Buffalo Sabres: ONE good takeaway from Thursday’s loss to Dallas
By Sion Fawkes
If you’re a fan of the Buffalo Sabres, it’s tough to stay optimistic at this point after you just witnessed your team lose 10-4.
First and foremost, I’m going to get the Captain Obvious statement off my chest: There is absolutely no excuse for an NHL team of any talent level to lose a game 10-4. I mean, the Buffalo Sabres played like absolute garbage last night, and anyone who says differently is fooling themselves.
It was far and away their worst performance of the season. Even worse than their head-scratching loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets, which seems to be the catalyst for what’s been an abysmal week-and-a-half for this team. Alright, now that I vented, something you know I rarely do here at Sabre Noise, I still want to inject some positivity into this piece.
One huge, positive takeaway from the Buffalo Sabres loss to Dallas
The Sabres, so high-octane and dangerous scorers earlier in the season, have cooled since Alex Tuch’s injury. As a result, they’ve regressed into trying to force plays in the offensive zone, and even the neutral zone, that just aren’t there.
And we’ve seen this occur time and again over the past three contests against the Edmonton Oilers, New York Islanders, and Dallas Stars. How many errant passes have we seen bounce off a stick and lead to a turnover? Or outside the offensive zone and into the neutral zone?
Over the past week, plenty. So many, I stopped bothering to count. And how many breakaways has that errant play led to for opponents? Once again, there was no reason to keep counting. We’ll just say a lot.
So here the Buffalo Sabres stand, playing like a completely different group that upset the Florida teams just two short weeks ago, their playoff hopes basically gone. Now, the goal should be to finish strong, and to do that, they need to re-learn how to play a simple, efficient game that led them to becoming one of the NHL’s highest-scoring teams.
light. Related Story. 3 major issues the Buffalo Sabres must fix in last 18 games
If they can’t rediscover that game quickly, then it’s going to be a painful final 18 games. But if the Sabres can, they will at least give us a reason to tune in and enjoy the final quarter of what’s been an improved, but nonetheless, up and down season.
Source: Observations: Sabres again witness that impatience is a recipe for disaster in 10-4 loss by Lance Lysowski, BuffaloNews.com