There was a time when the Buffalo Sabres winning four straight games at any point in the season would’ve been a capital-letter Big Deal. What’s funny about saying that now is how it’s become a regular occurrence for them to string wins together, or at the very least prevent losses from piling up, but it was just in October and November when the concern about how they’d handle any modicum of success was an honest to goodness question.
Maturing as a team is a hell of a thing.
After going 1-1-1 before the Olympic break and the final game of that stretch being an ugly home loss to Pittsburgh, the Sabres having to chew on a brutal overtime road loss to Tampa along with that Penguins defeat was enough to make everyone pause on the era of good feelings about the hockey team enough to want to wait and see how they would come out of a two-week long pause in the regular season to see if this team was serious about being a playoff team.
Question asked and answered with varying degrees of emphasis.
The Sabres held on to beat the Vegas Golden Knights in their first home game since that stinker against the Penguins back on February 5. A night that was dedicated to gold-medal winner Tage Thompson saw Thompson score the eventual game-winning goal in the second period when he helped his team to a 3-0 lead. Even though Vegas quickly made it 3-2 minutes after Thompson’s goal, the final 31:33 of game time saw the Sabres do what they’ve done so well since snapping out of their early-season malaise and lock down while bending and not breaking to win the game.
So many times in the past these Sabres have learned a variety of lessons about how to close out games through not doing that or finding ways to snatch defeat in the most likely and unlikely of ways. It’s hard to not believe that those days are over with how they’ve been so calm and controlled getting games over the finish line.
“We’ve been through a lot, we’ve learned a lot,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. “I think the best way of learning is going through some hardship. And we went through some hardship. I look at a lot of situations last year that told us we had to be a better team, we had more composure.”
Ruff noted that there was no bigger sign of that composure in the third period than the play the unofficial closer, Peyton Krebs, made to kill off the final seconds of the third while Vegas had goalie Akira Schmid pulled for the extra attacker.
Krebs has sealed many wins this season with empty-net goals and while the temptation was there to go for the vacated cage again with under 30 seconds to play, icing the puck one more time would’ve allowed Vegas another chance to tie it off a face off. Rather than try to juice the goal total by one more, Krebs maneuvered around and through three Golden Knights skaters to get across the red line and send the puck to the corner to wind down the clock. Sure, an empty-net goal would’ve been fun and good and given the sellout crowd one more chance to roar, but doing the little things, the smart things, to ice the game works just as well.
“I think main focus is we don’t want to sit back on our heels,” Thompson said. “We knew they were feeling it, and they had a good push there. But our defensive details I thought were really good. Obviously, we gave up a couple Grade-A’s there. That happens, and that’s when you need your goalie to bail you out, and he did. It takes everybody, and I thought everyone was on board tonight.”
Even though it was the Sabres hanging on, the opening 25 minutes were very good. They played with the pace they’ve become known for and had the majority of scoring chances in that time. Getting out to a 3-0 lead helps, too, but some of the rust that comes from being off for so long was still there and Vegas took advantage of that to get back into the game. It’s not about being pretty in how you win, necessarily, but just getting the win in the end and moving on. Taking pride in getting the “W” as opposed to wanting to win pretty is how they get to where they are now.
“You just try to live in the moment,” Sabres goalie Alex Lyon said. “So, it’s no secret recipe or anything like that. It’s good practice. There’s going to be tight games all the way through. You get rewarded with entire games after that, so we have to be comfortable in those situations.”
Lyon was again very strong in goal and helped make the result stand up. He had 27 saves and, according to Moneypuck.com, had 1.85 goals saved above expected for the game. Moneypuck has Lyon 10th in the league in that category with 11.8. He’s tied for fourth in the league (among goalies with 19 or more games played) with a .915 save percentage if boxcar numbers are more your jam.
With the compact schedule, a three-goalie situation, and injuries that have made the three-goalie setup work out well enough, Lyon has persisted and thrived for Buffalo, something on its own that was unexpected.
“I think he’s had a great ability to bounce back from the injuries and really play well or not play for a long stretch and then step in and play well, which has been important to us too at the same time.” Ruff said.
It would be easy enough to boil down the Sabres success to just goaltending. They’re one of seven teams with a team save percentage above .900 and while Lyon has been outstanding, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen is sporting a .908 save percentage through 23 games (22 starts) and Colten Ellis has a .896 in 13 games (12 starts). Luukkonen is 24th in goals saved above expected with 5.3. It’s no secret that good goaltending will take you far, but the kind of play the Sabres have gotten despite the injuries and the awkward situation is remarkable.
Thompson got the star treatment tonight with the pregame ceremony that celebrated his role with Team USA winning gold at the Olympics for the first time since 1980. He had Jack Eichel and Noah Hanifin join him as part of it and with the earned adulation for that achievement, that he came through with the goal that decided the game made it a bit of a storybook game, certainly as far as regular season games go at least.
“Such an awesome reception from the crowd, and it meant so much to me, and I’m sure it meant a lot to everyone in here,” Thompson said. “And to score and hear the crowd, that was probably the loudest I’ve heard it. Really cool. Obviously, a big goal in that time of the game.”
Still, Thompson’s play this season is a major factor in their success. His goal was the 33rd of the season and with the effort he and the rest of the leadership group have put in, finishing the season and moving on to the Stanley Cup Playoffs would be a well-earned accomplishment for all of them.
Watching wins pile up, particularly in regulation (tonight’s was their 30th regulation win, third most in the NHL behind Colorado and Dallas) is enough to believe that the Sabres are very much for real. All of the numbers all around are enough to do that. Still, fans can be excused for being nervous. After all, who wants to get hurt again? The business-like approach of the team to take things legitimately one game at a time and not have it be empty words is proving to be part of the reason why they’re continuing to do the right things and come away winners with the kind of regularity you see from Cup contenders.
“It’s just a daily, daily grind,” Lyon said. “Obviously, winning builds confidence, right? So, I would be lying if I said that didn’t have something to do with it. But the way that this group works, each man, big credit to the guys. That’s what it’s going to come down to is if our details can be better, our work can be better. It’s a zero-sum game. So you have to constantly think about that and constantly focus on that, and we’ve done a good job of that coming out of the break. But the East is so strong this year. We can’t take anything for granted.”