The Sabres had a 1-0 lead after the first period and looked in control… but it got out of their hands in the final 40 minutes in a 4-1 loss to Detroit.
DETROIT — When teams are dancing on the razor’s edge of the playoff race, every game is their own version of a playoff game. For a younger team that’s still learning about what meaningful games late in the season is all about, even after last season, the Buffalo Sabres are figuring out that desperation can carry a team through a game.
Desperation in this case came in the form of a Detroit Red Wings team that had lost seven consecutive games and has fallen back to the pack in the Eastern Conference wild card race in rapid fashion. The Wings, on home ice, found their desperation gear and used that to run over the Sabres after Buffalo took it to them in the opening period en route to a 4-1 win.
Buffalo had a 1-0 lead after the first period thanks to a Tage Thompson power play goal, but from the second period on, it was the Red Wings who looked more like the team we’ve seen from them most of the season. After the Sabres rolled over the Red Wings on Tuesday in Buffalo, getting the early lead on Saturday turned out to be their undoing.
“We thought it was going to be the same way in the second and in the third,” Sabres defenseman Rasmus Dahlin said. “They came out desperate and they really wanted it, so we were kind of on our heels. We never really came back.”
More ahead on a gut-shot of a loss to kick off a difficult five-game road trip…
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The first 20 minutes on Saturday looked a lot like most of the Sabres-Red Wings tilt from Tuesday. Although Detroit got shots and chances, they were minimal and mostly low-danger and Buffalo dominated in puck possession and zone time, at least anecdotally. Everything about the first period seemed like it would be a carbon copy of their earlier matchup.
But the Red Wings started up the second period by throwing the body and landing big hits in the opening few minutes to get more into the game. You could argue that physical play startled the Sabres and the intense effort Detroit came out with thew Buffalo for a major loop.
“We didn’t play how we needed to play in the second period,” Sabres coach Don Granato said. “We didn’t have the energy and jump that we had in the first, obviously, and it slipped away. And I thought after that we played a little bit tense and a little bit tighter. Some guys didn’t look like themselves today even though the first period was good. (Detroit) looked like themselves and I think we pressed too much.”
The Sabres for the final two periods bore a resemblance to the version of the Sabres we saw for much of the season giving up great looks the net to make an unnecessary next pass that allowed Detroit to better compose themselves under the pressure Buffalo attempted to put on. As we’ve seen this season, when that starts happening, it has too often kept happening throughout the game.
“When you’re passing up opportunities and put the puck to the net, you feel like you have to make a perfect play before you’re going to score,” Granato said. “You’re missing that killer instinct and I thought that was the case. You hear the chatter on the bench and you feel you can tell the psyche of the bench. We slipped from where we’ve been playing for the last little bit. I thought it was fine in the first period. In the second period, again, a few guys clearly didn’t look like themselves today and that it added up unfortunately.”
During the second period, the indecisiveness helped undo the lead and gave Detroit an eventual 2-1 advantage after goals from Christian Fischer and Patrick Kane.
“Those are two desperate teams going at it,” Thompson said. “Obviously the outcome’s not what we want but we don’t really have time to dwell on it. We’ve got I don’t know how many games coming down the stretch here, but we need all of them, so we’ve got to focus on one game at a time. We can’t dwell on this one.”
The way Detroit scored their two goals in the second period showed that hard work that turns into pressure that turns into stress on the opponent makes things happen. It’s something Buffalo did to them on Tuesday, but the Sabres were on the other side of the coin on Saturday. Fischer’s goal came as he came out from behind the net and while falling to the ice shoveled a backhand to the net that beat Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen through the five-hole.
Kane’s goal came after sustained zone time hemmed the Sabres in their end of the ice and J.T. Compher made a diving poke check to help get the puck to Kane who buried it at the far side. Even after all that, a 2-1 deficit going into the third isn’t insurmountable, but bad things can happen when you’re chasing the game.
“They were really desperate, and we had to play the same way,” Dahlin said. “We tried and tried and tried. We never got the swagger, and we never got the real momentum. They did a great job, but we never really picked it up.”
The third period saw Granato swap Zemgus Girgensons and Jeff Skinner on lines with Skinner rejoining Thompson and Alex Tuch while Girgensons skated with Peyton Krebs and JJ Peterka. Infer from that what you will, but Skinner was very much engaged in the game and they needed goals. Girgensons was his usual effective self on the forecheck and physically, but the Skinner-Krebs-Peterka trio was on the ice for the Kane goal and had a hard time there trying to get out of the zone.
But later in the final frame, Daniel Sprong scored from the half-wall with a little over six minutes left in the third. The shot beat Luukkonen to the short side and Dahlin may have inadvertently screened him going to the front of the net to clear a Detroit attacker. Unfortunate, but it’s the kind of thing that can happen when trying to climb out of a hole. A Lucas Raymond empty-netter with 1:07 to go made it 4-1.
It’s two points lost for Buffalo and two gained for Detroit and perhaps the kind of win that snaps the Red Wings out of the belligerent haze they’ve been in of late. The Sabres have been in position to not be able to lose any games since clawing their way back into the wild card picture, never mind a game against a team they have to jump over to try and get there.
“It’s a quick learner and when I mentioned that we were a little tight today, thinking ahead or behind, whatever, not in the moment, turn the page quick,” Granato said. “Obviously this road trip, we know, you look at it, they’re all tough buildings, they’re all tough teams and we obviously knew that ahead of time. The urgency is the urgency at this time of the year for everybody. Big trip ahead.”