Almost everything about the Sabres’ 2-1 loss to the Dallas Stars was exactly what they want to do in every game, but Jake Oettinger got in the way.
BUFFALO — A loss like the one the Buffalo Sabres had on Tuesday night against the Dallas Stars is one most teams could swallow a little easier earlier on in a season.
Unfortunately for the Sabres, who are desperate to hang onto the hope of the postseason as games count down, a 2-1 loss in which Stars goalie Jake Oettinger made 47 saves and looked every bit of being one of the NHL’s top goaltenders does not get taken easily.
Getting stoned by Oettinger all game long apart from Tage Thompson’s trademarked rocket from the circle on a first-period power play was frustrating. Rasmus Dahlin on multiple occasions showed his frustration as chances were turned away or missed. He even grabbed a puck that went off the netting after Oettinger deflected his shot away with the shaft of his goal stick and spiked it onto the ice. Casey Mittelstadt screamed late in the third period when Oettinger came up big on one of his scoring chances.
Games like this happen throughout the year and when a great goaltender has an elite performance against your team, sometimes you have to tip your cap. And the Sabres did…but they weren’t happy about having to do so.
“We’ve had lots of frustration this year,” Sabres coach Don Granato said. “I think about frustration through other games and it’s completely different. We weren’t at the place we’re at now. We have much greater conviction, much greater confidence. I don’t worry about guys being frustrated right now. I think pissed off is probably a much more appropriate term than frustrated.”
On a night where the Sabres showed all the signs of being the dangerous team they can be but had to eat another loss, there are a lot of positive things to examine despite yet another difficult—and ultimately ill-timed—loss.
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Like their games in California before the break, the Sabres again began this game having to chase it. Matt Duchene’s power play goal in the first period that deflected off of Erik Johnson and past Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen gave them a 1-0 lead in the first five minutes of play.
That was one of two shots on goal Dallas had for the majority of the first period as the Sabres turned the pace of play against the Stars and attacked in waves. They stymied Dallas trying to escape their own end of the ice and bottled them up in the neutral zone continually. The Sabres took the puck away or forced Dallas to dump in or ice the puck and turned those moments into shots and scoring chances.
We saw them do this to Los Angeles and San Jose but doing it to the Stars was a sign that perhaps this way of pushing the game is the new norm.
“I actually thought we played really good especially coming out of the break.” Mittelstadt said. “We were making plays and getting pucks to the net, and I even thought we had bodies there as well. I think (Oettinger)’s a good goalie and definitely made it hard on us tonight… I mean, we had 50 shots or somewhere around there so, yeah, definitely tough to swallow.”
Everything Granato has stressed for the past nearly two months about improving the pace of play and shooting the puck more often and creating chances by going to the net is exactly what the Sabres did on Tuesday. All of the points played out in real time in front of a very light home crowd and had they scored more goals they would’ve better resembled last year’s Sabres team that seemingly scored at will.
That the power play produced Buffalo’s only goal of the game makes the end result of the game bitterly ironic. The power play moved the puck quickly and forced Dallas’s penalty killers to move their feet and track down players with the puck. That movement helped give Thompson the space and time to blast one past Oettinger early in the second period to make it 1-1.
“It all started with just shots, shot volume.” Thompson said. “Start with a shot, rebound, recovery. Skinny takes a one-timer, rebound, we recovered it. Quick puck movement, get the PK running around. That’s when the seams open up and the lanes open up. So, more of that.
“I thought our PP was really good tonight. A lot of good looks. Should have had three or four more on the power play. So, still find ways to capitalize on those. Sometimes you just got to tip your cap to the other goalie.”
Dallas’s eventual game-winning goal came less than four minutes after Thompson tied it. Craig Smith’s shot caught Luukkonen up high and he was unsure of where he had the puck. It tumbled off his body next to him where Radek Faksa was. Faksa fired it into the crease where it went off Sam Steel’s skate and into the net.
Luukkonen played extremely well himself and stood on his head late in the first period after an extended amount of time being mostly inactive because of how well his teammates controlled the game. He was fantastic in the third period when penalties mounted for Buffalo.
The Stars had two separate extended 5-on-3 power plays in the third period with a handful of the calls being a bit suspect. The majority of the calls made in this game were of the ticky-tack variety going both ways. The penalties didn’t cost Buffalo the game, but they didn’t allow them a great chance to get a tying goal late.
“You guys have the video and the replays and some of the calls were just interesting to say the least,” Granato said. “It’s a tough situation. You kill four penalties and twice you’re down 5-on-3. That doesn’t happen often in the NHL. Strange. “
The Sabres penalty kill performed very well. Yes, Duchene had a power play marker in the first, but that came on a deflected shot by a defender trying to block it. Bad luck, but a lot of this season for the Sabres has had that. If it wasn’t for bad luck, they’d have no luck at all. That sort of thing sums up both goals against.
“There’s no way we think negative of this game,” Dahlin said. “It sucks right now. I’m more than pissed off. But tomorrow it’s a new day, and we played great. A lot of forwards were playing with confidence, holding onto pucks and making great plays. So, it’s a good game for us but the result didn’t come. But the future is good.”
The Sabres will have a few days to gnaw on this one before they face St. Louis on Saturday afternoon. It’s the kind of result where maybe you’d want to have that anger and frustration ready to be unleashed right away on another opponent, but now they’ll have to stew on it. As long as they don’t over-think the result, the process of it all was the way it should be every game.
With the situation they’re in and how they’ve been sort of lost in the woods trying to find their way, the Sabres having a loss like this one would be one where you’d worry about how they’ll respond to it. After all, when a team does everything right, everything how they’re supposed to do it, and comes away with zero points it would be a reason to be concerned for anyone. For a team fighting to be relevant in the playoff race, more losses like this one would be brutal to the psyche.
“That’s the game though sometimes, right,” Thompson said. “Like there’s a lot of games throughout the season we probably shouldn’t have won but we did win. So, it goes both ways. That’s why I say as long as you’re playing the game the right way, the results will take care of themselves. So, with that in mind, we got a few days here in between our next game. So, got some time to regroup and kind of just focus up for next game.”
Other stuff
Erik Johnson returned to the lineup but was injured again blocking a shot. Status to be determined, but with the trade deadline coming in a month he’s a player that could very well be headed to a contender. It’s been a tough season for him here and eating pucks is part of his job description, but with Mattias Samuelsson gone for the season, testing the defensive depth right now would be less-than an ideal development, even though they can handle it right now. It might not make Rochester fans too happy, however.