Mike Harrington: With lots of teams in range, Sabres building steam in the long climb in the East
Sure, scoring nine goals Friday against Chicago was good, clean fun worthy of a raise and a chug of your Beer Sabre. On Sunday, the Sabres earned full marks at multiple levels of play, Mike Harrington writes.
The Buffalo Sabres are in walk-before-you-can-run mode, but they're quickly picking up the pace.
Sunday's 4-1 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes − the top team in the Eastern Conference − stands as a signature win on the season. Sure, scoring nine goals Friday against Chicago was good, clean fun worthy of a raise and a chug of your
Sabre. On Sunday, the Sabres earned full marks at multiple levels of play.There was so much to like as they got back to .500 at 9-9-4. For one thing, they didn't mentally crumble when an abhorrent goalie interference decision out of the NHL's Situation Room in Toronto went against them for the second time in three games. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen was a rock in goal (although reading his body language and interpreting his voice, it was clear he's less than thrilled with this three-goalie arrangement).
Sabres defenseman Bowen Byram, middle, reacts to a goal by right wing Alex Tuch during the first period at KeyBank Center on Sunday.
Joshua Bessex, Buffalo News
Alex Tuch scored a pretty goal off a sublime three-way passing play from Josh Doan and Ryan McLeod. Beck Malenstyn toasted Carolina star Sebastian Aho for a highlight-reel tally that had us conjuring memories of Brad May and another No. 29, Jason Pominville.
But little winning plays were everywhere, too. There was some hellacious backchecking by Doan and Bowen Byram when the Canes were pushing for odd-man rushes. Also a great block by Mattias Samuelsson when Carolina was pressing and lots of what-for delivered to Hurricanes winger Jackson Blake in front of the net in the final minute of the second period. And a take-no-guff response from Conor Timmins, who absorbed a bad hit into the end wall from William Carrier and immediately tackled the Canes forward.
The Sabres outhit Carolina, 27-18. They had 21 blocked shots against the Canes' 10. Jack Quinn, again skating up a storm, had game-high totals of six shots on goal and 11 attempts while scoring his fifth of the season. Tyson Kozak and Tuch had five hits apiece. Tage Thompson's empty-net goal gave him a six-game goal streak, the longest by a Buffalo forward since Pominville had a six-pack in 2006.
This is the kind of win coach Lindy Ruff had to love.
"You just mentioned the things that make you a winning team," Ruff said. "The block shots that not very often get headlines for. The physicality. If you look at the way (Samuelsson) has been playing, how physical some of the plays he's made with the puck, his goal scoring, his defending against every top line every night has been real good. There's a lot inside that game. the tracking back, getting sticks on lateral passes. We did a lot of good things that allowed us to win."
What did this win get Ruff's team?
That's four out of five. More confidence injected into a team showing less fragility each game. It got the Sabres out of the East cellar and past both the New York Rangers and Toronto Maple Leafs. Wow, those two fan bases are not going to be taking things well.
Aside here: The Leafs at last in the East is glorious. They were atrocious in a fire-the-coach-level, 5-2 loss Saturday in Montreal where they showed just about zero jam or respect for coach Craig Berube.
Toronto has been severely impacted by injuries to goalie Anthony Stolarz, center Auston Matthews and defenseman Chris Tanev. But in this compressed Olympic schedule, lots of teams have been dealing with big ouchies. Anyone going to have any sympathy for the Leafs? Doubt it.
And get this: The Sabres woke up Monday morning three points out of a wild-card slot. Three. With all the troubled times here, notably whatever that was on Wednesday against Calgary, this team is suddenly getting back in the action.
The Buffalo-Carolina series is one of the more bizarre in the league. Ruff theorized before the game it's rooted in matchups, with Carolina getting a huge edge with the last change at home. But the home team always gets the last change and this is really extreme.
The Canes have beaten Buffalo 12 straight times in Lenovo Center since 2016 and have scored 40 goals in the last eight. In Buffalo, the Sabres have won five in a row by an aggregate count of 18-8.
Malenstyn, seeing a forward defending him in a one-on-one play like Pominville famously did in burning Ottawa's Daniel Alfredsson on his iconic 2006 playoff overtime winner, went around Aho and hard to the goal to beat Frederik Andersen.
"I knew 'Krebsy' (Peyton Krebs) had a D-man on him, kind of just assumed that a D-man was stepping up on 'Kozy' (Tyson Kozak)," Malenstyn said. "So I thought I maybe had a little bit of an advantage going up against the forward. Figured I'd give it a try and I'm happy it worked out."
So while we've spent plenty of time here extolling all that's suddenly good, we know with this team that danger is at every turn. And darkness can definitely be ahead, with Wednesday's game in Pittsburgh starting a stretch of eight out of 10 games on the road.
And you don't have to delve into any deep research to know that the Sabres have been mostly good at home (8-4-2) and very poor on the road (1-5-2). That can't continue.
"That Calgary game is something we'd like to put far back in the rearview mirror," Malenstyn said. I think we were able to lean on how we played against Edmonton the game before and realized that's probably just a little bit of a one-off. We've been able to step up and play two really good games following that, which is a testament to the maturity in the group. We're learning how to the play the right way consistently."