The Buffalo Sabres didn’t play all that badly in a 3-0 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs, but it was another shining example of how their poor power play has kneecapped them all year.
BUFFALO — All things considered, the Buffalo Sabres performance against the Toronto Maple Leafs in a 3-0 loss on Saturday night wasn’t bad.
They generated shots and chances galore but Ilya Samsonov was sensational in goal for the Leafs. It happens.
The Sabres did cause some of their own mistakes that led to Nick Robertson’s goal that made it 2-0 and had bad luck rear its ugly head with a broken stick on defense while Auston Matthews pounced on the opportunity to score his 60th goal of the season.
Those things happen throughout a season. Sometimes you have to tip your cap to a great goalie performance and know that sometimes shit happens. But it’s another thing when part of what allowed the Sabres to have many opportunities to get on the board were the six power-plays they had in the game that yielded zero goals.
Many of the same issues the power play has run into this season popped up again, be it struggling to gain the zone or pulling the trigger to shoot rather than look for another pass. The power play has been a problem and continues to be a problem and what very little has clicked hasn’t lasted long enough to become the norm. Instead, what’s normal is expecting nothing to happen for two minutes while the frustration boils up.
“You know that can impact the game in a positive way if the power play’s going,” Sabres coach Don Granato said. “A night like tonight, it’s frustrating, it’s not going, and you had the opportunities you had.”
More on a night where solid play was overshadowed by a long-lingering issue.
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Watching the Sabres power play struggle the way that it has all season is an exercise in angst. The talent they’ve got between Tage Thompson, Alex Tuch, Rasmus Dahlin, Owen Power, Dylan Cozens, Jeff Skinner, JJ Peterka and others should provide positive results on their own merits. Being able to take five of those players and put them out against an opponent with only four (or three) players to fend them off is something anyone would sign up for.
A year ago, the Sabres scored on 23.4 percent of the time on the power play, ninth best in the NHL. Between Dahlin and Thompson and Tuch they were able to make teams pay dearly for taking a penalty. While that success hid other issues they had reasonably well, it was a strength for them, and one that opposing teams knew they couldn’t allow Buffalo to get those chances.
This year, Buffalo’s power play is scoring 16.1 percent of the time which puts them 28th in the NHL. Only Calgary, Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Philadelphia are worse with the man advantage. It’s a staggering drop in production and from watching the power play in action, it’s as if you’re watching five players getting caught thinking about what to do next as opposed to just playing the game and taking advantage of having the extra man.
“Yep. It sucks, honestly,” Tuch said. “Guys have been on it pretty much the whole year. I’ve got to be better. All five of us got to be better. There’s no excuses. We just have to score when we had the opportunities and as many opportunities as we got in the last however many weeks or whatever. We’ve got to bear down.”
It sounds repetitive and that’s because it’s unfortunately that way. It’s been the same issues, the same frustrations all year long and while everyone has lamented the drop in scoring on the team among just about everyone, you don’t have to look any further than the power play as to why.
Yes, they could stand to score more at 5-on-5, but that’s an area they’ve been reasonably good at all year. They’ve scored 158 goals at 5-on-5 which is tied for ninth best in the league. But on the power play they’ve scored 33 times, tied for the third fewest in the league. It’s damning beyond the pale.
“I think sometimes we look for the perfect play instead of just getting it to the net and getting greasy goals and just crowding the net and shrinking the zone,” Cozens said. “I think you look at a lot of the top power plays, they just throw a lot of stuff to the net, and they crash the net together and just attack off that.”
Last season the Sabres scored 63 times on the power play. Adding 30 more goals to this season’s tally is more than enough to sway the difference in more than a few games. Given that the Sabres are assuredly going to miss the playoffs after yet another missed opportunity to continue stalking the leaders on Saturday, when it’s time focus the blame as to why the playoff dream fell short all fingers should be pointed at the power play.
“Chalk it up to not bearing down on the grade-A’s, which happens, makes you lose your confidence and then you’re overstressing and overanalyzing,” Tuch said. “Instead of playing free and looking for each other, you’re trying to force things and trying to force opportunities and looks when they’re just feeling good. A lot of it is just confidence and obviously we don’t have it right now, so it’s a hole we got to work ourselves out of.”