Talk about Trouble with a capital T. The eyes of the nation will be foisted upon two teams full of issues when TNT televises Wednesday night’s game between the Sabres and the New York Rangers from KeyBank Center.
One can only imagine the palm tree-fueled wisecracks that could be coming the Sabres’ way from Liam McHugh, Paul Bissonnette and their cohorts on the TNT desk in Atlanta. McHugh, a UB grad, promised on X Tuesday that the network is “going to take a deep dive” into both teams’ issues on its pregame show.
Might need more than a half hour. After Monday’s shootout loss to Detroit, the Sabres are on a seven-game winless streak (0-4-3), their longest since a 0-8-0 November run ruined their 2022-23 season.
Jordan Greenway, right, celebrates his goal at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 7 with Sabres teammates Rasmus Dahlin, Jason Zucker and Ryan McLeod. The teams meet again Wednesday in KeyBank Center.
The Rangers, meanwhile, are coming off home losses on back-to-back nights to Seattle and Chicago, and heard plenty of boos Monday in Madison Square Garden after a 2-1 defeat to the Blackhawks. Once 12-4-1, the Rangers are 2-8 in their last 10 games, and you seriously wonder whether coach Peter Laviolette can survive a loss to the skidding Sabres.
Looks like GM/old friend Chris Drury’s “open for business” memo to the rest of his NHL cohorts has pretty much backfired. No performance bump from it.
The last time these teams met was Nov. 7 in MSG, and it was quite a different time for just a month ago. First off, the temperature in Manhattan that day was 76 degrees. The slices at Pizza Suprema behind the Garden were their usual stupendous self, and there was some ridiculous homemade chicken noodle soup to be found at a bodega down a few blocks on 33rd Street.
As for the hockey, the Sabres hung a piece worthy of the Guggenheim Museum. They bludgeoned the Rangers with four second-period goals to drive Igor Shesterkin from the game and prompt the chirping of the Garden boobirds. Buffalo had no missteps after that, either, rolling to a 6-1 victory that rates as its masterpiece of the season thus far.
“Thinking about that game, it was obviously one of our best of the year, and it was just simple,” Dylan Cozens, who sniped one of the second-period goals that night, said after practice Tuesday. “We got pucks behind them, we got it back, got pucks on net and we got our bounces that game. It’s a lot easier to play the game when you’re not worried about overthinking things and making mistakes.”
Rasmus Dahlin, who continues to progress to return to the lineup this weekend, scored that night on a blooper through Shesterkin’s 5-hole after 26 seconds. Cozens made it 2-0 early in the second, with Tage Thompson, Jordan Greenway and Sam Lafferty scoring in a span of 2:12 later in the period as Buffalo boatraced the Blueshirts with speed and precision passing.
“We got a lead. We played the right way, didn’t give up a lot, but still continued to play,” coach Lindy Ruff recalled Tuesday. “When that happens, you really start to like what you’re doing. You can judge your team sometimes when it’s going good, and then you start judging your team when you’re stressed: Can you make that right decision?”
That has been one of the Sabres problems. This streak is not about starting poorly and chasing games, like they did so much of the time under Don Granato. Instead, they’re getting leads and frittering them away. The Sabres have scored the first goal in the last four games – and lost all of them.
They’re 7-6-4 for the season when scoring first, and the 10 combined losses are the most in the NHL. So are their seven losses when leading after one period (7-3-4).
Perhaps Wednesday’s likely return of defenseman Mattias Samuelsson, out a month with a lower-body injury, can help. (Center Tyson Kozak, who had what Ruff called “a good showing” in a three-game stint, was returned to Rochester). This is the 10th time in the last four seasons the Sabres have had a winless streak of at least four games, which is a crazy stat.
“We looked tight, and that’s a product of not winning,” Thompson said after Monday’s game. “Lose however many in a row, and it’s easier for you to grip your stick a little tighter and be a little more nervous to make a mistake. Usually you do that, it just compounds things.”
The loss remains hard to fathom. The Sabres did a lot right in building a 5-3 lead halfway through the third period, but they gave up two goals to allow the Wings to tie the game, failed to do anything on a power play late in the third period and didn’t score in a low-event overtime that saw Ryan McLeod hit the post on a breakaway that was the only scoring chance for either team.
Wings goalie Sebastian Cossa, a 2021 first-round pick, made his NHL debut in relief and faced only 14 shots over the final 45 minutes before stopping two of three shootout attempts. Cossa became the first goalie in the shootout era (since 2005) to win his NHL debut in the skills competition while playing in relief.
Cossa’s win dropped the Sabres to a mind-boggling 1-2-2 in the games they’ve knocked out the opponent’s goalie. No question they should be 5-0, and that’s a huge difference of six points. No killer instinct.
“It’s just got to be a mindset. You’ve got to want the puck on your stick, want to be the guy that’s going to make a play,” Thompson said. “And I think, right now, we’re just nervous to have the puck, afraid to make mistakes and lose the game.”
