Buffalo, NY (WGR 550) - For the fourth straight game it wasn’t looking great on Wednesday for the Buffalo Sabres. The Sabres did score at 8:01 of the first period when Bo Byram set up Jack Quinn alone in the slot. Quinn ripped a shot over the net hitting the glass. The puck came back, hit Ottawa Senators goalie Leevi Merilainen in the back and gave Buffalo its first lead of the season and its first power play goal of the season in 12 attempts.
Buffalo had three shots on that power play, but didn’t record a 5-on-5 shot in the whole period.
Things got off to a dicey start in the second period as Byram took a penalty at 2:17 and Jake Sanderson and his teammates were allowed to just stand around the crease and keep banging away at Alex Lyon until Sanderson scored. Lindy Ruff challenged the goal for goaltender interference and lost, so the Sabres were behind 2-1 and were going to be shorthanded at 3:58.
Alex Tuch took a slashing penalty at 5:48 and the fans were not happy with the referees. That’s when the season finally changed for this club.
Ryan McLeod was off to a horrendous start to the season and looked nothing like the player he was last season. Ruff met with his two-way center and the message was received. While killing Tuch’s penalty, McLeod used his speed to get in on Merilainen and he turned the puck over. McLeod found Zach Benson in front playing in his first game of the season and he was stopped, but McLeod stayed with the play and scored the shorthanded goal.
You should’ve felt the energy in this building and from the players. That tied the game 2-2 and the momentum was with the Sabres and their fans for the rest of the night.
All of a sudden the team started playing the way Ruff wants them to play, they had speed, they were hard on pucks, they were going to the net and a team that had scored two goals in three games was all of a sudden a machine.
Just 3:31 after McLeod’s goal, Tuch went to the net and converted Jacob Bryson’s rebound to give the Sabres a 3-2 lead.
Buffalo went on the power play and 46 seconds after Tuch’s goal, Rasmus Dahlin was in deep next to the post and found Jason Zucker cruising down the slot and it was 4-2. Zucker potted another power play goal just 1:57 after the first one when Josh Doan found him at the edge of the crease. That gave Buffalo four goals in 6:57 to go into intermission up 5-2.
The third period couldn’t have started off worse as the Senators netted two goals in 1:35 to cut Buffalo’s lead to 5-4. Ruff wisely called timeout and his team responded. It took 17 seconds after the timeout for Tuch to come roaring down the left wing finding McLeod with him and the Sabres had their two-goal lead back. Just 45 seconds after that, Peyton Krebs led a 3-on-1 finding Quinn down the slot who put a slick move on Merilainen to make it 7-4.
Jiri Kulich scored an empty netter and the Sabres had their first win of the season 8-4.
Benson had four assists in his return while Doan tallied three assists. I thought the way Doan played will make him a fan favorite very quickly. He’s always on the puck, he’s always in the battle, he’s always around the net. There’s a reason Kevyn Adams would not do the JJ Peterka trade with the Utah Mammoth unless both Doan and Michael Kesselring were involved.
Ruff liked what he saw from his team, but he said this is the type of game they must demand from themselves,
“You have to fight your way through tough parts of the season. Our fight wasn’t good enough in the first three games, I don’t care whether we’re hurt or not, we didn’t earn enough, we didn’t deserve enough and we didn’t fight enough, I thought tonight we fought for everything we got.”
The effort of this game means nothing if they don’t go out on Saturday against the Florida Panthers and build on the way they played. There’s nothing they can do about the first three games, but there’s a lot they can do about the next game.