Going from allowing nine and getting embarrassed at home to scoring nine and leaving the rival Maple Leafs befuddled, the Sabres learned to stop being afraid at last.
BUFFALO — Perhaps the most common reaction to seeing the Buffalo Sabres rebound from a 9-4 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets with a 9-3 win against the Toronto Maple Leafs was that it made the Sabres the most confusing team in the league.
For a team that’s had nothing but a roller coaster when it comes to results, where a win was followed by a loss or two or three before winning again, going from giving up nine and losing to scoring nine and winning in a walk was arguably the most sensible way things could’ve gone.
But Thursday’s win against Toronto had some sizable differences. The obvious ones were the returns of Jeff Skinner and Jordan Greenway to the lineup after stints on injured reserve. Getting an elite goal scorer and a top forechecker/penalty killer back on the ice do make a big difference and that was more than apparent.
But the biggest difference was in the way the Sabres played all game long. In a game which they again grabbed the lead early on but fell behind shortly thereafter, instead of collapsing in on themselves they punched back harder, emotionally speaking.
“To play with a fearless intent, you have to be able to enjoy what you’re doing without repercussion,” Sabres coach Don Granato said. “I think we got a group that cares so much, and I’ve been around groups like this. You care so much sometimes you don’t want to be a guy to make a mistake. That consumes you at times. Then it’s hesitation, and that can interfere with the love of the game. Decisions made on that ice are so damn fast. Any inhibitor up here, any conscious or subconscious fear is going to be hesitation on the ice, and it’s going to look like you’re not working. We had one good game tonight. You can’t get too low; you can’t get too high. But we have to play with more passion.”
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Maybe it’s easier for a team to play more the way they’re supposed to when they’re closer to full health and can put the lineup they’re meant to have out on the ice. It would make sense and create a perfect, “No shit, Sherlock” kind of response in seeing that, yes, the Sabres played extremely well. That they would have more confidence in their game is the logical conclusion.
But it’s not as if they haven’t been closer to that this season already. Yes, missing Jack Quinn for the first 32 games of the season is a tough blow to take and he’s a key member of the roster, but conceivably his absence was covered by the arrival of Zach Benson. So they’ve been close to the ideal lineup all year, but it took Toronto coming to town a game after the Blue Jackets skated circles around the Sabres and bringing a pair of other players back into the lineup to make it all click.
Maybe it was the perfect storm? The Leafs showing up can certainly snap anyone’s attention around.
“They got a lot of offensive weapons and we won’t back off, we want to play in your face, and we know that a lot of times if you’re trying to make risky plays and high-level plays, a lot of times you’re going to be able to cause turnovers and get some transition goals and opportunities, and so we were able to do that tonight. I thought we played pretty well defensively,” Alex Tuch said. “I thought Beast (Devon Levi) played well in net, and we were just able to not back off, not back down.
“I know we were down 2-1 there after a little bit, we said ‘Screw it.’ We just kept going to work and playing our game. I think we got back to a little bit more of a Buffalo Sabres style of hockey, a little bit more, you could say, run-and-gun. But we wanted to be offensive threats, all 20 of us out there, and we wanted to play for one another. I thought we did that tonight.”
They were.
That 2-1 moment was one where numerous Sabres games have gone to wither away this season. A hot start from Greenway scoring on a sudden shot against Ilya Samsonov got them off on the right foot, but Auston Matthews followed it with a turnaround shot out of nowhere at the half-wall which Levi didn’t even see based on his reaction and was followed by a power play goal from Max Domi, one that came moments after Mattias Samuelsson was foiled on a breakaway out of the box as his penalty came to an end.
That kind of wild swing of emotion was one that would’ve turned the game on its head for the Sabres en route to an avalanche of goals against. But it didn’t this time.
Owen Power tied it up 1:05 after Domi’s goal and Jeff Skinner put them up 3-2 with his first of two goals 2:07 after that.
Into the second period, Rasmus Dahlin’s power play goal made it 4-2 and it seemed like a rout was imminent only to see Calle Jarnkrok score shorthanded to cut the lead to 4-3 just 58 seconds after Dahlin’s marker. But 2:40 later, Tage Thompson’s low wrister went under Samsonov’s glove to make it 5-2 and chased him from the game and from that point on it was all Sabres.
“Definitely a point of emphasis just to forget things when they happen,” Sabres captain Kyle Okposo said. “You play 82 games and there’s guys that get paid quite handsomely to play this game and they’re really good players in this league. And they’re going to make some plays, they’re going to score some goals and that’s OK.
“You’re going to make some mistakes, nobody’s going to play a perfect game, but we cannot be a fragile group. We can’t be fragile when we make a mistake, when we get scored on because you have to know, you have to have an overriding sense that we are the good team, we are the better team and I think tonight that we had a little bit of that and we’re just going to keep building on that and keep compounding on that narrative.”
The first of Okposo’s two goals came shorthanded with a laser beam over the shoulder of Martin Jones on a breakaway minutes after Thompson’s goal and sent the Sabres into the second intermission with a 6-3 lead.
In the third, Quinn got his first of the season after a perfect pass from JJ Peterka out of the corner hit him going to the far post for a tap-in. That was followed by the second goals of the night for both Skinner and Okposo capping off a whirlwind set of games with a 9-3 finish.
It’s understandable to be left scratching your head wondering what the hell gives with this team, but Thursday’s win against Toronto was what the Sabres are ultimately capable of doing more often than not with their skill and talent and when they stop worrying about every play they make with the puck going the wrong way and into their own net.
“You’re going to have chances like we had tonight and maybe you’ll hit a post and I think you just have to stick with it,” Skinner said. “I think tonight obviously it sort of was going in for us and we were capitalizing on our opportunities. It’s not like that’s going to happen every night. You just have to keep at it and keep working and sort of trust the process that it’s going to pay off for you. Obviously, it’s fun and great when things roll in for you, stuff like that, but we just have to worry about the work.”
As I’ve (unfortunately) had to say after other seemingly big wins, they’re only as good as the next game and that one comes on the road in Manhattan against the Rangers. It’s never easy in the NHL, as the Sabres have proven plenty already this season, but when the tests stack up like this and now that for a night they decided to say, “screw it, we’re playing it our way” maybe things can be more like this the rest of the way.
They’ll need it to be.
“They played for a greater passion and love of the game, which is something we’ve missed, just playing for the right reason, the reason that’s made you great, the pure joy and love of it,” Granato said. “If we get back to that, you’re going to see a lot more account and skill. That’s kind of an issue right now for us.”