Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR 550) – The Ottawa Senators would’ve made Jacques Lemaire proud on Thursday.
With the game tied at 1-1, the Sens just locked down the neutral zone playing a 1-1-3. By doing that, they worked to snuff out any rush the Sabres had, especially since Buffalo wasn’t willing to put the work in that’s necessary to break through that wall.
The idea is to take the flow out of the game, frustrate the other team, put the fans to sleep, kill the game of hockey and wait for a mistake or a break and capitalize on it. The strategy worked.
Neither team had a shot on goal for the first eight minutes of the period, and Buffalo’s first shot was an easy flip by Rasmus Dahlin at the 15:08 mark that Anton Forsberg easily caught.
Ottawa got that break in the third, because Austin Watson was willing to be in front of the net. A shot from defenseman Nick Holden went in past Sabres goalie Craig Anderson after it re-directed off Watson.
Buffalo got one terrific scoring chance as the clock was running out when Tage Thompson ripped a one-timer from the left circle that was an absolute bullet, but Forsberg got his arm on it.
I was impressed that Forsberg was ready for that shot, because it had been about 45 minutes to an hour since he was called upon to really do much of anything other than stand and watch the game.
After the game, you could tell head coach Don Granato was very disappointed that his team wasn’t willing to match what Ottawa brought.
“We didn’t get pucks where we could pursue them," Granato said following the 3-1 loss. "We had six power plays where there was not enough work ethic, not enough compete in those, and it carried into the 5-on-5 game. I mean, we did some pretty things and some nice things, but did we bear down? Did we compete? We were willing to score an ugly goal, a gritty goal? No we weren’t.
“We’ve come in here a lot and talked about 'young-this' and 'young-that', but this tonight was that. It was that we felt like we’ve won a couple of games and we can just flip a switch on. You can’t do that in competition at this level, and that is what I feel we saw tonight.”
The Sabres' only goal was with the extra man, but it came off the rush. On the other five power plays, it was pretty much nothing.
"You have to look at your work ethic, you have to look at your willingness to battle, because if you have a team that wants to compete and is hungry, you’ve got to return that. That was the difference,” Granato said.
I just don’t understand how twice in the past month, the 27th-best team in the NHL, by points percentage, thinks they can show up overconfident. This happened the last time they played Ottawa and they got run out of the building.
“They were more committed to their game plan, and all they did was work all night," said Kyle Okposo after the loss. "They chipped the puck in and stayed above us, and didn’t allow us to use our speed and they stuck to it all night. Again, all they did is work. That’s all they did.”
The Sabres host the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday afternoon.
