BUFFALO – It felt like things might be turning for the Sabres when late in Saturday’s first period, having just answered the Florida Panthers and tied the game, center Tage Thompson roared down the right wing and unleashed the puck toward the net.
During the Sabres’ three season-opening losses, the opposing goalie would’ve stopped a shot like that. This time, however, they enjoyed a little puck luck that had been non-existent.
Panthers goalie Spencer Knight, who looked wonky throughout the Sabres’ 5-2 win, let Thompson’s blast get through his legs at 17:27.
Fresh off Thursday’s 3-1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings, a game in which the Sabres generated loads of offense but couldn’t finish, they needed goals.
One like Thompson’s always helps.
The Sabres entered the night having scored three times all season. When defenseman Henri Jokiharju scored 1:34 into the second period, the Sabres equaled their season goal output in just 5:19.
Thompson scored 41 seconds after winger Jordan Greenway knotted the contest against the Stanley Cup champions.
“You get one, you start to feel good, especially after a night where you feel like you could’ve had a few, goalie robs you or you just get a little unlucky,” Thompson said following the Sabres’ first victory this season. “I think that’s where you just got to stick with it. You don’t change anything, don’t look for extra passes.”
Sabres coach Lindy Ruff, who called the win a “stress-reliever,” wanted his players to keep doing what helped them create so many scoring chances against the Kings.
“You could get frustrated, you could deviate, but I thought our guys were pretty locked into trying to play the right way, and for the most part, I thought for 60 minutes we did, we got rewarded,” he said. “I thought a couple goals … they went in and they hadn’t been going in.”
Jokiharju scored following several chaotic seconds in which Knight slid around and desperately tried to return to his crease after he dropped his stick. When Jokiharju let his blast from the point go, he had retrieved his stick and regained position. He simply missed the puck.
Defenseman Mattias Samuelsson put the Sabres up 4-1 16:22 into the second period, beating Knight after he lost his stick and couldn’t get up off the ice.
More good fortune that never materialized during the first week.
The Sabres, of course, felt a strong sense of urgency to end their skid. In other cities, a 0-3-0 start might be seen as a hiccup to start a marathon 82-game season. In Buffalo, which hasn’t experienced the postseason since 2011, the fan base was already surly.
“It speaks volumes that the start we had, everything that kind of went on, and we stuck to it,” said Greenway, who has arguably been the Sabres’ best forward this season. “I don’t want to go to last game, but we’ve been building our game. We’ve been pretty happy about how we’ve been playing overall.”
Thompson called the win, Ruff’s first as Sabres coach since Feb. 15, 2013, “a great response.”
“We felt comfortable,” he said. “There was no panic in our game. I think even in the third, a two-goal lead against the defending Cup champions, they know how to claw their way back into games, and I thought we really didn’t give them a whole lot.”
The Sabres made one lineup change, inserting defenseman Dennis Gilbert, a Buffalo native, and scratching forward Sam Lafferty (healthy).
They wanted Gilbert, who played his first game for his hometown team, to provide muscle against the heavy Panthers. With three days between games, Ruff wanted to play three forward lines.
“(We wanted) to dress Gilbert just for physicality if we needed it,” Ruff said. “But my approach was going to be to try to play three lines. I mean, with days off coming up, (I wanted) to load up and know that all the guys could empty the tank.”
As a result, fourth-liner Beck Malenstyn skated just 1 minute, 52 seconds over three shifts. Later in the game, Krebs, Malenstyn’s linemate, replaced Zach Benson at left wing on the top line alongside Thompson and Alex Tuch.
Ruff said Benson is still dealing with a lower-body injury that sidelined him one game.
“This is just my opinion, I don’t think Benson’s 100 percent,” Ruff said. “He’s playing, but for me he doesn’t look 100 percent yet. So I just thought we’d give Krebs a look there. I thought he was really good tonight.”
Benson played one shift in the third period and four in the second.
After Panthers coach Paul Maurice’s nine-year run with the Hartford Whalers/Carolina Hurricanes ended in 2003-04, he coached the Toronto Marlies, the Maple Leafs’ AHL affiliate, for one season before taking over the NHL team for two years.
In 2008-09, the Hurricanes brought him back for a stint that would last parts of four seasons.
So Maurice understands what Ruff, who coached here from 1997-98 until early in 2012-13, has experienced since the Sabres rehired him in April.
“There’s a comfort level that comes back,” Maurice said. “You know the town, you know the style of hockey that they play. They know you, they understand the game you’re gonna (play). So I think that kind of being able to walk into the room and know half the people in it is a real advantage.
“Sometimes it takes you a long time to get to know everybody, kind of get your standard set. … All that knowledge of the past always gets passed down. So when you walk into the room as head coach and say, ‘We’re doing it this way,’ everybody already understands that.”
Maurice said Ruff coaching the Sabres “seems right, doesn’t it?”
“That just seems the way it was for so very long, and his teams always played so hard, so well, beat us all the time,” he said.
The Sabres announced during the game legendary enforcer Rob Ray, the franchise’s all-time penalty-minutes leader, will be inducted into the team’s hall of fame later this season. A date will be announced later.
Ray, who played 14 seasons for the Sabres, received a loud ovation from the crowd of 16,644 fans.
The winger amassed 3,189 penalty minutes in 899 games, the fourth-highest total in franchise history.
Today, Ray is a popular color analyst on the team’s broadcasts.
Notes: The Panthers played without two star forwards: captain Aleksander Barkov (lower body) and Matthew Tkachuk (sick). … Sabres goalie Devon Levi made 23 saves. … Tuch scored an empty-net goal. … The Sabres’ power play went scoreless in three tries and is zero of 14 this season. … Sabres winger JJ Peterka (concussion) missed his second straight game. Ruff believes he can return for Wednesday’s road game against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
