When as much happened in a Buffalo Sabres 7-6 shootout win against the Detroit Red Wings it’s enough to fill a book, it’s the rarest of rare times.
DETROIT — Whew.
It’s not often when a regular season game between two teams that most likely are not making the playoffs has as much excitement, drama, nonsense, and outright manic play as Thursday night’s affair between the Sabres and Red Wings did.
After all, Detroit is out of the hunt for the playoffs and Buffalo is barely in the picture, yet still not officially out of contention. It could’ve been a boring throw-away game with two teams trying to not get hurt. Instead, it was a goal bonanza with blown leads, silly goals, Dylan Cozens breaking the 30-goal barrier, a near line brawl, and ultimately a boring overtime turned cardiac and a shootout that saw rookie Devon Levi shut the door to give Buffalo a 7-6 win.
There is a whole pile of observations to make here and thoughts from some players and the coach from the Buffalo side of things to poke through here so let’s buckle down and get to it because, damn, there’s a lot.
First thing’s first, Tage Thompson didn’t skate in the morning and was a game-time decision and given how he’s clearly been battling through an injury, it was a toss-up whether or not he would play. Ultimately, he did, and Don Granato set out a whole new set of lines to go with it.
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Thompson played on the right wing with Cozens at center and Jordan Greenway on the left side. That move shuffled two other lines around as well. Mittelstadt went back with Jeff Skinner and Alex Tuch and Tyson Jost centered J-J Peterka and Jack Quinn. Some familiarity there but also some totally new looks and wouldn’t you know some of it worked out great.
Cozens shouldering the center load between Greenway and Thompson was done, as Granato said postgame, to take a little off of his plate. Far fewer faceoffs to take, fewer defensive responsibilities, and lightening the physical demands did wonders for him as he had a goal and an assist. It didn’t totally make things easier, of course, he still played more than 19 minutes, but the offensive production was there, and the line played well.
Mittelstadt’s return between Skinner and Tuch also worked out very well again. Tuch played a huge game, particularly defensively and on the PK. He used his reach and stick to deny passes, shots, and entries and he helped facilitate rushes by getting open for Mittelstadt and providing a big target for outlet passes. That alone resulted in Tuch being awarded a penalty shot early in the game.
That trio has helped highlight a lot of the work and positive things Mittelstadt has done and worked on throughout the year. Granato has complimented Mittelstadt’s competitive level and how the hard work he does and his desire to not get beaten are making him a better player. It’s become more and more difficult to argue that given the results in his efforts.
And it was a big night in the Mittelstadt family because Casey’s younger brothers Luke and John won their national semifinal matchup with Minnesota against Boston University. Luke had two goals to lead the way for the Gophers. Seeing Casey sitting on the floor in the hallway away from the Sabres locker room on facetime with his family made for a very cool moment. He said his phone was blowing up all night and he had updates waiting for him between periods. He may be more excited for his brothers than they are for their shot at a national championship.
Cozens’ two goals gave him 31 on the season and breaking that barrier was a nice moment in his career. He gave the credit for doing it to his teammates and that while it’s nice to accomplish, there’s more to be done for the team and keep winning the rest of the way. He admitted he knew he was close to 30 and it was hard to not think about, but he wanted to get it done and get it out of the way so he could stay focused on the team and winning. He could not be a more classic hockey player.
Let’s talk about the big scrum that ensued after Jokiharju’s goal in the first period. It came about because of a neutral zone collision between Jeff Skinner and Lucas Raymond. The young Wings forward seemed to believe it was done on purpose and that it was soon followed by a Sabres goal made it even more egregious in their eyes.
Skinner gets every opponent mad in various ways throughout the course of a game. He chirps, he has a bag full of dirty tricks, and if he scores against you, you’ll never hear the end of it from him. Look at how this played out.
Most, if not all, of the Detroit players on the ice for that goal lost their damn fool minds and because not all of them could fight Skinner at the same time, guys paired off in fits of aggression.
We’ve seen Skinner drive guys nuts numerous times in the past and whatever it is he says or does works extremely well. This brand of aggravating was different because it was capped off with Skinner raising his arms to celebrate the goal in front of Raymond and Dylan Larkin which made all of their fuses go off. Which, hey, I’d probably lose my shit too. It’s a supreme shithead move and is also incredible that he did it.
I said it on Twitter and I’ll say it again here: Skinner is a master shithouser and getting him under your skin must feel deeply maddening. Credit to Detroit for not going completely off the rails after all of that because it would’ve been very easy to fall into that trap and spend the rest of the game trying to track him down and enact some kind of payback.
Confession: I’ve been running myself down in a big way being a sports tourist trip to Detroit so I am going to cut this a little short and (hopefully) rest up for the long trek back to Buffalo and prepare for Saturday’s tilt with Carolina. Even typing this out had me doing the kid-falling-asleep-in-class nod.
I’ll have a story about Mittelstadt on the way soon-ish after speaking with a few of his teammates and new linemates as well. I’ll regroup a little bit more tomorrow once I am back in Buffalo. Until then!