The Sabres dropped a 4-0 decision to the Pittsburgh Penguins on the road, but Peyton Krebs scratch from the lineup added a curious subplot.
PITTSBURGH — Ever watch a game and it was lacking any kind of juice to it? That was Saturday night in Pittsburgh for the Buffalo Sabres.
The Sabres lost 4-0 to the Penguins. Tristan Jarry made 35 saves in the shutout, his third of the season in five wins (he’s 5-5-0 now) while Erik Karlsson had two goals including an empty-netter.
The Sabres got a solid game out of Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen who made 36 saves and was victimized by a flukey goal from Evgeni Malkin who threw one off Luukkonen’s mask from the corner that went in and Karlsson’s first goal that went off of Erik Johnson’s stick on a Penguins power play. Even Drew O’Connor’s goal that made it 2-0 that sure looked like one Luukkonen should’ve stopped glanced off of Henri Jokiharju’s stick enough to dip under and glance off of Luukkonen’s arm into the net.
“I feel like we had a lot of chances to score tonight, didn’t,” Sabres captain Kyle Okposo said. “It’s just kind of one of those things when you’ve got to find a way to get one by him—by Jarry. You know, he played really well, and I think that they did a pretty good job clearing second opportunities. You know, if we get one in the second and make it a 1-1 game, it’s probably different. But yeah, we obviously didn’t do enough to score tonight.”
The shots were juiced up but there wasn’t a lot of second chances. Mix that in with many of Pittsburgh’s chances being dangerous and you’ve got a game that felt like an uphill climb from the opening drop. But there was some juice to this game after the game because what was believed to be a healthy scratch for Peyton Krebs may not have been…
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The Sabres got Mattias Samuelsson back in the lineup after his injury and after they sent Matt Savoie back to Wenatchee this afternoon, that opened up room for Samuelsson on the roster.
Granato went with an 11/7 lineup—something that worked for them in their back-to-back games last weekend on their visit to Toronto—but sat out Peyton Krebs and replaced him with Victor Olofsson.
It was assumed Krebs was a healthy scratch given he hasn’t scored yet this season and his ice time has dipped as the season has gone on. But Granato didn’t confirm it was a healthy scratch, saying only that “there is more to it” and they’d follow up on it later.
Without any elaboration we’re left to our own devices until Monday’s practice. Krebs was in Pittsburgh with the team and in the press box to watch the 4-0 loss. If there was an injury he was dealing with, Granato likely would’ve said as much and that would’ve been that. But he didn’t and now with a day-plus to chew on things that’s less-than ideal.
Looking at Krebs’s games this season, you know he’s not feeling great about how he’s playing. He’s got one assist and 10 penalty minutes and he’s averaging 11:35 time on-ice in 14 games. In four of his last six games, he’s played fewer than 10 minutes in a game and his time on-ice in his last three games are 7:50 at Toronto, 8:20 at Carolina, and 6:05 Friday night against Minnesota.
Krebs was tasked earlier this season to anchor down the Sabres energy line with Zemgus Girgensons and Kyle Okposo, a role he did very well with last season. The catch is, there’s more offense in his game to be had but when he’s in that role on that line, offense is not the priority and any of his playmaking skills and his high-end passing ability isn’t being put to its best use.
But in recent games, that role between Girgensons and Okposo has belonged to Tyson Jost. He’s done well with it playing in a steady, straight-line manner, but it’s shifted Krebs into a position where he’s in the mix on a line with guys who are also trying to figure things out themselves or are fresh up from Rochester. It’s a difficult spot to be in, particularly for a guy who’s still young himself at 22 years old.
That’s the part of all this is easy to forget about this Sabres team: They’re insanely young.
Sure, they’re inconsistent early on this year. That happens to a lot of teams, even the best ones. And it’s understandable to be fraught with nerves about each loss considering how close they were to making the playoffs last season. Every game and every point matters, yes, but it’s hard and teams are going to go through phases like this sometimes.
The East is insanely tight. It will be until the lesser teams really fall off and decide it’s time to gun for the No. 1 pick instead of a spot in the playoffs and we know which one the Sabres are taking aim on no matter what. If there’s something to take away from this start that can be spun positively it’s that they’ve avoided the roller coaster dips. Winning one and losing one on and off can feel maddening, but it beats stringing together losses. They’re at roughly .500 right now and they’re going to be in a fight all season to make the postseason.
Games like Saturday’s loss in Pittsburgh are going to happen sometimes, but if the worst thing to happen out of this is that the power play continued to stumble over itself and they weren’t better at generating secondary chances through the rest of the game, that’s the kind of thing that can be hammered out in future practices and games.
“When we keep it simple and play good D, that’s when we get our chances,” Rasmus Dahlin said. “Today, we had a lot of skill out there, we created a lot. But, like I said, we need the simple stuff, and that’s when we play our best and that’s how you win these types of games, especially…back-to-backs, you don’t have very much leg power, you don’t have very much speed. So, you just got to do the simple stuff.”