About three-quarters of the way through the third stanza, the Buffalo Sabres had an astounding 41 shots on net (finished with 46 at the time of this writing), but once again, they looked more than pedestrian offensively. To make matters worse, they faced Anton Forsberg, who before tonight’s game, had an 0.877 save percentage and a 3.29 GAA. And remember, last night, they only put up three goals against Daniil Tarasov, who had a GAA of over 4.00.
It’s clear that the Blue and Gold need to generate second and third chances if they plan on getting back to 0.500 any time soon, and we didn’t see much of that tonight. Instead, we witnessed Forsberg make too many routine saves with hardly any rush toward the net. This isn’t to say Buffalo didn’t generate multiple chances, but they were once again inconsistent, and it resulted in another blowout loss - these are becoming routine these days.
Lack of traffic, rebounds contributed to Buffalo Sabres latest loss
To make things more frustrating, the Sabres basically did the same thing they did against the Boston Bruins this past Wednesday: They didn’t start skating with a sense of urgency until the final frame, and by then it was 4-1 and the Senators found themselves in complete control of the contest.
Overall, it was yet another lazy performance from the Buffalo Sabres following a win on a back-to-back. They didn’t look great in yesterday’s win against a banged-up Columbus Blue Jackets team, so perhaps one would think they would finally put together a strong performance offensively (or overall) in the second half of this thing, but it was nothing more than wishful thinking.
This season has been all about routines in the worst way. Buffalo lost following a win - again. And they lost in the second half of a back-to-back - again. I’d like to end this final piece of the calendar year with an optimistic, “Maybe they’ll get it together sooner than later?” But here’s a New Year’s Resolution for 2024: Let’s learn our lesson about the 2023-24 Sabres - they aren’t changing any time soon.
(Statistics provided by NHL.com)