It wasn’t exactly the beautiful game between two teams buried in the NHL standings, but it was a 4-3 win for the Sabres on the back of two Jiri Kulich goals.
BUFFALO — On the night the Sabres enshrined Rob Ray into the team’s hall of fame, it would’ve been proper to expect, perhaps, an ode to the legendary enforcer with a fight or two.
While throwing fists isn’t in vogue these days, and certainly not with any recent iteration of the Sabres, playing a good ole, hard-working game and doing your job is also something Ray was known for. It’s also something the current Sabres could stand to do more of and even though it was a bit touch-and-go in the second period, they pulled it off in a 4-3 win on Friday night.
Jiri Kulich scored a pair of laser beam goals including the game-winner with 2:04 left in the third period after a superb pass from Tage Thompson to set it up. The rookie is up to 11 goals on the season and after having so many bumps in the road throughout the year, seeing him take steps forward in his game is turning into one of the brighter spots of the season.
“I mean, he’s unbelievable,” Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin said. “I think he’s going to be one of the best in the league. At that age he is right now and doing the stuff he’s doing out there, it’s pretty special. It’s fun to watch, honestly. He’s unbelievable.”
Having Dahlin be your hype man is a pretty good thing, no?
More ahead on an enjoyable night for a team legend and a game that didn’t bring the party down.
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By no means was Friday night’s Sabres win a perfect game. It was quite far from it.
They jumped out to a 2-0 lead early in the first period on goals by Ryan McLeod and Kulich. The feeling at that moment was it was going to turn into a romp given the pregame festivities to fete Ray and the overwhelming good feelings surrounding the day. But as has been the norm for the Sabres, the lead went away, and this time it was gone within the same period.
Predators goals from Luke Evangelista on a tip in front and a deflected, bounced floating shot from Brady Skjei made it 2-2. This was the classic case of “it wasn’t for bad luck, they’d have no luck at all.” Evangelista’s tip in front was in tight and nearly impossible to stop and Skjei’s goal was a series of freaky bounces and a floater that Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen never even saw. The hangover from those goals to tie it carried into the second period in a rough way.
Nashville was able to hem the Sabres into their own end repeatedly, buzzing and circling the net and generating opportunities. But the Sabres were able to block some shots and passes and, when needed, Luukkonen was there to shut the door. Still, the Predators grabbed a 3-2 lead early in the frame when Tommy Novak deflected a shot out high from Skjei. On this goal, the Predators had Novak parked in front and Zachary L’Heureux doing a drive-by in front of the net to further take away Luukkonen’s eyes. The Sabres got busy chasing instead of stopping the puck and they were fortunate the Predators didn’t inflict more damage than the one goal.
As we’ve learned all year from the Sabres, all it takes to turn a game around is one goal. Jason Zucker and Alex Tuch helped make that happen midway through the second period when Zucker gained the blue line and dished to Tuch, and he set Zucker up with a floated shot-pass towards the net that Zucker deflected past Justus Annunen (who got the start thanks to Juuse Saros being out sick) to tie the game. The tying goal straightened out the Sabres’ focus and suddenly it was the Predators who were battling against the current.
For the most part, Buffalo controlled the third period, but it wasn’t until Thompson fed a perfect pass to Kulich in the zone where the rookie snapped his second goal past Annunen for a 4-3 lead and the eventual win. Playing the final 20 minutes the way they did on Friday is the kind of way they’ve needed all season. They were direct, smart, and put themselves in position to win by doing a lot of the little things the right way. It sounds simple, but sometimes simple is difficult when times are tough.
“Improving our third periods is just—is a really big deal.” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. “Solving, you know, when the other team comes with a lot of pressure is a big deal. Blocking a shot is a really big deal. Really all I talked about after the game was what Rayzor was and he was the ultimate team player. And on a night like this, to win that way and have really what I felt was a really good team game—you got to feel good about it.”
What stood out about all of the goals the Sabres had was how they didn’t happen because of fortunate bounces or broken plays, they came from making quick decisions and confident passes with purpose. These weren’t plays made with hope, they were made decisively and completed with skill. It’s the kind of thing we’ve seen happen a little more often in recent weeks but was absent for a lot of the early part of the year. It’s the kind of difference playing with confidence can provide.
“We talk about that, when your passing is off that little bit, you don’t look connected,” Ruff said. “And part of it is skating. Part of it is skating away from the puck. I mean, you got to skate. And then some of it is execution, just making the right play at the right time.”
So much of the growth we’re seeing in the overall play in some cases and individually speaking with some players has come from building block style learning. Seeing that with a team that’s been together for a few years, granted under a different coach and system, can be and is frustrating for sure. So much of it is followed by the thought saying, ‘Shouldn’t these guys have this down already?’
Yes, they should, but youth and new coaches and directives and the psyche that comes with playing in the NHL makes for a delicate chemistry that has to get balanced out. They hope now is that some of that is finally sorting itself out even if the team is in a hole that’s near impossible to climb out of to consider the possibility of the postseason.
“I don’t think we got too down on ourselves too much, even when they got the lead, I thought we had a lot of positivity on the bench,” Tuch said. “I think we didn’t give them too much momentum. I thought we weathered the storm in the second there for a bit and we were able to capitalize and tie it up late in the second period and that gave us some momentum going into the third and then I thought we played a really good, solid third period.”