Much of the Buffalo Sabres’ success this season has come because of their level of desperation and effort in games. On Thursday night against the Ottawa Senators, they were dealt a dose of their own medicine.
Final
Ottawa wins 4-1
The Game
If you bottled up the effort from the first period and spread it out over 60 minutes, this would’ve been an ideal game for the Sabres. Unfortunately for them, that wasn’t a task they were up to even after Mattias Samuelsson gave them a 1-0 lead at 8:49 of the second period.
This was a game that, on paper, was one which Buffalo should’ve had a huge advantage. There’s been enough drama surrounding the Senators thanks to Brady Tkachuk’s dad, Keith, lighting some fires on Brady’s podcast with his brother Matthew and put into question Linus Ullmark’s status as the No. 1 goalie there. The off-ice histrionics are one thing, but the team on the ice was also hampered by injuries to their top two defensemen Jake Sanderson and Thomas Chabot. With discord and absences, the Senators had an uphill climb before the puck was dropped.
The stress on their blue line was made worse early in the first period when Tyler Kleven was injured after a shot block and left the game and had to play with five defensemen. Looking back in hindsight, Buffalo’s plan of attack should’ve been built around stressing out their defensemen and wearing them down. It just never came to pass.
“That’s all we talked about, was they were down to five and we didn’t stress them out enough,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. “I just felt (we) didn’t generate enough high-quality opportunities, and the game was sitting there and they took it over.”
That point of emphasis got lost in part due to the pressure Ottawa’s forwards put on Buffalo. Their forecheck stepped up and took away time and space from anyone in white with the puck. The Sabres didn’t have time to skate with it and efforts to find outlets to pass or bank pucks off the wall or glass and down the ice either resulted in the Senators getting it back or icings. Never mind getting free ice to create rushes, the Sabres couldn’t get enough time to take care of the puck to even get going the other way.
“They’re clearly a depleted D core, but just because they’re depleted with some of their best guys doesn’t mean that they’re not competent NHL defensemen,” Sabres forward Jason Zucker said. “They still play hard. They have skill. They still make plays. They do all the little things. They’re boxing out, blocking shots. You have to earn your ice no matter where you are and who is in the lineup. I don’t think we were at our best tonight.”
Words like that would generally point towards having a lack of respect for an opponent, but that’s not how the game was played. The respect was there and the recognition of the overall skill of the team was there, but the effort didn’t match and that got more and more apparent the deeper the game got.
After Samuelsson’s goal gave Buffalo the lead, it was nearly seven minutes later when an attempt to float the puck out of the defensive zone was gloved down at the blue line by Senators forward Ridly Greig. With the Sabres already headed up the ice, that play caught the Sabres scrambling. Greig got the puck to Tkachuk who rifled a pass to Dylan Cozens driving to the net and tipped the puck past Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to tie the game.
“Kind of a grind of a game; definitely didn’t have ours,” Samuelsson said. “To go up 1-0, I think, should’ve elevated our game, too. Maybe a little bit simpler and just put some pressure back on them. Just shot ourselves in the foot, I think.”
With a 1-1 game after two periods and the ice clearly tilting in Ottawa’s direction, the intermission gave Buffalo an opportunity to reset and set things right. The catch there is it also gave Ottawa the chance to be inspired by how they were taking it to a rival team that was looking to celebrate on their ice.
In the third, after a defensive zone draw, Artem Zub’s shot from the blue line was tipped by Lars Eller and past Luukkonen at 5:55 to put the Senators up 2-1. Buoyed by the go-ahead goal, the Senators continued to press the Sabres anytime they had the puck and made it difficult. The boost a team gets from scoring is infectious and the Sabres just didn’t have the antidote to push back. Twice with Luukkonen pulled for the extra skater in the final two minutes the Senators were able to add insurance from Greig and Shane Pinto to provide the final score.
“I thought they were better than us, simple as that,” Ruff said. “Their compete was better, they won more battles. You look at the empty net, even the fourth goal – we have four guys in the corner, they have one and they’re going to come out and score an empty-net goal. We dump it in and we just give them a breakaway on the 6-on-5. We weren’t good enough to win the game.”
Some of the frustrations the Sabres had in dealing with Ottawa were also increased after the officials put the whistles away late in the game. Both teams got away with infractions that would’ve been called earlier in the game, but on two different occasions the Sabres were fouled in the offensive zone with no call while the score was 2-1. That’s a real good way to get thrown off of your game when already stressed out.
Josh Norris said his piece to the officials with 1:18 to go and was given a 10-minute misconduct for abuse of officials. Both teams had two power plays in the game, and none of them happened late in the second or in the third period. In a lot of ways, this game was a good warmup act for the Sabres for what playoff games will be like both in style and with the rule book. Handling it like they did tonight will lead to a quick exit.
“I don’t feel this was the first time we were in this scenario to be honest with you,” Zucker said. “What I’m going to say is we need to have urgency without panic. I think we’re going to learn from this. We’re going to watch some video and try to be better when we play Washington.”
Standings
The loss by the Sabres meant they were unable to clinch a playoff berth. While tonight’s game was a win-and-in situation, they should know if they can clinch or not by the time the drop the puck with the Washington Capitals at 7 p.m. ET on Saturday.
The NHL hasn’t made clear what the clinching scenarios are, but here’s what we do know:
The Detroit Red Wings face the New York Rangers at 12:30 Saturday afternoon and, as it sits at this moment, they’re the one team outside of a playoff spot that could still push Buffalo out of a playoff spot if everything broke wrong based on their maximum number of points (102). Every other team below Detroit who could land the final wild card spot is a team that the Sabres already have the tiebreaker over based on regulation wins.
Since Ottawa is already in the second wild card spot because of their win, we’re not thinking about their 1 p.m. ET game against the Minnesota Wild on Saturday just yet. Eliminating teams that could leap them in the wild card if it came down to that is the focus and there is only one team outside of that picture who could still do that and it’s the Red Wings. We think. Maybe. Theoretical standings are a deeply annoying concept when trying to write about this game hours after it’s ended.
As for the division, Tampa Bay knocked off Pittsburgh 6-3 and Montréal took down the Rangers 3-2. The Lightning’s win evened them in points with Buffalo at 100 and the Canadiens closed to within two points at 98. Both the Lightning and Canadiens have a game in hand on the Sabres. Lurking behind the Habs are the Boston Bruins who lost to Florida 2-1 and sit fourth in the Atlantic with 94 points, but in the first wild card. Saturday’s schedule is a big one and Buffalo winning in D.C. would do a lot to mellow everyone in Buffalo out.