Sunrise, Fla. (WGR 550) – Just like most National Hockey League games, Tuesday’s matchup between the Buffalo Sabres and Florida Panthers was a poorly officiated game.
The NHL, like the NFL, has a huge problem on its hands, because too many games are decided by really bad referees.
Sabres head coach Don Granato got so frustrated that in the third period, he blew a gasket after Zach Benson got a tripping penalty, and ended up putting his team down two men for a full two minutes.
When you’re in a tight 2-1 game against the No. 1 team in the NHL, the last thing you can do is put your team in position to kill a 5-on-3 for two minutes.
It eventually resulted in former Sabres defenseman Brandon Montour making them pay with a blast from the point to make it 3-1.
Tage Thompson scored just a few minutes later to close the gap, but it wasn't enough in a 3-2 loss for Buffalo.
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What made it worse was after a second period where Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen stood on his head, making 19 saves to keep the score 2-1, Buffalo got going again in the third with high compete.
Thompson knows the Panthers are great defensively, and they defend extremely hard. He knows teams have to pay the price to get to the net to score goals against this squad, and he did just that to get, what he called, a lucky goal.
"I think with any team, you’re not going to get to the net easy, and that’s why you get rewarded when you go there. You’ve got to pay the price, and to get there is not easy," said Thompson following Tuesday's loss. "I think as a team, we can do a lot better job of staying in there and getting second chances. And if our [defensemen] are getting their heads up at the blue line and they see that there’s no one in there, it’s tough on them to release the puck and shoot it, because it’s an easy save for the goalie. We’ve got to get down there and take the eyes away, and battle if we want to score to win games. That’s one of the things we’ve got to be better at."
The Panthers are a heavy team, and you must be ready for a war when you play them. Kyle Okposo felt some of the Sabres were ready for that, while some others weren’t.
"We grinded a bit. Sometimes we grinded, sometimes we might have taken the easy way out, but that’s the way they play. They play hard, they play in your face, fast, aggressive, and they’re going to hit you. You’ve got to know what’s coming," said the Sabres captain after the loss.
"You don’t have to throw 20 body checks out there, but take some contact. It gets you into the game, you feel good. I mean, it’s easy to feel good against them, because you know the type of game that’s coming at you. They’re coming, and that’s OK, and you’ve got to put your big boy pants on and play a hockey game. We had a lot of guys doing it, but we could’ve used more."
That right there is why I’ve been saying all season this team is flawed and not put together correctly. They need two other players like Jordan Greenway they can put on a line and play the exact way Okposo described. Just be miserable to play against.
The captain had a few more good points following Tuesday's loss.
"It’s old school hockey. They’re going to play man-on-man, they’re not going to let you get to the net. You’ve got to get to the net, and you’ve got to bang in some goals like 'Tommer' did. That’s it. That’s the game, and unfortunately they did a better job of that than we did," Okposo added. "We came out on the wrong end of it, and it’s too many times against this team."
Granato was still mad after the game, but none of his anger was directed at his players.
"You lose, and you lose the way it happened is extremely aggravating and extremely disappointing," said Granato after the loss. "I’m not talking about our players. It’s just what transpired there [that] was disappointing."
Granato was asked if he regretted losing his head and putting his team down two men.
"Do I regret anything? What I watched transpire in that game, from one minute before the incident where they gave Greenway a double minor, [Nick] Cousins goes into Greenway, the whistle blows and he initiates it by going a shoulder into Greenway’s chest. Then he has his hands up and protects himself, and he goes down and Greenway gets four out of it. That’s just not right. That’s hard to watch," Granato said. "And a minute before that, you watch Krebs take punches to the head with no call whatsoever, and a second guy comes in and pulls his helmet off.
"Another one that wasn’t right for me was Benson was going after a puck, has a tug, gets pushed down and ends up tripping [Niko] Mikkola. At some point, ya gotta stand up for your team. You do. When you’re put in that position as a coach, it’s a tough position to be in. But you can't sit and watch."
Although I don’t agree with some of his thoughts on the penalties called, I 100% understand his frustration.
I have lost count as to how many phantom penalties have been called on Benson. He is an intense competitor and he’s always in the mix, and often wins hard battles. I can’t figure out why this happens to Benson constantly.
Anyway, I get why Granato would want to defend the 18-year-old, and I have two schools of thought on this:
If you’re mathematically out of the playoff race, I say go for it. What does it matter? Let the refs know their performance is unacceptable.
If you think you can still mathematically get in - it’s pretty much not going to happen, at this point - I, again, would applaud ripping into the refs, but if you still think your team has half a chance, then Granato made a huge mistake. He cost them any chance of picking up points in this game.
Okposo was asked about if the refereeing mattered, and says it is what it is.
"You can’t blame the officials," he said. "I mean, I tell my eight-year-old kid that you can’t blame officials for a game. I’m not going to start doing it now."
Veteran defenseman Erik Johnson was on the ice for two goals-against, and only played 3:31 and six shifts in the game, all in the first period. He wasn’t injured, and was just benched.
"He was not feeling his normal self, and we’ll leave it at that," Granato said.
Buffalo will practice in Tampa Bay on Wednesday before playing the Lightning on Thursday.
