Zach Benson scored two goals, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 21 saves for his fifth shutout of the year and, would look at that… Buffalo is three points out of the wild card.
BUFFALO — Before this week began, the one I referred to as “the biggest week of the season for the Buffalo Sabres,” the idea that they’d be able to potentially inch closer to the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference was kind of a wild idea.
They were very recently double-digit numbers out of a playoff spot with games whittling away off the schedule and now, after blowing out the Detroit Red Wings 7-3 on Tuesday and shutting out the New York Islanders 4-0 on Thursday, they’re headed into a five-game road trip that starts in Detroit Saturday afternoon officially on a tear.
The Sabres moved to within three points of the second wild card spot with the win over the Islanders, who came into Thursday night’s game on a six-game winning streak. Detroit also lost their seventh straight game, a 4-1 decision at home to Arizona.
Scoreboard watching? What a concept. What a turnaround.
“I know a lot of people counted us out, but this group in this room, we never counted ourselves out,” Dylan Cozens said. “We knew what we did last year and found a way to get close. And I think, last year, we kind of let the outside noise make us think we were out of it. And that’s something we’ve learned this year. Don’t worry about the outside noise, just just worry about this dressing room and each and every guy in this room and and just go out each and every day and do whatever it takes. And that’s what we’re going to keep doing.”
More ahead on another impressive win and the accumulation of experiences that’s culminating in wins when they needed them most.
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It was interesting to hear Cozens mention last year when discussing this season’s sudden rally into the playoff race. Much like last season, many of us in the room have been guilty of asking questions to the players with the point of view being, “Well, this thing is over with.” I can recall seeing Kyle Okposo’s reaction to some of those questions a year ago with a look that said, “What do you mean it’s over? We’re still in it.”
Standings being what they are and how finicky it can be to try and climb up the board thanks to loser points in overtime games, it’s not as easy as it used to be when there were ties in the NHL and winning could conceivably help a team leap up the standings. Some games being worth two points and others being worth a total of three has skewed the view on whether a team is still in it or out. For the second straight season, the Sabres are proving that the standings are more like some version of Schrödinger’s equation in which looking too closely at the situation can kill the dream.
“We’ve believed in this room for a bit, and we have tons of belief right now,” Cozens said. “So, that’s what we’re going to do is just each and every guy in this room is going to work for each other, and we’re going to go down swinging as hard as we can.
“We’re going to do whatever it takes to make the playoffs.”
In Thursday’s game, doing whatever it takes amounted to burying the Islanders in their own end of the ice for the better part of the first period. The Sabres smothered New York with a forecheck that gave Isles puck carriers little-to-no time to make a decision about where to go with the next pass. The Sabres cycled at will, picked pucks off to regain possession in the zone and were able to switch out personnel all while maintaining the puck.
We’ve taken to calling that “Globetrotter’ing” because it’s essentially a game of keep-away where the defending team is hopeless to get the puck back. The Sabres doing that early on in the first set the tone for the rest of the game.
“We try to make the plays and make the right stuff to win the games, and kind of the pressure’s been there the whole season,” Luukkonen said. “In the end, it’s kind of how we deal with it. Now, I think, we’ve been just playing…fearlessly, just really, really confident.”
Although the start was vital to set things up for the rest of the game, there was still Ilya Sorokin minding the Islanders net and he looked every bit like a guy who’s destined to win a Vezina one day. An early save on Peyton Krebs during a 2-on-1 with JJ Peterka had all the earmarks of the kind of stop that can rally a team to turn the game the other way and force the other team into a fit of frustration. Of course, the Sabres have dealt with that kind of thing all season long and their play of late has shown that when big saves like that happen or if shots go off the post or crossbar, they’re able to let it roll off their backs and keep going.
That kind of sticktoitiveness allowed Buffalo to put their heads down and keep pushing, something that was rewarded with a power play goal from Victor Olofsson early in the second period to finally break through. Olofsson’s tally broke the dam, so to speak.
Less than four minutes later, Cozens buried a rebound of a Connor Clifton shot past Sorokin. It was a calculated shot by Clifton where he was shooting, seemingly, to get a rebound. When he got it, it wound up going right to Cozens near the slot where, somehow, he was all by himself to make it 2-0. Nearly a minute-and-a-half later, Zach Benson tipped a shot by Henri Jokiharju with a screen from Jordan Greenway in front by Sorokin to make it 3-0 and with the way the Sabres pressured the Islanders all game long, New York was fortunate it was only 3-0.
Benson ultimately got an empty-net goal with 4:54 to go in the third when Isles coach Patrick Roy pulled Sorokin for an extra skater with over six minutes to play. Hey, when you’re down 3-0 you need to do something sooner than not to change the pressure. Instead, Rasmus Dahlin floated a high pass out of the defensive zone to Benson who broke out to get it on his stick and deposit it.
It was a rewarding game for Benson because he was again stung by two phantom penalty calls against him. A hooking minor in which his stick wasn’t even on the opponents’ hands and a tripping call in which the Islanders skater lost an edge and fell to the ice breaking away from Benson in the neutral zone. Whatever Benson did to be watched so intently this year is ridiculous at this point. He’s up to five or six penalties taken in which he did nothing to necessitate a call in the first place.
Penalties aside, Benson has played some outstanding hockey of late with five points in the past two games on a line with Greenway and Cozens.
“He’s worked really hard, and he has so many details to his game,” Sabres coach Don Granato said. “So, yes, when he scores, he puts himself in the right spots and now that confidence is moving toward the scoring side. He’s had confidence just playing, but I think now he’s gaining more confidence in scoring and that’s a big thing.”
There’s a certain kind of high to be had with this kind of rally from the Sabres. It’s the feeling which Granato spoke about after the team’s optional morning skate on Thursday in which the team’s outstanding play is coming from them putting all the pieces together that they’ve had to learn and experience to reach this point. Learning how to defend better, how to play more instinctually and know where everything is from the puck to teammates to the flow of play just by muscle memory more or less.
Granato said it’s all part of the process of helping a youthful group like this learn how to defend better and win games. Last season finding offense was easy and they know they can score, but what they didn’t know was how to defend the way winning teams do it so, just like the cliché says, they can turn defense into offense. Granato said they know how to score, but now they’re locking down how they defend in all areas and that’s unlocked their ability to play at a higher pace and far more dangerously on offense.
If they can pull off a win Saturday afternoon at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit before heading out west to deal with a truly difficult test away from home… Think about this though: Where they are right now after 67 games (three points out) is a lot closer than they were at this point a year ago (six points back).
It’s like I keep saying about this whole situation we’re watching play out: Funnier things have happened.