Buffalo Sabres: 3 takeaways from Friday’s 2-1 loss to the Capitals

1. The Buffalo Sabres need to take advantage of powerplay opportunities.

In their first game of the season, the Sabres scored once on three powerplay opportunities. Last night, Buffalo was awarded five powerplays and scored on none of them.

Scoring zero times over five powerplays is just unacceptable, especially with the talent the team has on both units. To make it worse, the Sabres didn’t look very good on the powerplay as they weren’t able to create many opportunities.

This cannot continue against the Flyers on Monday or against any team Buffalo plays this season. Having a good powerplay can change the outcome of a game and either lead to a win or a loss.

Scoring on a powerplay or even just generating good chances can create momentum for your team and lead to more goals. However, if your powerplay can’t generate chances and the opposition easily kills it they’ll generate momentum leading to goals against.

With the Sabres being weak defensively and in net, their powerplay is more important to them than most teams as they aren’t as strong at five-on-five play.

It’s clear as day that the Sabres need to fix the issues they had on the powerplay last night for their next game against the Flyers. If they don’t, we could be in for a long game.