jerseys into the stadium of the fictional Flint Tropics from the 2008 Will Ferrell movie "Semi-Pro".
"We were kind of hemming and hawing about a bunch of different things, talking about movies. There's some good movie 'quoters' on the team," Eakin said. "We were quoting Semi-Pro and just kind of struck the idea that we should all do that. The other options weren't great. So that was pretty fun.
"Thankfully, for Amazon, we had to find a few different sellers but we were able to get all the jerseys. They actually turned out pretty good. And guys added a little character, whether it was running shoes, or armbands or whatever. It turned out to be fun."
Granato on Ovechkin
Granato marveled about Caps winger Alex Ovechkin during his pregame chat, and the words proved prescient as the 36-year-old scored his 41st goal of the season and extended his career total to 771, third all-time behind Gordie Howe (801) and Wayne Gretzky (894).
"You watched Gretzky, and it was 50 goals in 39 games (in 1981), 80-some goals a year, just crazy numbers, four seasons at 200 points," Granato said. "And then to have 'Ovi' closing in on him is pretty impressive. I can remember watching the game that my brother (Tony) was in (for Los Angeles) where Gretzky passed Gordie Howe. That was pretty amazing.
"It's hard to compare the eras, because there's so much hooking and holding in (Mario) Lemieux's and Gretzky's era. Sure, the goaltending was different. But the sticks were different, too. The way you can snap a puck now these sticks is amazing. You watch a 14-year-old kid shoot the puck and it's off the charts. It's as good as an NHL player back then. Because it's the sticks. So it's just so hard to compare but where they were in their eras, they're so far ahead of the other guys in their eras."
