The Sabres’ losing streak reaches eight games after a 3-2 loss to the New York Rangers, but this time around, mistakes were punished more severely.
BUFFALO — The script for Wednesday night’s Buffalo Sabres 3-2 loss to the New York Rangers was a bit different than the previous seven losses albeit with the same ending, nonetheless.
A first period power play goal from Mika Zibanejad aided by a brutal turnover by Owen Power got the Rangers ahead and when any team is trying to chase the lead, it makes for a bad time.
But Power’s turnover landed him on the bench for the final 12:59 of the first period and proved to be a sign that mistakes and lapses will be served harsher punishment. In the second period, it was J-J Peterka who found the bench after a turnover on the first shift of the period got him sat down for the remainder of the period.
The demands of accountability began to sound more like buzzwords during this losing streak, but Lindy Ruff is tired of seeing old habits from before he got here continuing to stick around.
“I think if you look at the failed clear on an easy play to start the game with Owen, you look at how good Owen came back and played,” Ruff said. “J-J started the second period and turned it over as soon as he got over the blue line. I thought his third period was what we needed, which will make a difference. I know that’s a culture change.”
Ruff did his best to not lose his cool, but it’s bubbling under the surface and grows hotter with each defeat. The losses have allowed him to vent some of the frustration he’s having with the players who are going through it adjusting to another new system. The players wanted a coach that would make sure bad habits were eliminated and not allowed to fester and on Wednesday, they got to see it much clearer.
“Taking one or two shifts up to this point hasn’t worked,” Ruff said. “Sitting the odd guy out hasn’t worked.”
More ahead on an eighth straight loss and what in the world comes next.
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Seeing players get benched isn’t anything new nor unusual in hockey, but in recent years in Buffalo it didn’t happen often or at all. With how stunned the players have gotten in the face of hardship in-game and how that has often led to mistakes being compounded, seeing a mistake like the one Power made in the first period turn into an immediate benching was the right call.
It was also one that should’ve snapped everyone’s attention into place. That message was sent and received by Power loud and clear.
“It’s pretty obvious, I make two horrible plays on that goal,” Power said. “There’s nothing much that really needs to be said. I mean, I know it’s on me and those plays are unacceptable. So, I mean, I think that’s the accountability that we all asked for.”
Power’s attempt to clear the zone following the interference penalty to Connor Clifton went soft off the glass and right to Adam Fox at the blue line. After a pass to Artemi Panarin, Panarin set up Zibanejad for the shot to score. Power gave a lackluster effort to defend the shot and neither got a stick nor his body in the way. Mistake leads to mistake leads to goal against. No good.
“You just try to be the best teammate,” Power said. “It’s not like I didn’t think I did something wrong. I mean, that goal is totally on me. It’s two plays that you just can’t make, so, I mean, you just got to sit there, be a good teammate and be ready for your next shift, I guess.”
Peterka’s error flew under the radar because it didn’t lead to a goal against, but looking back on the replays, it was a prime example of turning a rush opportunity into a lost chance.
Peterka took a pass from Thompson and pulled up at the half wall with Adam Fox shadowing him instead of using speed to force Fox back on his heels and go to the net. Instead, he tried to turn back and hit a trailing teammate who was also closely covered with a pass. That in itself was a poor decision, but worse yet, Fox blocked the pass with his stick and forced a wall battle that the Rangers quickly escaped with the puck. A poor decision with poor execution and a lost scoring chance while on the rush.
It wasn’t a thoroughly egregious mistake like Power’s was, but Peterka’s play has been way off the past few weeks and watching this play break down the way it did in the opening minute of the period, Ruff’s decision is understandable.
“It starts with puck management,” Ruff said. “There’s all kinds of components. There’s puck battles, there’s making sure the puck gets deep so we’re not fueling their offense. And then once you’re in there, can you win your battle? Can you create something? That’s down low, that’s when you get above the top of the circle. He’s got to be able to make a decision, whatever play, that it’s the right play at the right time.”
What’s important to note out of benching both players are that they yielded results later in the game.
Power scored with under five minutes to go to cut the Rangers lead to 2-1 and given the state of the Rangers (who came in losing eight of the past 10 games), it offered the Sabres the opportunity to turn the tables on someone else for once late in the game.
It didn’t quite play out that way right away as Fox scored an empty-net goal with 2:02 left, but Thompson scored with 37.7 seconds left after assists from Power and Peterka for his 16th goal. That made it 3-2 and cast some doubt still on how it would end, but it finished up that way.
The hope in benching guys so harshly is that they’ll never need to be benched again, period. But the secondary hope in doing that is other players will take heed that if the poor execution keeps up, they too will wind up losing ice time in front of everyone. That Wednesday’s game was on TNT and a national audience and a panel that spent the pregame digging into what the hell is going wrong with the Sabres made it the timing of it all even more pointed. The last thing any of the players want is to get criticized (as a team or personally) by Paul Bissonnette, Anson Carter, and Wayne Gretzky.
Players have pride and players don’t want to look bad, and they definitely don’t like to lose. From Jack Quinn being scratched to seeing Power and Peterka benched for long stretches on Wednesday, there’s a humbling happening and it’s punitive in a way, but it’s also a very hard lesson to learn.
Watching how Ruff handles this group is truly fascinating.
Consider his reputation in Buffalo as a player and a coach. Fiery, competitive, would go all-in to win a game and support his teammates. Seeing him return to Buffalo after 11 years and tours with three other teams as a head coach and an assistant and how things look now has to be startling.
I tend to believe this frustration will be worth it in the end as the extremely talented roster they have in place at long last gets the bad habits and bad tendencies rocked out of their system by Ruff’s urging and consistency in his messaging. Hearing Ruff verbalize the past few days about how he’s still working to get all of these old traits knocked out of a lot of the players highlights his frustration in the seemingly remedial nature of the errors.
Getting all of those old ways exorcised is important because when you consider the relative inexperience of the head coaches these players have had over the years, there’s a lot of stuff a new coach could suffer just to try and keep peace and on message in a new situation. Ruff, on the other hand, is one of the most experienced coaches in league history and on top of that he’s a Sabres legend in the truest sense. When he tells players what to do to be a better player and a winner in this city, you know he’s right.
Now that the players are getting their buttons pushed and ice time taken away because of mistakes, how they choose to respond to it as the season rolls on is going to be truly interesting.