Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR Sports Radio 550) - The Buffalo Sabres just can’t seem to figure out the Montreal Canadiens this season.
The Sabres are now 0-3-0 against Montreal this year, and head coach Lindy Ruff is especially annoyed, because he feels his team just handed the Canadiens the two games in Buffalo.
In the first game in November, which was a 7-5 loss, the Sabers had a 5-4 lead 3:51 into the third period. JJ Peterka turned the puck over on Montreal's fifth goal, and on the empty net goal, Owen Power tried a blind back pass to Rasmus Dahlin at the blue line, which the Sabres captain fanned on. Dahlin fell down, eventually leading to a Christian Dvorak goal.
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As far as Saturday’s game goes, Buffalo blew a 2-1 second-period lead, and gave up a goal with three seconds left in the period to fall behind, 3-2.
The game was still there for them in the third period, but the Sabres gave up their league-leading 19th empty-net goal to lose, 4-2.
Ruff was extremely frustrated, because all four goals came on turnovers and dismal coverages.
"The puck is on our stick on the first two goals. The first one we’re shorthanded and we should never get caught the way we did. The second goal was the same thing, the puck is on our stick, we’re leading the game and we don’t get a call. The guy buries Quinn from behind below the goal line, and they go down the ice 4-on-3 and execute," said Ruff following Saturday's loss.
"So you’re looking at those two goals, the puck is on our stick, we don’t execute, we get caught, give up an odd-numbered rush.
"We’ve been talking about odd-numbered rushes since Day 1, we’ve been talking about how we manage the puck since Day 1. We didn’t manage the puck well enough.
"Sometimes you’re going to have to let them make the mistake. It’s a 2-1 game, don’t make your own mistake."
Ruff was on a roll, and definitely wasn’t finished with his postgame comments.
"You can look at some of the puck play, we stickhandled around our blue line and gave up an unbelievable opportunity (Power while killing a penalty tried to stick handle through three Canadiens. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen had to save the day on Laine off a 2-on-1). On the empty net goal, the puck is on our stick (Peterka), we have all sorts of time, and we hand them that empty-net goal that didn’t give us a chance to tie the hockey game."
Ruff ended with summing up the 4-2 and 7-5 home losses, which were one-goal games until the empty-netters.
"We handed both games away. And it’s frustrating. Frustrating, for sure," Ruff said, disgusted.
On the first Montreal goal, which was a penalty kill, Jordan Greenway took off up the middle with the puck. Ryan McLeod and Connor Clifton both joined the rush and the puck got turned over. The only one back defending was Mattias Samuelsson.
Montreal came into the game 5-for-12 on the power play in two games against Buffalo and they tried this? Samuelsson failed to take Laine’s pass away to Cole Caufield, who had a wide-open layup.
Alex Tuch and Jiri Kulich scored 1:29 apart to give the Sabres the lead, but the sloppy play never ended.
Quinn did get hit, but he got the puck deep into the corner to McLeod, who immediately turned it over, giving the Canadiens that 4-on-3.
Zach Benson was actually in front of Josh Anderson, but had no awareness whatsoever that he was there, and just wound up spinning like a top instead of covering Anderson.
On the game-winning goal with 2.6 seconds left in the second, Ruff is right that Tuch could’ve pressured Mike Matheson to make a play quicker, but for me, it was the lazy play by Kulich.
As Alex Newhook goes by in the slot, Kulich is with him and slashes him. He then stopped moving his feet and was gliding, allowing Newhook to be all alone in front to tip Matheson’s pass past Luukkonen.
Giving up on a play is totally unacceptable.
Even with all that, Buffalo still had a whole period to get that goal back. However, they only produced seven shots on 23-year-old rookie Jakub Dobes, and Montreal just played responsible hockey and let the Sabres make the mistakes.
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If you want a positive, I thought, for the most part, Jacob Bryson returned to the lineup and had a strong game, especially offensively.
In the first period, he jumped to right in front of the net and was robbed by Dobes. Later in the period, he was behind the Montreal net, forcing pressure and gave Tuch a perfect pass in front for a goal.
I think Bryson needs to be more involved in the offensive zone, because he seems capable of helping.
Ruff had broken the rest of the season into five, five-game segments, telling the group he wanted seven points in each segment to have a chance for the playoffs. The team won the first two games of their first five-game segment, but two-straight losses means they’ve failed right away.
Kind of the theme of the whole season, starting with Terry Pegula and Kevyn Adams, and then trickling on down.