Buffalo Sabres Suffer Disappointing Loss in Prospects Challenge

The Buffalo Sabres prospects fall to the New Jersey Devils prospect team. The final score of the game was 6-3 in favor of the Devils.

Unfortunately the first game of the prospect challenge was a bit of a disappointment for us Buffalo Sabres fans. In this post I will provide my thoughts and opinions on the overall play of the game as well as highlighting some individual players.

To be fair one of the six goals scored by the Devils was on an empty net. Even still, the game got away from the young Sabres prospects early into the third period. It was readily apparently that the ice was tilted in the Devils direction once we crossed the mid-way point of the second period.

Some of the Buffalo Sabres better prospects didn’t play in this game, which depending on how you look at it can be encouraging. Justin Bailey, William Carrier, and Rasmus Asplund were some of the key players missing from the Sabres roster in this first game. All three of these players showed very well in the Blue vs Gold prospect scrimmage earlier this summer.

Thoughts and Opinions

Let’s get this out of the way and start off by focusing on Alex Nylander. There was a fair amount of hype surrounding Nylander heading into this game. Unfortunately, this game was probably one he would like to have back. Nylander played the majority of the game bouncing between the top two lines, and finished with 0 shots on goals with a minus 3 rating. Watching him play you could certainly see flashes of speed and skill. At the same time it was also quite apparently that he was trying to do too much on his own. Stick-handling through multiple players on the opposing team often led to the puck coming back in the opposite direction. I’m hoping for a better showing from Nylander when the Buffalo Sabres prospects take on the Boston Bruins prospects.

Linus Ullmark also had a very disappointing game. He let in 5 goals on 29 shots, and there were a couple of goals that I’m certain he would like back. Based on the performance from this game I’m hopeful that Anders Nilsson has what it takes to be a capable back-up.

As a whole the Sabres defense played poorly in my opinion. Zone entries for the Devils were often too easy and the young defense often got hemmed in their own zone. Brendan Guhle was active and had 4 shots on goal, however his defensive game wasn’t the strongest in this one.

Moving on to the positives… I thought that Eric Cornel and Nicholas Baptiste played very well together.  Nicholas Baptiste was by far the Buffalo Sabres best player in this game. He scored a hat-trick and stood out offensively. This is the type of play that we want to see from Baptiste moving forward, i’m hoping for a big year in Rochester from him.

Final Comments

Unfortunately there were not many positives that stuck out for me during this first prospects challenge game. Let’s hope for a turnaround when playing the Bruins squad. I will not be able to watch the next game as I will be attending the team North America vs team Russia game Monday night!

Next: Buffalo Sabres Rasmus Ristolainen Proving His Worth At World Cup

Thank you as always for reading. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and suggestions for future posts.