Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR 550) – Tuesday night was the tale of two games for the Buffalo Sabres in a 5-2 loss to the Seattle Kraken.
For the first 13 minutes of action, Buffalo played better than it had all season. The Sabres were ahead 17-7 in shots on goal, but only held on to a 1-0 lead.
If it wasn’t for the red-hot Joey Daccord in net for the Kraken, the Sabres easily could’ve been ahead 4-0.
Daccord stopped Connor Clifton and Jack Quinn in close right off the bat. Owen Power then hits Eric Robinson with a good stretch pass, and he uses his speed to create a breakaway, but was stopped with another big save from Daccord.
JJ Peterka cuts in alone, but can’t score. He also hit a post.
The play that likely turned the game around came late in the first period when Alex Tuch had a shorthanded, clear-cut breakaway. He made a nice move and Daccord opened up his pads, and all Tuch had to do was just slide the puck through the five-hole. However, he mishit it and put the puck into Daccord’s pad.
Seattle then quickly came back the other way, and Vince Dunn scored a power play goal to make it 2-1, Kraken.
This wasn’t Devon Levi’s night in net for Buffalo, and it started on that power play goal-against. Levi was back on the goal line, came across and slid past his mark, leaving a large part of the far side open.
Buffalo scored 50 seconds into the second period when they had a very good breakout. Tuch went fast to the net and he redirected Jeff Skinner’s pass to make it 2-2.
However, Seattle took over the game after realizing they couldn’t beat the Sabres in a wide-open, fast-paced game. That's when they took the air out of the game, and the Sabres weren’t patient and frustration set in.
It only took 1:18 for Alex Wennberg to score on a breakaway that took him to Levi’s left. That’s a place where the Sabres needed a save.
It’s hard to win when four of your six defensemen have bad games. Rasmus Dahlin, Owen Power, Henri Jokiharju and Erik Johnson all had tough nights.
After the game, head coach Don Granato talked about Power, saying when he has good games, he doesn’t have the consistency to put a bunch of them together.
The 21-year-old was on the ice for five of the seven goals in this game. He was on for a goal-for and four against.
Dahlin was on the ice for the Kraken’s last three goals.
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Another place where Granato got angry and made an immediate change was on the first shift of the game.
Tage Thompson made a bad turnover and Granato reacted immediately by taking him off his line and replacing him with Casey Mittelstadt. Mittelstadt responded with two assists, while Thompson, who was on a streak of seven good games, had an even tougher night as things went on.
Skinner has a goal and an assist, and I liked what he said during his postgame comments in the locker room.
"I think we didn't have enough pushback," said Skinner following the loss. "They are feeling good about their game, they capitalized on their opportunities, and we didn't have enough pushback to match."
If I’m being honest, I was thinking the best the Sabres can do on this six-game homestand is 4-2-0. Buffalo is now 0-5-0 against Seattle, so I was thinking there’s little chance they’d win this game.
After Thursday's matchup with the Ottawa Senators, the Vancouver Canucks come to town on Saturday, and that will be a very tough task as well.
With the season now being half over, the problem with the Sabres is even though they were playing a team that was going to be extremely hard to beat, every loss is now a disaster. They have dug their own hole, but they aren’t going to win 41-straight games to end the season.
This loss does put them seven points out of the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
