(WGR 550) – The Buffalo Sabres got great goaltending from Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen on Saturday, as he was back on his game. However, it didn’t matter, because Buffalo never scored on Karel Vejmelka in a 2-0 loss to the Arizona Coyotes.
Yes, Luukkonen fanned on a puck behind the net, handing it to Alex Kerfoot, who then relayed the puck in front to Clayton Keller, who had an unattended net to score in.
In the third period, Ryan Johnson fanned on his shot, allowing a breakaway for Liam O’Brien, who made it 2-0, Coyotes.
Luukkonen made many good saves in the loss, including three in the early minutes when the Sabres, again, were off their game to keep it at 0-0.
Once Casey Mittelstadt found himself alone down the slot and just centered his shot right up on Vejmelka, the Sabres were finally on their game.
This game had nothing to do with bad goaltending, fanned passes or a fanned shot. The Sabres, plain and simply, had numerous Grade-A chances to score and made another backup goalie with horrific numbers look like Dominik Hasek.
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Arizona had lost four-straight games prior to Friday night, but Vejmelka and Connor Ingram posted shutouts on back-to-back nights.
When they weren’t shooting right at Vejmelka, they were missing the net high and wide. Buffalo had 28 shots on goal and 62 shot attempts.
The thing is, many of their best chances came form their best scorers. It’s another game where they wasted a very good goaltending performance.
The Sabres are in a spot where they really needed to go, at least, 2-0-1 on this trip. I was thinking 1-1-1 would be optimistic, and they ended up 1-2-0.
In the overall picture, what does this all mean?
Buffalo is still five points out of the Eastern Conference’s final playoff spot, are one point back of the Montreal Canadiens and tied with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Buffalo doesn’t play again until Tuesday when the Columbus Blue Jackets come to town. Things could be quite a bit worse by then.
