(WGR 550) – This team just never gives up.
It wasn’t pretty Thursday night in Anaheim, but the Buffalo Sabres found a way to win again, this time a 4-3 victory in overtime over the Ducks.
“They fought to survive and scratched and clawed through that,” said Sabres head coach Don Granato after the win.
Buffalo got out to a 3-0 lead 26:01 into the game. Almost 20 minutes later, it was tied at 3-3. The Sabres had three shots in the final 24:16 of this game, but that’s all they needed.
Hats off to Victor Olofsson. He was, pretty much, the Sabres' worst player at 5-on-5 since coming into the NHL, but the 26-year-old is so much better this season. He has really worked hard on his game, and it showed in overtime. The Buffalo winger made a gorgeous play, staying strong as he cut to the net. He dragged the puck and then slid it over to Rasmus Asplund, who had nothing but an open net to win the game with.
In the first period, the Dylan Cozens line had three hugely long shifts and it turned into a shooting gallery on Craig Anderson. By staying on the ice too long, the Sabres weren’t battling hard enough and were out of position.
The reason Buffalo won this game is the team got goaltending and the Ducks, with Anthony Stolarz, didn’t.
Through it all, Mark Pysyk got a good lead pass up the right wing to Kyle Okposo. He ripped a shot from the circle, and Stolarz kicked the rebound right to Zemgus Girgensons as the Anaheim defense stood and watched. Girgensons wired his third goal of the season under the crossbar.
Buffalo was much better in the second and scored two goals in 1:37 to take a 3-0 lead.
While on the power play, Rasmus Dahlin put it in Asplund’s sweet spot in the right circle, and his one-timer was the first power play tally of his career. On the next goal, Anders Bjork was calm with the puck in the slot and his shot went off the shaft of Arttu Ruotsalainen’s stick for his first of the year.
Another big problem in this game, which hadn’t been a problem in the past, was the Sabres were giving pucks away, which gave Anaheim chances up the middle. That’s just sloppy, and this normally isn’t a sloppy team.
Yes, there’s no question things were going wrong for the Sabres, but Granato trusts his team when the waters get rough.
“The chatter on the bench was outstanding," Granato said. "We clearly were having trouble executing simple stuff, and there was no yelling at teammates. There was no getting down on teammates. It was more supporting and picking up. We never lost the competitiveness, but we want to see our guys play to a certain standard, and you want them to take that personal. They weren’t playing to their personal standard, so we didn’t have to do as much coaching. [Collectively], they supported each other and gave up the fewest chances in the third period.”
Buffalo got outshot 10-1, but the chances still were down.
Why has this team earned that confidence from their coach? Granato said he told them one thing in training camp: “It’s their team, it’s not my team.”
The one thing I like about this team is they just find a way to win. If one guy falls, there’s two guys there to pick him up. They are extremely difficult to deal a knockout blow to.
So here they are, still in second place in the Atlantic Division with the league's fifth-best points percentage, three points back of the first place Florida Panthers.
The Sabres have just one game in five days, so they'll be practicing in Los Angeles for two days before meeting the Kings for an afternoon game on Sunday.
Los Angeles hosts the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday before playing the Sabres.
