The Buffalo Sabres’ 7-4 win over the Washington Capitals made it a three-game win streak with additional difficulty added to the equation via injury.
BUFFALO — Every game has a story, and not just the story of the game itself. There are dramas baked into the entirety of the game in any moment. There are player rivalries, team rivalries, superstars facing off against each other, and then anything else that helps set a narrative during the game.
For the Buffalo Sabres, the story came pregame when the team announced Alex Tuch would be out week-to-week with a lower-body injury and Rasmus Dahlin would be out of Sunday’s vital playoff-race tilt against the Washington Capitals. Tuch is out long-term and Dahlin is day-to-day, but in a must-win type of game against a team they’re in direct competition with for the postseason, it was not the news anyone in Buffalo wanted to hear.
Rather than the straightforward question of how the team will handle a need-to-win situation in general it turned into how they’re going to do that without two of their top scorers. If Sunday was any indication of how things might go, they’ll be just fine.
The Sabres blitzed the Capitals in a game more reminiscent of something out of 1983 than 2023 and took home a 7-4 decision. Dylan Cozens had a hat trick and four points, Tage Thompson scored his 40th goal of the season, and Jack Quinn’s promotion to the first line in Tuch’s stead was dazzling.
Sure, there are negatives that come out of a game like that. The defensive coverage was lacking and some of Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen’s goaltending left a bit to be desired, but throwing a wet blanket on top of an effort like Sunday’s would be some real sour puss nonsense considering what they’ve accomplished in the past three games.
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Headed into last week, the thought was the four games that lay ahead—home games against Toronto and Washington and a road back-to-back in Florida against the Lightning and the playoff competitor Panthers—would be true tests as to whether the Sabres would be serious about a run at the postseason, or they’d be happy-to-be-there outside participants.
Looking at how those games played out, forgetting the Leafs game because that’s been covered here already, the win in Tampa was wild. Not just because of how it played out with Ilya Lyubushkin scoring a shorthanded goal in overtime to win it and not even because of the shoddy officiating that was sure to infuriate both teams, but that it was a classic game previous Sabres teams lose going away.
They had a sizable lead, blew it, appeared ready to collapse in on themselves and then just didn’t. Even though it had all the earmarks of being a heartbreaking loss in overtime, it didn’t happen. Wins in Tampa are rare enough for the Sabres, but that they held it together (ever so barely) and came out of it with two points made it almost a bonus, depending on what happened the next night in Sunrise.
Craig Anderson stealing the show in his current hometown with 50-plus saves and the Sabres getting clutch goals from Jeff Skinner against a team they’re up against to get to the playoffs was impressive. It was so because of Anderson’s brilliant play and because it would’ve been almost excusable if they had lost considering how events in Tampa unfolded. But they didn’t and they came away with two more points while simultaneously hurting a competitor’s standing in the race.
Flash ahead to Sunday’s battle with Washington, without Tuch and Dahlin, it again would’ve been understandable if they were out of sync and ran into trouble against a veteran Capitals lineup. Instead, it was Cozens showing out and dominating play at both ends. It was Quinn showing that his recent run of solid play would continue. It was Owen Power, pressed into duty as the absolute No. 1 defenseman in Dahlin’s absence, handling the game with authority.
It’s impressive.
“I think what it says is, psychologically, (injuries and absences) doesn’t affect them,” Sabres coach Don Granato said. “They’re competitive people. They believe in their own ability and their ability to rise and we’re going to need guys to rise when players are absent, specifically the caliber of Tuch and Dahlin. We know those guys are incredible hockey players, but it doesn’t say a lot if you’re worried about, ‘This might be the case, this might not be the case and that.’ I don’t think these guys worry that there’s anything they can’t do in the absence of guys, so that was nice to see.
“Obviously, might have to continue. In Tuch’s case, definitely. We’re going to be without him for a while. And this is why I say all the time, we don’t have one player that’s going to be a savior. You’re going to win, it takes a team and our guys I think have identified with that all the way through, so I don’t expect our guys to dwell on anything.”
When you look back through the season and the assortment of games and situations this team has dealt with both in terms of the schedule and through the course of individual games, the lessons and experiences learned have built up and they’ve witnessed a lot of variances in situations and outcomes. I get that any talk of “learning lessons” got old fast when losses occurred consecutively, but it’s all been part of the process of getting to this point where that experience can pay off because they’ve done it already, and recently enough to know what not to do in most situations.
Now they’re facing up a situation where a top scorer will be out for a substantial amount of time at maybe the worst possible time of the season, and after their first test of it, things may not be as bleak as it seems.
“I think there’s a little bit of natural chemistry there. (Quinn) thinks the game so well, it’s pretty easy to play with him,” Thompson said. “He’s really smart and he knows where to go on the ice, and when he has the puck he’s got a lot of poise with it. He makes great plays. Just reading off each other. And I think the more we play with each other, the more we are going to know each other’s tendencies. So, it was a good first game, and we just build off that now.”
Quinn had two assists including a brilliant pass to Cozens on his second goal of the game. It came at the end of a shift and he was able to use his edges to draw Capitals defenders to him while Cozens took off like a shot up the wing.
“I heard (Cozens) originally way back in the neutral zone,” Quinn said. “I knew he was going to be skating as hard as he could get up the ice, so I just tried to make it look like I was going to my right side instead of left and threw it over there. It was a bit of a no look. I guess it was a little lucky that it landed right on his tape, but I was just trying to put it in his area, and he skated right into it.”
This is a big moment for Quinn, and it comes at a time when his offensive game is getting more consistent. He had two goals and two assists in five games coming into Sunday’s affair and tacked on two more helpers with a new line. When dealing without Tuch, if this is how it will play out, that blow will be softened tremendously.
“He’s been playing well lately and feeling confidence,” Granato said. “And this is another window of opportunity to give him that type of an ice time, that type of situation knowing he’s building a foundation that’s stronger and stronger at the NHL level.”
Trying to equate what Tuch does will be almost impossible to replicate and whether the answer to that comes from within or from elsewhere with the trade deadline approaching on Friday, making the best of a bad situation is vital for the Sabres’ playoff hopes. That the team has handled adversity well to this point is huge, but if they can continue to do so while the schedule shortens, and the margins get tighter, then this team will play meaningful games through the rest of the season and into the playoffs.