The Buffalo Sabres hit the road for their first of three games in four nights, starting against the Utah Mammoth. The team's season continues to slip away, and a win against the Mammoth would have been a great way to spark a turnaround.
It appeared the Sabres were going to get that as they jumped out to a 2-0 lead with two goals by Isak Rosen and a strong performance in net by Colten Ellis through the first half of the game. Unfortunately, everything unraveled from that point, and the Mammoth scored five straight goals to win.
The Sabres' collapse can be attributed to a number of things, but on Wednesday night, the team's leaders didn't step up. Alex Tuch was aware of that and said this after the game, according to Paul Hamilton of WGR550:
"“Our line was not good enough. That’s something we would’ve liked to have built on (the third period in Carolina) but we didn’t. It’s unacceptable. And we just need to be better, there’s no other way to say it.”"
Buffalo Sabres top line didn't have a single shot on net against the Utah Mammoth
The coaching staff has had to shuffle the lines and, over the past two games settled on Tage Thompson playing with Alex Tuch and Ryan McLeod. Previously, the Sabres' best line has been Tuch, McLeod, and Josh Doan, but in hopes of getting Tage Thompson going, they decided to split that up.
However, this performance was not what they had in mind as the Sabres' top line failed to record a single shot on goal. According to MoneyPuck, this line produced an xGoals% of only 12.6% in 5v5 play against Utah.
As Tuch noted, this performance was a little surprising, especially with the third period they had against Carolina. Tuch and Thompson each recorded a goal and an assist in that final period and if they could have built on that, this is a game they could have won.
Unfortunately, for the Sabres they don't have much time to regroup and have an even tougher matchup tonight against the Colorado Avalanche. The pressure is on players like Alex Tuch to show the performance they had against Utah is unacceptable and lead this team on the ice.
The Sabres have had too many injuries at this point to have their top players disappear almost entirely in the game. While the play of Isak Rosen has been encouraging, and it is something fans have been waiting to see, the production really needs to come from Thompson and Tuch.
If the Sabres want to have any chance of winning consistently and turning this season around, it will be these two players leading the way.