A 4-1 Sabres loss to the Bruins was punctuated by the inability to score on the power play or to stop Boston with the man advantage
BUFFALO — It’s no secret that the first game out of an extended break is going to have its sloppy moments. It’s just natural. Teams haven’t practiced or played in days and, in this case, players are coming back from time with families and friends for the Christmas holiday.
The thing is, the coaches and players all know this and are more than well aware the game can be like that after a long layoff. It’s a whole other thing to see it play out that way but only to see the ill effects of that time away falling upon one of the two teams during a game.
Such was the case for the Buffalo Sabres in a 4-1 loss to the Boston Bruins in which they allowed three Bruins power play goals and scored zero of their own despite having six of their own opportunities with the man advantage for 9:32 of game time.
The Sabres had five shots on goal during those six power plays. This included two shots during four minutes of 5-on-4 time in the first period after Bruins captain Brad Marchand got two for cross-checking and another two more for complaining to the official about the call. They also had extended 4-on-3 power play time when three Bruins penalties (Trent Frederic at 14:27, Charlie McAvoy at 15:18, and Brandon Carlo at 15:45) and one Sabres penalty (Casey Mittelstadt at 14:50) were called in a 1:18 stretch of the second period in which they recorded one shot on goal.
It was a special teams pick-your-poison special in which the Sabres did themselves zero favors and it cost them in the end and allowed the Bruins to end a four-game losing skid.
“I’m sure guys didn’t feel good on both sides of the puck tonight,” Sabres coach Don Granato said. “They didn’t feel like themselves… But regardless, you know, we want a lot more intent there and attack there. Again, you saw in spurts. There’s urgency when you pull the goalie at the end of the game and have an open net. We saw more urgency because of that. We need to see more urgency before that. So, yeah whatever, you have a three-day layoff, but we could still have played with more urgency through the course of the game.”
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It’s one thing for the Sabres to come up short because of the power play, because that’s been an all-too-common issue for them this season, but seeing the penalty kill fail them in the same game has been a rarity. And yet in this roller coaster of a season, seeing this kind of mutual failing happen in a game against a rival team helps add a new wrinkle to the ways in which they’ve lost games.
Without the penalty kill slip-ups it’s an even game. Then again, if the Sabres power play managed to put one or two in, it’s a different game for different reasons. If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a Merry Christmas, right? Instead, all they’ve created is indigestion for a team that’s trying hard to live up to a lot of what they did last season, which still wasn’t a playoff year.
“The rust is off now, there’s no more excuses going down,” Alex Tuch said. “I don’t know how many games until bye week. We’re going to want to be well above .500 over the next 15 games or so. It’s a good stretch here coming in. We got a lot of home games coming up, especially in January. I think it’s going to be huge for us to try to make this a lot harder place to lot harder place to play in. It’s a little too easy right now, and we have to take it upon ourselves to be better.”
The Sabres are going to need to play close to a .700 or .750 pace for some time now to be able to seriously get involved in the playoff discussion and with assorted lineup absences and injuries (Tage Thompson missed Wednesday night’s game for personal reasons— his wife is expecting their second child soon), the ability to get a consistent flow and steady chemistry has been interrupted often this year. That much has wreaked serious havoc on the power play which has seen an ever-changing rotation of players on both units.
Teams with great power plays do it because they’ve either spent years together, have high-end talent, or a super weapon kind of scorer which changes the game. Some have two of those three and a select few have all three. With Thompson in the lineup, the Sabres have the super weapon and even Victor Olofsson once was that (although not at all this year). They also have the high-end talent and skill to make a power play unit an elite group and we saw those two factors make the Sabres power play one of the best in the NHL last season.
But when teams design their kills to make sure Thompson can’t get his top one percent shot off, it’s up to the rest of the highly skilled group to make teams pay for trying to shut down one guy. Those guys have to be able to make up for Thompson if he’s out of the lineup. That hasn’t happened yet this season.
“We’re overthinking everything,” Tuch said. “We’re double-touching pucks. I’m double-touching on the goal line, putting them out of guys’ reach, shooting when we shouldn’t, we’re not shooting when we should. We’re passing up good opportunities, we’re not supporting each other. It just kind of adds up. It’s a snowball effect, and each guys has to look at one another and try to work for one another, because it’s five against four. I mean, we shouldn’t be out there and getting outchanced sometimes, some power plays the PK gets more chances than us, and that’s not OK. We had one of the best power plays in the league last year and maybe go back to it, but it’s confidence, it’s swagger. We obviously don’t have it right now, and we’re going to work to get it back.”
Crises of confidence have been a fixture for the team this season as well and that’s normally cyclical. For the Sabres, getting stunted by defensively frustrating teams that blocked a lot of shots early this year seemed to have a hangover effect that’s lasted. Having great opportunities stuffed back because of shot blocks or one-and-done opportunities due to defense or goaltending can wear down a team psychologically. Over-thinking, pressing too much, or trying to create the perfect play are all symptomatic of this and it’s been evident all season long. Scoring goals was really easy to do last year and it hasn’t been this season. It’s the perfect storm for a young team to collectively squeeze the sticks too tight.
“Sometimes the play’s right in front of us, take the easy shot sometimes.” Erik Johnson said. “I think we overcomplicate it and it’s for sure a factor and another thing of emphasis that we’ve got to work on and clean up. I mean, it’s tough when you start the other team’s breakout when you shoot wide and it rims around the boards, and we’ve done that far too much not only tonight but I think on the year too. We want to look for the pretty play I think too often.”
We’re talking a lot about the power play and the offense because those have been issues all season long. The penalty kill coming up really small for one night is a blip on the radar. It’s a disturbing blip for a night, but a blip nonetheless. A blown coverage on Charlie Coyle’s first period goal is a problem, but Coyle putting one off of Erik Johnson’s skate and past Devon Levi in the second period is just bad luck. Morgan Geekie’s power play goal saw Levi get bumped and Connor Clifton had physics used against him trying to get to the play. Still, the PK having a rough night was only one of a handful of problems.
If there’s a goal to really be mad about it’s the Bruins opener from Mason Lohrei in which multiple players made errors (Clifton, Zach Benson) and left Levi hung out after he stopped a big shot from James van Riemsdyk in close range.
Everyone is eager for change and, good news for you, things are about to shake up a bit with the roster.
The Sabres were over the 23-player limit during the holidays thanks to the league’s holiday transaction freeze. That ends at 12:01 AM and they’ll need to not just get back to 23 players (they were at 24 during the freeze) and Zemgus Girgensons is really close to returning to action. They’ll need to make a move to get back to 23 on the active roster right away and then move another player when they want to activate Girgensons from IR. Trying to predict the way they’re going to handle this is a fool’s errand because GM Kevyn Adams and Granato have been unconventional in how they’ve put the roster together (three goalies, eight defensemen, things of that ilk).
Unless there is a trade (or trades) to be made, we’ll likely see players on waivers in the coming days. We’ll find out about their confidence in various areas given which ways they go about things. Since they’re already down to seven defensemen, forward and goalie are the positions to watch.
We’ll find out if they have enough faith in Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen as the backup to move Eric Comrie and we’ll see how they want their forward group to look moving ahead to attempt to get into the playoff discussion. Tyson Jost got the call to take Thompson’s spot at center on Wednesday and that versatility versus Eric Robinson’s speed on the wing as an energy player would seem to be the debate to be had.