All good things eventually come to an end as Buffalo lose heavily in Columbus
Score: Buffalo Sabres 1-5 Columbus Blue Jackets
Shots: BUF 35-33 CBJ
Buffalo Sabres Goals: Doan 12th (Norris, Power)
Columbus Blue Jackets Goals: Mateychuk 8th (Jenner, Werenski), Gaunce 2nd (SHG, unassisted), Voronkov 14th (Provorov, Severson), Olivier 4th (Aston-Reese, Severson), Sillinger 5th (ENG, Mateychuk, Werenski)
Quick recap, for now. Running shorthanded tonight. Calvin to add more later.
Quick Thoughts
Kesselring Injured Again
The supposedly primary piece in the JJ Peterka trade Michael Kesselring left the win at the Dallas Stars after getting checked into the end boards late in the third period, and missed the game in Columbus. The former Utah Mammoth defenseman has only featured 16 times this season with no points while struggling with different injuries this campaign.
Holy Hell this Power Play
The Sabres power play has been atrocious lately again, and against the Blue Jackets’ 29th placed penalty kill you would have expected better. However, they went 0-5 on the night and gave up a shorthanded goal which gave Columbus the lead in the first period that they never relinquished.
Four shots on goal in five power play attempts, and now six straight games without a goal on the man advantage. Granted they didn’t have as many power plays in some of those games, still, that’s not even league average.
What Happened??
One undeniable feature in the Sabres’ ten-game win streak has been that Buffalo either scored first, or when they didn’t they dominated the second period en route to cruising in the third. In Ohio last night they surrendered arms in the first itself going into the break down 3-1 and were not able to come back after losing the scoring chances battle 56%-44% in the first and second periods, and the 65% tilt in their favor in the third not actually registering on the scoreboard.
When the Sabres have lost games like this the talk has usually been that the Sabres might have won the shots battle but their shots were of lower quality, but that was not the case here with Buffalo winning the high danger Corsi For 18-9. The difference here was in the goaltending, with Jet Greaves’ expected goals against at 4.105 but the goalie only letting in one goal while Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen’s expected goals against at 2.926 but the Sabres goalie giving up four goals.
The Sabres were sloppy in possession and got outworked, and that was pretty clear to see.
What Now??
No reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater as the Sabres look like they’re doing the right things still, but this is a good milestone to make some roster changes – send Peyton Krebs to one of the bottom six lines, and bring back Jason Zucker into the lineup. That might help spark the power play too where Zucker has 9 of his 18 points from 21 games played.
Buffalo have the struggling Vancouver Canucks coming Tuesday, just make the changes to the lines, get some more work done with the power play units, and get back to winning ways next week.
A loss was going to eventually happen, and somehow it’s not surprising the streak ended against the perennial spoilsports Columbus. We’ve all been harping on about how the Sabres react being the key marker of whether they are ready to be a playoff team or not. We’ll know more on Tuesday night at the KeyBank Center.
At The Horn
Between committing needless turnovers, getting outworked by the opponent, a pathetic power play and modest-to-average goaltending, that was a well-deserved defeat for the Sabres. Not something to panic about, but certainly some areas to work on that we’ve been taking for granted or glossing over in the win streak.
Again, how they show up on Tuesday is going to tell us a lot about whether we’re really going to end this godforsaken playoff drought or not.