Sabres news: Sabres look better but still fail to get a point against the Rangers
The Buffalo Sabres looked the best they have in a few games, but they still could not grind out a win. They fell to the New York Rangers 3-2 last night at Madison Square Garden. A game that got off to an electric start for both sides ended up as the fourth consecutive loss for Buffalo.
The game quickly had Sabres fans asking if they really wanted to stick around and watch after 30 seconds. Pavel Buchnevich buried a goal for New York just 28 seconds into the first period. But before if I could decide if I really wanted to watch the Sabres get shut out again, Sam Reinhart responded and scored just 55 seconds into the game. After both teams scored on their first shot on goal, it did not take long for the Rangers to take the lead back as first overall pick Alexis Lafreniere scored the go-ahead goal just about a minute and a half later.
With the Sabres down 2-1 going into the second, they found themselves in the familiar spot of being down early. And that lead grew when Chris Kreider beat Carter Hutton on a wrist shot that left Kreider with a somewhat perplexed look on his face after it went in, almost like he was surprised that he scored. The Sabres did cut the Rangers’ lead in half before the end of the period as Tobias Rieder netted his fourth goal of the season at the 16:21 mark.
The Sabres looked flat when they were trying to come back to tie it in the third period. They only managed to get five shots on goal through the final 20 minutes of play. The only time the team looked fired up was when Dylan Cozens dropped the gloves. He seemed to spark some aggression, but they could not capitalize and find the tying goal as they fell 3-2.
Hutton struggled once again. He allowed three goals on only 19 shots from the Rangers. A performance like that is not going to amount to many wins in this league. Through his eight games played, Hutton is allowing 3.18 goals per game and has a save percentage of .891.
It was great to see the Sabres finally show some fight and score some goals, but ultimately it wasn’t enough. There are some things that the Sabres did last night that they can build off of, but it will be interesting to see if they can carry over the positives from this game to their next game, which is on Thursday against the Islanders.