Score: Lightning 5 | Sabres 0
Shots: BUF 28 | TBL 28
Buffalo Sabres Goals: No goals scored.
Tampa Bay Lightning Goals: Corey Perry (17), Ondrej Palat (16), Brandon Hagel (24), Nikita Kucherov (15), Ross Colton (16)
Minus 1 | Falling Flat in Tampa
It is the month of April and the Buffalo Sabres are doing their best to make the most of the remaining games, while their opponent is deep in the throws of a playoff race.
Can you see how this one would end up so lopsided?
Buffalo has been much better as of late but the run would for sure come to an end at some point, most just would have not expected a 5-0 blowout at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Don Granato was very reflective after Sunday afternoon’s loss when speaking to collected media.
“We were clearly not ourselves tonight,” Granato said.” You can look at the chances we created. We had some extreme golden opportunities to score, but just couldn’t convert.
The Sabres have now lost three straight games.
Minus 2 | Eakin The Linchpin?
Forward Cody Eakin was a late scratch on Sunday, due to an undisclosed injury.
With Eakin being out, the lineup found itself to be shaken up at the last minute. Gone were the lines that Buffalo had been finding success with lately, in exchange for a patchwork lineup that would hopefully get the job done.
Peyton Krebs slotted into the fourth-line center role and his wing spot was filled by Anders Bjork.
According to MoneyPuck, the last minute line of Girgensons – Krebs – Okposo performed poorly.
Out of all the forward lines for both teams, the aforementioned line posted a 15.6 expected goals percentage during 5-on-5 play for the entire game.
Bonus Plus 1 | Power’s Here
This bonus plus was the only real good news out of Sunday’s game and it had absolutely nothing to do with the actual game on-ice.
First overall pick Owen Power arrived in Florida over the past few days, signed his entry-level contract with the Sabres and took the ice with the team for the first time on Sunday.
Power is expected to make his National Hockey League debut on Tuesday night against the Toronto Maple Leafs, which might just be a big deal for a kid from Mississauga, Canada.
Final Thoughts
A bummer of a game on Sunday afternoon, for anyone who was actually looking forward to the game.
Buffalo clearly still has a lot of work to do against the powerhouses in the Eastern Conference but a bad game is a bad game.
You just brush the game off and move on to the next one.
With Power’s debut and Buffalo’s recent success against the Maple Leafs, it’ll be easy to flush the bad memories of Sunday’s loss prior to Tuesday night’s game.