Buffalo outplayed by Minnesota but pick up a critical point
Boxscore
Score: Buffalo Sabres 4-5 Minnesota Wild OT
Shots: BUF 24-35 MIN
Buffalo Sabres Goals: Ryan McLeod 11 (Quinn, Zucker), Krebs 4 (Samuelsson), Quinn 11 (Dahlin, Zucker), Tuch 17 PPG (Thompson, McLeod)
Minnesota Wild Goals: Marcus Foligno 3 (Tarasenko, Jones), Hartman 13 (Hughes, Kaprizov), Tarasenko 9 (Spurgeon, Yurov), Hughes 4 (Kaprizov, Zuccarello), Zuccarello 6 (Kaprizov, Gustavsson)
Quick Thoughts
Period of Frustration
On a big sports day for the city of Buffalo, it was the Wild who came out ready to play and the more energetic of the two sides. The visitors passing was crisper and they scored first too, with former Sabre and fan-favorite Marcus Foligno getting in between Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power to tuck home after a neat sequence of passes.
But the Sabres have been nothing if not resilient during this recent run, and were level less than a minute later. Off a Faber shot that came off the glass, Mattias Samuelsson ran the puck down the boards for Ryan McLeod to break away. Jason Zucker took the puck and found Jack Quinn in space, and he centered for McLeod to slide the puck past Gustavsson to level the game.
Michael Kesselring marked his return to the lineup with a running feud against Foligno, getting into a spat and then a fight that he honorably and indisputably lost against the former Sabre. Classy as always, Marcus made sure he held on to back of the defenseman as he fell to the ice to ensure he didn’t sustain a head injury.
Buffalo’s two-game power-play renaissance certainly did not show today as they were back to their death-by-a-thousand-passes futility again, which included a full minute or so on the 5-on-3, and they generated just the one shot on three minutes of power play time.
And just as it always happens, that energized the Wild and with just eight seconds left Ryan Hartman put the Wild up again. The slippery Quinn Hughes got away from Josh Doan on the boards and threw the puck on goal, and Hartman was able to get a stick on it in the melee and make it 2-1.
Bounceback, Kinda
Early in the second period an errant pass from the Sabres as they looked to break was pounced on by the Wild, with Jared Spurgeon finding a wide open Vladimir Tarasenko on the Sabres right. 3-1 and Buffalo were reeling and down. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen was having one of those out-of-control games where he is more often than not out of position or on his backside and scrambling to get back into the butterfly position.
As he has so many times this season, Beck Malenstyn sparked this team with a big hit on Kirill Kaprizov and Buffalo reeled off three straight goals in exactly six minutes to give the Sabres their first lead of this game.
Peyton Krebs won an offensive zone faceoff, the puck came to Sammy whose shot on goal was tipped in and now it was 3-2.
Dahlin saw a shot go wide, the puck got recycled and returned to him and Gustavsson made the saves again but gave up a juice rebound. Quinn fought for space in the blue paint and with his second attempt scored to level the game.
The much-maligned Sabres power play then notched one as well, with Alex Tuch finding his spot from the right to make it 4-3 for Buffalo.
Wild had been pouring on the shots and came back hard. Krebs won a defensive zone faceoff, and as the bouncing puck came back to him, a bit of a lazy backhanded clearance came right to Quinn Hughes who unloaded a slapshot that beat UPL all ends up and it was 4-4 with three minutes still to play in the period.
Minnesota won the shots in that period 17-9, and led 24-15 for the game. The Wild had the better high danger chances too, going 7-3 and then 8-3.
Kids Day
Buffalo Sabres Kids Day is always so much fun, with kids making announcements and multiple other features highlighting engagement with the next generation of hockey players, which is why it was such a shame that this game was picked for broadcast on NHL Network thereby blocking it out on all other streaming services.
Here’s the full gallery of pictures from Kids Day.
All To Play For
The Sabres have been in a number of these kinds of games in the last couple of months where they are tied after two periods and whoever wins the third wins the game. They have won a number of those too, and the self-belief the team has is quite evident.
Minnesota continued the period where they left off in the second and continued to pour on the shots, with UPL having to make save after save as the Sabres didn’t do a good job handling the Wild’s speed in transition.
With just over seven minutes left in the game, Sammy took a puck to the face in his own zone and the Sabres’ best player was off the ice and back in the locker room needing some running repairs. Both teams had chances to score but with three or so minutes to play it was still level and both sides happy to dump the puck deep and let their respective forechecks get to work.
With a minute to go the Sabres had the puck in the Wild zone but couldn’t fashion a shooting chance, and then with just thirteen seconds left in the game, Krebs got called for a hooking penalty trying to slow down Tarasenko.
Wild won the faceoff and were able to get a shot on goal in the last couple of seconds, and between UPL making a save and then Tuch and Bowen Byram making big blocks the Sabres were able to earn the point.
Ooooovertime
Into overtime we went, but the Sabres were going to be down a man for the first 1:47 of the additional period as Krebs’ penalty carried over. Sammy returned to the ice and to his usual penalty killing best, making a block as the shorthanded time expired.
The Sabres cleared the puck but then the Wild countered right away and Zuccarello was able to beat UPL for the gamewinner, 5-4 the final score.
At The Horn
The Buffalo Sabres fought hard against one of the better teams in the league and at the end of a grueling week where they played four times including two full-blooded division games, this was not the worst result. Five points from eight, lick your wounds, get some rest and come back and start winning again.