“You can’t win a game in the first period, but you sure can lose one.”
Score: Senators 6 | Sabres 2
Shots: OTT 42 – BUF 37
Buffalo Sabres Goals: JJ Peterka (25), Connor Clifton (4)
Calgary Flames Goals: Artem Zub (4), Boris Katchouk (6), Drake Batherson (26), Jakob Chychrun (12), Brady Tkachuk (32), Shane Pinto (8-EN)
Minus 1: It was very bad.
Last night’s game was my first attendance of the season, and quite frankly, it was just brutal. It was like they forgot to show up, and though it definitely wasn’t Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen’s night, it wasn’t all his fault, either. My general reaction over the course of the first period last night:
2:37 – Okay… giving up the first goal of the game isn’t great. Giving it up less than three minutes in, certainly not ideal. But you can recover from that! Plenty of time left.
4:56 – Oh, this isn’t good. Less than five minutes in and already down 2-0. Come on now, figure it out.
6:01 – Are you kidding me? This can’t be happening. It’s OTTAWA, for goodness’ sake.
8:49 – Oh, yep, it’s happening. Unbelievable. The first period’s not even half over and they’re already down 4-0. This is ridiculous.
19:11 – Alright, I’ve had enough.
Minus 2: When should you swap the goalie?
One of the topics of discussion following last night’s game was Don Granato’s choice to pull Luukkonen after the fourth Ottawa goal. At that point, honestly, it felt too late, like Granato should’ve swapped goalies after the third goal instead. The game was very quickly getting out of hand, but a 3-0 deficit about six minutes in feels different than a 4-0 deficit nine minutes in. The 3-0 feels still somewhat manageable, especially with that much time left in the game. The 4-0 deficit feels like a much tougher hill to climb. It clearly wasn’t UPL’s night and the team was playing poorly in front of him. While I don’t think you should pull the goalie after maybe two quick ones, depending on the situation, after three felt like the last straw.
Final Thoughts
By the smallest of margins, the Sabres’ playoff hopes are (technically) still alive. But let’s be real: they’re dead, buried under six feet of rotting dirt and worms with the stench of a near-13-year playoff drought. Wednesday’s loss, not just the final score but the awful first period effort, felt like the final nail in the coffin. You just can’t come back from that, not this late in the season and with such a small margin of error to have even the slightest chance at a wildcard spot.
Connor Clifton said it well: “I was pretty shocked. I thought our season’s on the line. They came in and they gave it to us and we had no answer.”
By the numbers, the Sabres have a 0.5 percent chance of making the playoffs (per MoneyPuck). Meanwhile, Tankathon has the Sabres with a 5.0 percent chance of winning the draft lottery, if the season ended today. How are we here, yet again?