Buffalo Sabres showing grit against the NHL’s best teams
By Sion Fawkes
Buffalo Sabres fans have to be happy with their team following their two-game mini-road trip, despite dropping both contests to Carolina and Tampa Bay.
Without Rasmus Dahlin in the lineup and a still banged-up Ilya Lyubushkin returning basically as an insurance policy, no one thought the Buffalo Sabres were going to hold up in this one, let alone take a brief lead following a Jeff Skinner goal.
For the first 50 minutes of the Sabres loss vs. the Tampa Bay Lightning, just about everything went right. This hockey team, with Lyubushkin back in the lineup, was beyond physical, putting up 44 hits against the Lightning. Lyubushkin accounted for seven while Owen Power and Kyle Okposo had six apiece.
The Sabres finished 1/3 on the power play, and even, gasp, won the faceoff battle. Overall, it was a respectable performance against a team that had won the Prince of Wales Trophy three years running. No one gave Buffalo a chance in Saturday’s loss to Tampa Bay, and they played a solid game given the pieces they had to work with.
Buffalo Sabres MUST BE satisfied with the road trip results
Go back to their loss against the Carolina Hurricanes, where the Sabres showed the ability to create, create, and create some more. Unfortunately, the ‘Canes experience got the best of the Sabres, which will occur this season against the NHL’s brass.
Had Dahlin been in the game and had this not been a back-to-back, perhaps Buffalo pulls this one out? The Sabres simply ran out of fuel in the closing minutes, but give this team credit for playing as well as they did against two of the Eastern Conference’s better teams.
Last season, these two games would have been blowouts, bar none, probably something in the realm of 6-1 or 5-0. While these were two losses on the slate to kick off November (Sabres are 1-2-0), overall, Buffalo played hard in three straight contests.
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And this is why losing an occasional nail-biter against an elite team is more motivating than it is depressing. At least at this point in the team’s development. As I said following their loss to Carolina: Give this group time playing together, and they will end up winning these games, even with a few men down.
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