Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen played great for Buffalo, but Filip Gustavsson was just a bit better for the Minnesota Wild in a 1-0 win.
BUFFALO — As far as games that end 1-0 go, Wednesday night’s tilt between the Buffalo Sabres and Minnesota Wild was an outstanding one. The only downside for the home team was that they were on the wrong end of the decision.
Filip Gustavsson stopped 39 Sabres shots en route to his second shutout of the season and the only puck that eluded Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen in the 29 shots he faced came on a 4-on-1 nearly seven minutes into the game and was scored by one of NHL’s best scorers, Kirill Kaprizov.
Luukkonen was outstanding, but Gustavsson wound up being perfect. These things can happen.
“I think we’re growing as a team,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. “I think we understand that you really don’t need to change the way you’re playing. You’ve just got to stay with it. We did it on the road trip. We talked about that after the second period – we’re gonna get our looks, we have to take advantage. It might be a screen goal, tip goal, ugly goal. Kind of like the Anaheim goal that got us going where it slipped behind the goaltender. I think that’s the part I’m most impressed with. We’ve been able to play a pretty consistent style.”
The Sabres had 87 total shot attempts and 66 at 5-on-5. The return of Tage Thompson to the lineup sparked them both at even strength and on the power play. Any other night, they’d be skating off the ice in the end celebrating. They didn’t score for a lack of trying and it wasn’t the kind of game that saw them get frustrated at being denied. No one likes to take a loss, but when the effort is as good as it was from Buffalo on Thanksgiving Eve, it’s something to carry forward the rest of the way.
“Honestly, I think we played a really good game tonight,” Thompson said. “I don’t think we can let that discourage us. Obviously, it stings when you lose, especially one like that where you feel like you outplayed them most of the net. Sometimes you run into a hot goalie and not much you can do. You just got to find ways to get one.”
More from a well-played loss ahead.
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Hearing the frustration from fans below the press box was understandable. It was filled with plenty of Buffalo expats back home for Thanksgiving and following the Sabres road sweep of California, they were fired up to see what the home side could do in person. You want to see your team win and you definitely want to see them score goals and neither thing happening after slamming a high-priced beer or two (or more) leads to anguish. That’s fair.
As far as losses go, this was a grown-up defeat. Handling a game in which you’re getting goalie’d and fighting through a really tough defensive effort with aplomb and the maturity that’s been so necessary for so long is a great sign for this group and one they’ve improved on already this season.
“That’s just maturity, and I’ve said this before, we’ve had to learn the hard way over the past few years,” Thompson said. “I think for us, that’s what you like to see, playing the game the right way, playing hard, not trying to change and cheat the game when you’re down. I thought we stuck with the game plan the entire night, didn’t cheat for offense, just kept making the game tough on them. And we got our fair share of looks. Can’t say we didn’t. So just got to put those in the back of the net.”
Giving up a goal early the way they did—a 4-on-1 that erupted after Rasmus Dahlin’s centering pass for one of two Sabres players streaking to the net was intercepted by Brock Faber—would’ve been a good enough reason to get immediately disheartened and potentially watch things snowball. Instead, the Sabres had two power play opportunities in the first period that helped them generate a ton of great looks and chances from both units. That success despite not scoring got them back on track and provided the confidence to believe they’d tie it up eventually.
“I thought we were really hard on their top guys,” Alex Tuch said. “I thought we were really good on our breakout. Honestly, I thought we were moving the puck up really quickly supporting, stretching the zone out making them kind of sit back on their heels and play a lot more defense. Where we got into some trouble, we just weren’t holding onto pucks long enough, myself included there, in the O-zone and it kind of turned into some opportunities the other way, but I thought we were good on the forecheck as well and we’ve just got to keep doing that. Honestly, we play that type of way we’re going to win nine out of 10 games.”
Dealing with Kaprizov
Tuch nailed the analysis so there’s not much to add to it, but when dealing with a line that featured one of the league’s top scorers (Kaprizov), top young stars (Matthew Boldy) and top two-way forwards (Joel Eriksson Ek), that can create headaches all game long. But apart from the goal scored, that trio was quiet. The line of Zach Benson, Dylan Cozens and Peyton Krebs had the difficult duty of trying to contain them and they did their best iteration of “bend, don’t break” in dealing with them with a lot of bending.
Just against Kaprizov, the Western Canada boys played just over 10 minutes against him at 5-on-5 and were out-attempted roughly 16-3 and outshot 8-2 with an expected goals percentage of roughly 7.13. Still, Kaprizov’s goal came against the line of JJ Peterka, Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch. Keeping him off the board despite that kind of disparity is something else.
“They did a good job,” Ruff said. “That is probably one of the best lines we’ve faced that can generate. They’re a good line. They’re a hard line to play against. They’ve got everything, they’ve got speed, they’ve playmaking ability, they’ve got shooters. So, for those guys to be able to handle them for the most part, I like the job they did.”
It was a hard assignment because you don’t want to match top line against top line at home, you want to use last change to gain an advantage. The fourth line gets to deal with them in a video game but not in real life and the trio of Jason Zucker, Jiri Kulich and Jack Quinn needed to get as far away from the hardest assignments as possible just because. That meant Benson, Cozens and Krebs kind of drew the short straw and came away unscathed. Give ‘em a medal.
Return of Tage
The Sabres getting Thompson back was vital and he looked as close to back to normal as anyone could be after missing five games with a nagging lower-body issue. He returned to the top line and to the power play and was very effective. He had 11 shot attempts and six shots on goal at last check of the ever-changing game sheet.
Thompson was able to tee up his one-timer a few times on the power play only to see Gustavsson calmly and coolly slide into position to stop it. He also had a glorious opportunity late in the third in the slot only to be stopped by Gustavsson again. There was a lot to like from the team’s leading goal scorer and getting him back in the lineup is very clearly a big deal.
“I thought (he had) a lot of good battle,” Ruff said. “I think probably just a little rusty with shooting maybe. I think you give him that shot in the slot next time, I think he buries it. But I thought energy-wise and skating-wise, he did a good job making sure he was ready to play.”
Getting him back in there with his regular linemates in Peterka and Tuch was predictable, but those three were dangerous throughout the game. Thompson was good with the stick in making plays happen and taking pucks away while Tuch was physical in corners and around the net while Peterka was good all around the offensive zone. There’s no need to change anything up that wasn’t broken in the first place.
“I thought he was good,” Tuch said. “They didn’t rush him back, they let him take his time and get fully healthy and I thought he jumped right in and, like you said, didn’t miss a beat so I thought he was really good tonight. I thought our line had some chemistry right away there and we had a lot of opportunities, especially in the third period we’ve got to bury, but yeah, we’re going to keep going and we’re going to bury those moving forward.”
The Sabres have a practice scheduled for Thanksgiving and that’s certainly to stay fresh for Friday afternoon’s game against Vancouver at 3 p.m. Games that early don’t have morning skates so that’s virtually what that practice will be like, only it’ll be before a nice dinner.
Enjoy the holiday, everyone and do your best to enjoy time with family and friends — there are plenty out there who would love to do the same but cannot.