Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR Sports Radio 550) - If you’ve followed me over the years, I’ve talked quite a few times about how in the National Hockey League, teams coming back home from a long West Coast road trip have trouble in their first game back.
Unfortunately, that happened to the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday night against the Philadelphia Flyers.
The good news for fans, though, is it only happened for the first half of the game. The Sabres were held in there by their goaltender Alex Lyon, and got it together in the second period, only trailing 2-1.
Late in the second, the Sabres scored two goals to take a 3-2 lead into the third period, and played very well to win the game, 5-3.
It took a four-game winning streak and a 10-6-0 record, which is .625 hockey, to finally get out of the cellar of the Eastern Conference standings and pass one team - the Columbus Blue Jackets.
It’s what I’ve been talking about for almost all 14 years of Buffalo's ongoing playoff drought: It’s not how many points you’re behind, it’s how many teams you have to jump over to get there.
The Sabres now need to get past seven teams to reach the eighth and final playoff spot in the conference.
The puck management was as bad as I had seen it all season in the first period. The shots ended up being 12-4 in favor of the Flyers, and Lyon spent the period bailing out his teammates.
Owen Power may have had the worst 30 minutes I’ve seen him have in the NHL. To his credit, he settled down and recovered in the second half of the game.
Jack Quinn opened the scoring when Mattias Samuelsson saw Quinn at the top of the crease and took, what amounted to, a shot/pass. All Quinn had to do was steer the puck into the net past goalie Samuel Ersson.
The Sabres continued their poor play, and it only took Philadelphia 58 seconds to tie the game at 1-1, and it was two Sabres killers combining again. Tage Thompson was very soft on the wall with Bobby Brink, and Peyton Krebs was with the goal scorer, Noah Cates, in the middle but didn’t cover him.
In 10 career games against Buffalo, Brink has three goals and eight assists for 11 points. In 13 career games against the Sabres, Cates has six goals and seven assists for 13 points.
After a Cam York shot from the right circle appeared to go off the stick of Michael Kesselring, the Sabres went to work.
Lyon absolutely sold a goaltender interference call on Matvei Michkov, and it helped his team grab the momentum for the rest of the game.
Just 5:36 after that call, the Sabres' best players became their best players once again.
Rasmus Dahlin forced a turnover on the left wall by Travis Sanheim, and cut to the front. He made a nifty back pass through his legs to Thompson, who faked a shot, freezing Sanheim to change the angle of the shot that Ersson was looking at and netted a goal for the fifth-consecutive game.
That’s what’s called a goal scorer's goal.
In those five games, Thompson has five goals and three assists for eight points.
Dahlin now has two goals and eight assists for 10 points in his last eight games.
Just 2:34 later, Alex Tuch starts a play to Power in the corner. He finds Noah Ostlund back at the point, who was covering up for Power, and Sanheim screened Ersson. Ostlund was able to get his shot through traffic and give Buffalo a 3-2 lead heading into the third period.
The assist gives Tuch points in 7-of-8 games, scoring three goals and five assists for eight points.
Through the first half of the third period, Buffalo had outshot Philadelphia, 7-1.
Another one of the Sabres' key players came through at 10:20 on the power play to make it 4-2. Zach Benson found Josh Norris all by himself in front of the Flyers net - I mean all by himself. Norris made a gorgeous move, faking a pass back to Benson, opening up Ersson’s pads to score the power play goal.
I asked Norris after the game if he was trying to fake a pass and he was very honest, saying he had no idea. It just happened.
Norris is another one of the Sabres' best players, and has points in all six games he’s played since coming back from injury, scoring three goals and six assists for nine points.
With 2:19 left in regulation, Samuelsson accidently fired a puck over the glass and was penalized for delay of game. For 1:30, the Flyers pulled Ersson and had a 6-on-4 power play chance.
What we saw was desperation from the Sabres. Tuch had a key blocked shot, his fifth of the game. Kesselring then blocked two shots in-a-row. Power joined the fun and also blocked a shot.
After the game, Lyon talked about how he never had to make a save during the two-man advantage.
Samuelsson came out of the box, made a nice move so he could get a pass to Ryan McLeod, and he was free to score the empty netter. It was McLeod’s first goal in 12 games, but it extended his points streak to four games.
In the first period, the shot attempts were 27-6 in favor of the Flyers. In the final 40 minutes, they were 48-30 in favor of the Sabres.
After the game, Ruff announced that defenseman Conor Timmins broke his leg and will be out 6-to-8 weeks.
Tyson Kozak also left the game with an undisclosed injury.
Next up for the Sabres is a back-to-back, starting with the New York Islanders coming to town on Saturday before heading to New Jersey to play the Devils on Sunday.
Both goalies will probably need to play, so I would use Lyon on Sunday and go with Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen for the home game on Saturday.
Why?
At home this season, Luukkonen is 4-1-0 with a 1.97 goals-against average and a .921 save percentage. On the road, he’s been abysmal with a 0-4-1 record, a 3.97 goals-against average and an .843 save percentage.
The NHL holiday roster freeze begins Friday night at 11:59 p.m., and will go through Dec. 28. No trades or waiver activity can happen during that time.
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