3 major issues that led to the Buffalo Sabres loss against Pittsburgh

The Buffalo Sabres struggled in a shutout loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins, and they faced a plethora of issues that led to the 4-0 defeat.

The Buffalo Sabres suffered their first shutout loss of the season, and if you’re doing the math, it was their second abysmal performance in nine days, with their 5-1 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers also serving as a dud. But, you will rarely see teams evade such losses, so once again, there’s no need to panic following what was just an ill-fated game.

However, it also means the Sabres have issues they must address, or else they would have at least found twine a couple of times. Let’s talk about three major issues that they must resolve by the time their next game rolls around vs. the Boston Bruins.

Major issues that led to the Buffalo Sabres loss

1 – Failure to generate high-quality shot attempts

The Blue and Gold did well in this category in terms of getting shots on net, as they put 35 of them on goal. Their major issue? Buffalo did nothing to maximize their chances, far too often leaving Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry with a chance to make easy saves, and it’s something you can’t do against a netminder of his caliber.

Buffalo should be quite familiar with who they may be facing on Tuesday, and if they think they’ll see better results with such a strategy this week, they’re sorely mistaken. In short, they got the shots off, but they made life way too easy for the opposing goaltender.

2 – Power play

There is always the Captain Obvious reason, but this power play is something we’re going to keep talking about until the Blue and Gold figure out how to fix it. Throughout the back-to-back, it was lackluster, and the Sabres have now dropped to 28th in the league with an 11.11 conversion percentage.

Overall, they are five for 45, and at this point, you’re left to wonder if they should just stop trying to draw penalties until they feel they’ve figured out how to resolve the man advantage. And yes, that’s a laugh out loud moment. But in all seriousness, since what they’re doing has rarely worked, they need to rethink their strategy and rethink it rather quickly.

3 – Injuries

Injuries have hit this team hard, and it started back in June with Jack Quinn. Luckily, we should be getting an idea sooner than later about when he will hit the ice again in a game. His return alone will be a huge boost to the Buffalo Sabres, especially if he experiences a similar jump to JJ Peterka once he’s acclimated.

But wow, did this team miss Alex Tuch last night, and even the previous evening? Tuch may have started slowly, and the team collectively suffered. But since he’s found his game, Buffalo has been for the most part, a different hockey team, and once he returns to the lineup, it will serve as a major boost.

Source: Sabres shut out by Penguins as offense struggles without Alex Tuch by Lance Lysowski, Buffalo News

(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)