Ottawa, Ontario (WGR Sports Radio 550) - The Buffalo Sabres have put together two very well-played games, and are now 5-2-1 in their last eight games.
Buffalo walked into Ottawa on Thursday night and shut out the Senators, 4-0, behind Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen’s 35 saves.
Buffalo got outshot, 16-5, in the third period, but never were really in trouble. As a matter of fact, they looked confident that they were going to finish it out without a comeback going against them.
One negative is they gave Ottawa four power plays, but they did an excellent job of killing them off. Buffalo actually had the better chances shorthanded - led by Ryan McLeod - than the Senators had on the power play.
Ottawa is Jack Quinn’s home, and he put on a show for his family and friends by scoring two goals. It was weird that he took a penalty and scored a goal twice in the first period.
On his first goal, Zach Benson sends McLeod and Quinn away through the neutral zone. McLeod is one of the fastest skaters in the National Hockey League, and was starting to pull away.
Quinn was flying up the right wing, and McLeod said after the win when you have a shooter like him available and open, you get him the puck.
On the second goal, McLeod produced a turnover and the puck went to Peyton Krebs. Quinn had just come out of the penalty box, and said after the game he gave Krebs a yell.
Krebs put a perfect pass on the tape to send him in again on Anton Forsberg, and his wrist shot was in and out of the net so fast, it was almost hard to know it went in.
Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff says when they’re on their game and on top of the puck, they’re a good team at producing turnovers. We saw that all night in Ottawa.
Just 4:11 into the second period, Senators defenseman Nick Jensen passed it right to Dylan Cozens in the slot, who he quickly put it by Forsberg.
The fourth goal was McLeod being unselfish, trying to set Quinn up going to the net for his hat-trick. Instead, the puck hit defenseman Thomas Chabot’s skate and into the net.
Those are goals that very rarely happen for Buffalo, but sure do happen a lot against them. If you’re going hard to the net, you’re going to bring defenders with you, and sometimes you get chaos going.
Related
After the game, Ruff said the team sent defenseman Mattias Samuelsson home because he was sick. He wanted Dennis Gilbert and his toughness in the lineup, so he dressed both Gilbert and Jacob Bryson, and sat Nic Aube-Kubel.
He was right.
Ruff needed Gilbert after Brady Tkachuk hit Jason Zucker with a dangerous cheap shot from behind in the first period. Zucker went face-first into the wall, and had to be helped to the dressing-room.
The veteran winger was able to pull himself together and return to the game a short time later.
Gilbert tried to hold Tkachuk accountable, but the Sens captain declined. Late in the game, Tkachuk did oblige, but he got really close to Gilbert and then dropped the gloves so the Sabres defenseman couldn’t get his arms loose.
Tkachuk didn’t want to take another beating from Gilbert like he did in Buffalo just over a month ago.
Buffalo has beaten Ottawa twice this season by a combined score of 9-1.
Related
The bottom line is the second half of the season has begun. Buffalo has eight teams to climb over in the Eastern Conference to make the playoffs, and Ottawa is one of them.
You have to beat these teams in regulation, and the Sabres did just that.
Now they get three-straight games at home against the Seattle Kraken, Carolina Hurricanes and Pittsburgh Penguins. The short homestand starts Saturday afternoon.