Sabres roar back against Panthers, fall apart late: ‘It was right there’

BUFFALO – On one hand, the Sabres erased an early 2-0 deficit Monday against the Florida Panthers and made things interesting. Despite losing 5-2, they matched the Stanley Cup champions’ skill and grit.

On the other hand, the Sabres, whose three-game winning streak was snapped, showed they haven’t reached the Panthers’ class. They broke down defensively all night, took ill-advised penalties and wilted late while allowing three third-period goals.

Coach Lindy Ruff doesn’t take much solace in the positives the Sabres accomplished in the loss before a crowd of 12,906 fans in KeyBank Center.

The Sabres, for example, seemingly had strong start, outshooting the Panthers early. Big deal. They still had defensive lapses and trailed 2-0 by the 11:56 mark.

“We missed our assignments and … they made us pay dearly,” Ruff said. “Talk about odd-numbered rushes, if you’re going to hand a team that was just Stanley Cup champions odd-numbered rushes, you’re going to pay dearly, and they made us pay. That’s on us.”

Two of the Panthers’ goals can be tied to captain Rasmus Dahlin, who owned up to his mistakes.

After Carter Verhaeghe put the Panthers up 3-2 in the third period, Dahlin slashed Jesper Boqvist. Sam Bennett scored a power-play goal at 14:35, sealing the game.

“Got to blame myself on that one,” said Dahlin, who scored his first goal this season in the second period. “They were smarter than we were. Tough penalty at the end there. We had a chance to come back, but, yeah, stupid play.”

In the first period, Dahlin pursued puck-carrier Aleksander Barkov behind the net when Mattias Samuelsson already had him. With the front of the net open, Sam Reinhart scored a power-play goal to make it 2-0.

Two defensemen behind the net killing a penalty is a recipe for disaster.

“We make those mistakes on the first kill, it was just a careless gamble that hurt us dearly,” Ruff said. “I mean, against a really good player.”

On Verhaeghe’s goal, Sabres center Tage Thompson, who extended his point streak to seven games, followed Matthew Tkachuk, the shooter, instead of covering the other side of the net. Verhaeghe easily buried the rebound past Sabres goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen at 16:44.

“Tage just needed to stay off the goalie’s back side, stay in that wide lane,” Ruff said.

Winger Jason Zucker, who scored a power-play goal for the second straight game, said the Sabres played “a little sloppy overall.”

“We showed that we can play with them and that’s a huge part of it, but we can’t be satisfied with that either,” he said. “We lost the game and arguably did it to ourselves.”

When Boqvist converted a two-on-one pass to open the scoring 11:01 into the game, Sabres winger Nicolas Aube-Kubel, who returned from a lower-body injury, got caught on the wrong side of the ice.

Ruff later moved Aube-Kubel off the second line back to the fourth.

“Aube missed his first assignment, which allowed their guy the two-on-one,” Ruff said. “Just, I think, a little bit of rust in him. We wanted to try to set the tone in our building and make sure we got above the right guys.

“We got above, but we let a guy beat us up ice and that cost us dearly right off the bat. So, I know, being out – no excuse.”

Dahlin said the Sabres roared back into the contest thanks to their “swagger.”

“We got all the skill and all the stuff we need,” he said. “We pushed back and we came back. … They were a little bit smarter than us today.”

Zucker scored 10:45 into the second period, batting the puck past goalie Sergei Bobrovsky.

The Sabres have scored one power-play goal in each of the last two contests after going scoreless in their first 22 attempts this season.

“It’s starting with simplicity, getting pucks on net and winning those battles to get pucks back,” Zucker said of the power play.

Dahlin pinched in and tied the game at 12:37.

Then the Sabres fell apart late.

“We’ve been going good,” Ruff said. “We’ve got some good stuff that’s starting to happen. We had a chance to beat a good team. It was right there. We just weren’t good enough to get it done.”