Buffalo Sabres Fall to Nashville Predators, 3-2

The Buffalo Sabres dropped another game, this time to Cody Hodgson and the Nashville Predators.

This was a frustrating game for the players, coaches and fans. The Sabres were playing well, even dominating at points, but Brian Duff said it best; tonight’s game proved that statistics aren’t everything. Buffalo outshot the Preds 32-20, won 57% of their faceoffs, killed off all any penalties and looked solid for a majority of the game.

It was the lack of attention and urgency in small portions of the game that cost the Sabres a much need two points.

There are a lot of things I would like to talk about regarding tonight’s game, so let’s get right into it.

First, lets just get it out of the way. Cody Hodgson scored. It was the game winner. I was furious. Any questions? Moving on.

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On a serious note, Ryan O’Reilly is the real deal people. He is the one player I have seen all year where it is almost impossible to find things he does wrong. Yes, he may make a few mistakes, but he is an unbelievable talent that, if you haven’t noticed, you will want to. It was all capped off by two things. One, his comments about hating losing and how the team needs to pick it up and two, his shot-pass to Eichel tonight was superb. I can see why Murray gave up what he did for him.

Going from admiring O’Reilly to bringing up a topic that people may not agree with. Jack Eichel had a rough game. Yes, his goal was nice and that’s the kind of finishing the Sabres need, but it was too late. Eichel had some problems in the defensive zone, turned over the puck a couple times and wasn’t moving his feet as much as he should.

There was a forecheck that he stopped moving his feet on, he lost the battle along the boards because of it and the puck got out of Nashville’s zone quickly and ended up as a goal not too long after. This is not saying that Eichel didn’t make plays out there, but he looked a little more exposed tonight than he has in the past. He’s still a kid, he’ll make mistakes and that is just part of the process.

Jake McCabe didn’t have a stellar game at all, but this is just part of the pain of being a young team in close games.

Lastly, it was nice to see Evander Kane snipe a shot like we’ve been waiting to see, but I’ll remember him getting stood up by Filip Forsberg in the corner. Josh Gorges took a hard hit too from the behind of Forsberg, so at least Evander wasn’t the only one.

Clearly there are some areas the Sabres need to address, but there really has been progress.

The skid has been extended to six games, but look who they have been against. Florida and San Jose are no slouches, Dallas is incredibly impressive this year (2 games), St. Louis is holding strong in the tough central division as well (2 games) and Nashville has the personell to make them a very dangerous team as well.

Next: Pysyk Could Be One Of Sabres' Top D

The Sabres play the Hurricanes Friday night and the two teams have similar records, so this could be the chance for the the boys in blue and gold to snap out of their funk.