Buffalo Sabres best games of 2022-23: Ending the long losing streak

The Buffalo Sabres were one of the NHL’s worst teams between November 4th and November 19th. Then, they won in outstanding fashion. 

The Buffalo Sabres started the 2022-23 season off with such a bang, the team looked like it was going places. In October, they went 6-3-0, before beating the Pittsburgh Penguins to kick off November. Then, they didn’t win again for another three weeks.

Buffalo played Carolina next, a team few of us thought they’d beat, so the 5-3 loss wasn’t a huge deal. Then they skated into and lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning by the same score. But again, Tampa was a projected playoff team even back in November, so at least the Sabres played them hard, right? Surely, they’d beat the lowly Arizona Coyotes.

Turns out, Arizona had their number. And on November 10th, Jack Eichel and his Vegas Golden Knights embarrassed the Blue and Gold two days before the Boston Bruins took one in a defensive affair.

But they’d beat the Vancouver Canucks, right? A team they upended earlier in the season? Nope, Vancouver won, before the Ottawa Senators bested the Sabres by three goals one night later. Then on November 19th, the Toronto Maple Leafs made quick work of Buffalo in Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen’s season debut.

Buffalo Sabres had little going for them over eight-game losing streak

Although Buffalo was facing one of the NHL’s worst teams in the Montreal Canadiens on November 22nd, we weren’t expecting much. Mainly because the Sabres gave us little to expect, though I did predict them to win that night…if Mattias Samuelsson played…

They were also playing on the road, and this came before we realized just what kind of road warriors this team would become. Then they went out and scored three goals in the game’s first two minutes and 13 seconds.

Rasmus Dahlin kicked things off with helpers from Tage Thompson and Jeff Skinner just 35 seconds into the game, before the Kid Line scored the second goal, with J.J. Peterka finding twine off of assists from Jack Quinn and Dylan Cozens. Then Alex Tuch scored a power play goal while Skinner and Dahlin provided the helpers.

Following the second period, Buffalo was up 4-2 after Skinner landed his first goal and third point of the night, with Tage and Tuch handling the assists. In the third period, it was all Sabres, as Henri Jokiharju drilled one into the net just three minutes and 48 seconds into the closing frame, with Tage and Tuch assisting.

Then Tage scored on the power play at the 6:39 mark, as Skinner provided yet another assist along with Vinnie Hinostroza. The onslaught didn’t end until Skinner scored on the power play with five and a half minutes to go, with Cozens and Dahlin on the assists.

Overall, this game wasn’t just memorable because the Buffalo Sabres ended a long losing streak by blowing out a division rival. It also kicked off their best run of the season, as the Blue and Gold would go 11-3-2 (24 points) between November 22nd and December 31st.

(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)