(WGR 550) – The good news is the Buffalo Sabres went out West and had a 3-1-0 road trip. The bad news is they finished with an absolute clunker in Seattle on Tuesday, losing to the Kraken, 5-1.
Buffalo got dominated from start-to-finish, just like they did against the Kraken twice last year. The Sabres are now 0-3-0 all-time against Seattle.
It only took 2:20 for the onslaught to start, as a puck slid off Daniel Sprong's stick and went right to the slot, where nobody bothered to cover Jamie Oleksiak and he beat Eric Comrie with his shot.
Just 3:19 later, Morgan Geekie got behind Owen Power for a breakaway and it was quickly 2-0, Seattle.
Buffalo had only two good scoring chances in the period. Kraken goalie Martin Jones first stopped Victor Olofsson out front off a 3-on-2 rush. Later in the period, Power was wide-open to the left of Jones, but instead of shooting, elected to pass to a well-covered Jeff Skinner and Seattle cleared the zone.
The Sabres only made Jones make five saves in the first period.
The second period started just like the first, as Andre Burakovsky missed on a 2-on-1 rush, and Comrie later robbed Jaden Schwartz off a breakaway.
Vinnie Hinostroza turned the puck over and it went right to an open Sprong in front, and Seattle had another goal just 4:46 in.
The Sabres got a good rush by Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch, which then led to Buffalo's only goal of the night. On the next shift, Hinostroza sent the puck to the net, where Dylan Cozens was and he scored on the rebound.
After 40 minutes, the Sabres only had 10 shots on goal.
As poorly as they had played, there was little hope of coming back from three goals down in the final stanza, but Buffalo had a 6-on-4 advantage on a power play, as well as a delayed penalty call.
Jack Quinn, who was taking Peyton Krebs' spot on the power play, scored from right in front of the net, but Casey Mittelstadt was just gliding to the bench for a change and the Sabres were offside coming into the zone, with him giving no effort to get off the ice. Seattle challenged the goal and, of course, won.
The Sabres then had a 5-on-3 power play, and I’m extremely disappointed in head coach Don Granato that there were no consequences for Mittelstadt, who was right back on the ice.
When a poor effort like that costs you a goal, that player needs to take a seat. Making a mistake is one thing, but getting caught gliding to the bench costing your team a goal is another.
It’s not that Mittelstadt doesn’t care, because he does, very much. Ever since Derek Roy was a member of the Sabres, most players glide to the bench for changes. There have been many times I’ve seen it turn into a goal, because you’re playing shorthanded while it’s happening.
You’re not going to win many games firing 16 shots on net for the game. The surprising part, to me, is a team that was giving up 41 shots per-game in their first four games only gave up 24 shots in a game they were dominated in.
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I know you don’t want to hear it, but take two defensemen out of any team’s top-four and they’re going to struggle. Mattias Samuelsson was averaging 22 minutes of ice-time per-game before getting hurt against the Calgary Flames. Henri Jokiharju was averaging 20 minutes of ice-time per-game before he got hurt in Edmonton.
It was quite obvious on Tuesday that both were missed greatly.
Rasmus Dahlin played 26:07 in this game. Once it was obvious that Seattle was going to win, I would’ve cut his minutes by a lot.
The reason being is the Sabres have to travel back to Buffalo with no practice on Wednesday, and then face the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday. The Sabres have found different ways to win all season, and they will need to find a way to conserve energy and find a way against the Habs.
