Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR 550) – The Buffalo Sabres and Washington Capitals were almost dead-even on Friday night. Both teams took 33 shots on goal, and the same amount of shots were attempted too. The only difference in the Capitals' 4-3 win was goaltending.
Washington got good goaltending from Vitek Vanecek, while the Sabres got below average from Dustin Tokarski.
Washington took a 2-0 first period lead, and was ahead 3-1 just 28 seconds into the second period. The goals by Brendan Dillon and Justin Schultz were from the point, and there was no traffic in front. Tokarski just couldn’t make the save on two routine shots.
With this being the Sabres' third game in four nights, they certainly made some mistakes, but they worked hard and totally earned their three goals. Lately, I’ve seen a lot more Sabres around the net, and it’s been paying off.
On Buffalo’s first goal, Kyle Okposo stormed to the front of the net, allowing a puck to come out to Rasmus Dahlin. He just barely fit a pass cross-ice pass to Henri Jokiharju. Tobi Rieder set up the screen in front, and Jokiharju scored.
On the second goal, Schultz was soft behind the net and Rasmus Asplund swooped in to steal the puck. He found Casey Mittelstadt going to the net, and Mittelstadt scored a nice goal in-tight.
Ralph Krueger made a very poor offseason evaluation telling Kevyn Adams to sign Cody Eakin. Eakin has been done in this league for two years, and Asplund is, by far, the superior player and comes for far less money.
Buffalo now has another bad contract to live through next season. It also didn’t help that Terry Pegula gutted the hockey department, so there was nobody in place to advise Krueger that signing Eakin was a very bad idea.
The Sabres came out in the third and pretty much spun their wheels, producing three shots in 10 minutes.
Jakub Vrana scored on an open one-timer to make the score, 4-2 Caps. From that point on, the Sabres kicked it into gear, worked very hard, but came up one goal short.
I was very impressed with how hard they worked after they pulled Tokarski.
With 1:20 left, Tage Thompson used his big body to get to the net and he tipped in Rasmus Ristolainen’s shot. Thompson now has points in four out of five games, and his center Mittelstadt has points in five out of six, scoring four goals and two assists for six points.
So now the Sabres have lost two-straight games thanks to two goals going in that absolutely can’t go in. If they get two routine saves from Tokarski, we’re likely talking about a totally different result.
Washington is now 6-0-1 against Buffalo this season, and is tied with the New York Islanders for the top spot in the East Division. The Pittsburgh Penguins are two points back, and the Boston Bruins hold down the last and final divisional playoff spot.
The Caps only have one more game against the Sabres, which should put them at 58 points. The Islanders have two more games against the Sabres to get them to 60 points. Pittsburgh has four more games against Buffalo to likely get to 62 points, and the Bruins still have six more games with the Sabres, getting them to 60 points.
Buffalo has an afternoon game in Philadelphia on Sunday against the Flyers.
