Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR 550) - Sabres center Tage Thompson summed up his team's 4-3 loss to the lowly Ducks on Monday, simply feeling Buffalo gave Anaheim freebies on their goals, and it cost them a game.
On Frank Vatrano’s first goal in the second period, Thompson turned the puck over twice, and it wound up in Buffalo's net. It didn’t help that Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen left the puck laying in the crease for Vatrano to clean up.
Vatrano's second goal saw Sabres defenseman Erik Johnson make a bad decision to step up, leading to a 2-on-1 the other way. Ryan Johnson, who was on the ice for all four Ducks goals, didn’t take the pass away from Mason McTavish, and Vatrano had a layup tally.
Buffalo was absolutely flying to start the game, and as usual, made the opposing goalie, John Gibson, look like Dominik Hasek.
Rasmus Dahlin made great stretch passes to send in both Thompson and Jordan Greenway on breakaways, but Gibson stopped them both.
Right after Thompson's breakaway chance, he then hit the crossbar.
Greenway did a good job of scoring the first goal of the game for Buffalo, setting up Ducks defenseman Radko Gudas as a screen.
Anaheim still hadn’t had a scoring chance at that point, but scored on their first one of the game. It came because Ross Johnston got in on Erik Johnson, who turned the puck over. Zemgus Girgensons came over to help out, and Ryan Johnson took Max Jones, who was open in front. That left Adam Henrique wide-open behind Jones, and he scored 1:03 after Greenway gave Buffalo a 1-0 lead.
The Sabres outshot Anaheim, 15-4, in the first period, yet, the score was even at 1-1.
After Tage Thompson’s power play goal gave Buffalo its lead back in the second period, the Sabres held a 24-5 shots advantage about halfway through the game.
The Ducks then scored three goals before the period was over, and the Sabres couldn’t recover.
Related
With 8:20 left in the third period, Thompson found himself in front of the net with Gibson down. The Ducks goalie made a huge glove save on the goal line, and the Sabres couldn’t get the tying goal against the 28th-worst defensive team in the NHL.
Thompson is on a 29-goal pace over 82 games this season. He earned a big contract with his two-straight big years of 38 goals and 47 goals. He can’t have three glorious chances and not score on any of them.
Fair or not, his team counts on him, and when the puck is on his stick trailing by a goal with eight minutes left, it has to be in the net.
Yes, he’s been much better recently and has looked more like himself, but that’s not good enough.
It also doesn’t help that Jeff Skinner has been totally invisible since coming back from injury nine games ago. He has no goals and one assist in that time, and Granato said Monday that Skinner is 100% healthy.
The Ducks are the third-worst team in the NHL with a points percentage of .382.
Buffalo has lost five of its last six home games, and is now 25th in the NHL with a points percentage of .473.
Sabres head coach Don Granato says the difference in this game was his team had the chance to put the Ducks away, and didn’t do it.
Buffalo will look to rebound on Wednesday when they head to Montreal to take on the Canadiens.
