Sabres' deficit grew during another painful, sobering weekend. Why believe they can rally?
The Sabres are 16-22-5, and they have only 12 regulation wins through 43 games, while their 37 points are fourth-fewest among the NHL's 32 teams. Coach Lindy Ruff wants to see his players change their mindset. They haven't proven that they hate to lose as much as they love to win.
A sobering reminder of the self-inflicted damage was displayed on the two monitors inside the Sabres’ dressing room following their practice Monday at KeyBank Center.
Their path to an unprecedented playoff push became more daunting and improbable over the weekend with their embarrassing 6-2 loss to the Seattle Kraken and seemingly every other game on the out-of-town scoreboard went against Buffalo.
Sabres defenseman Dennis Gilbert looks to the bench as the Kraken celebrate a goal scored by Kaapo Kakko at KeyBank Center on Saturday. Harry Scull Jr., Buffalo News
Ottawa swept its weekend back-to-back, Detroit has won seven in a row under new coach Todd McLellan, Montreal got three of four points and Columbus beat St. Louis to take hold of the second wild-card playoff spot.
The Sabres are 16-22-5, and they have only 12 regulation wins through 43 games, while their 37 points are fourth-fewest among the NHL’s 32 teams.
“We can’t control what happens outside of this locker room,” Alex Tuch told The Buffalo News. “We have to come in and work. We have to bear down in certain situations and stick with it for a full 60. If it were easy, then everyone would be able to do it. … The difference in skill between these teams isn’t vast. You see that every night. Even if someone has 150 points like Connor McDavid, there are still a lot of guys with a really high skill level on the bottom-end teams.
“Right now, in the standings we’re a bottom-end team and we have a lot of guys who are unbelievable, world-class players in here. Those guys, along with everyone else, have to step up and realize we need to be better in every aspect. … Playing hockey the right way, the way everyone knows how to.”
Therein lies the problem for the Sabres, except they are inconsistent from one period to the next. They’ve given up three or four goals in a period 11 times, even though they did it only once through their first 11 games. Their plus-16 goal differential in first periods is the second-best mark in the NHL, but they’re a combined minus-31 in second and third periods. They haven’t won more than three games in a row in nearly two years.
The blueprint to winning crystalized in the final days of the 13-game winless streak. The Sabres need to be responsible defensively. They can’t force cross-ice passes in search of a highlight-reel play. Everyone must trust their skill will shine if they follow Lindy Ruff’s game plan. This team lacks discipline and patience. Buffalo had neither Saturday as it frittered away a 2-0 lead and lost for the sixth time when ahead by multiple goals.
Ruff built the practice plan Monday to address the myriad of mistakes the Sabres made in the offensive zone against Seattle. They forced cross-ice passes, ignored shot lanes and overhandled the puck. Sam Lafferty scored the first goal with a routine shot toward the net that went off a stick, yet most of Buffalo’s players changed their approach when the second period began.
The Sabres coach wants to see his players change their mindset. They haven’t proven that they hate to lose as much as they love to win.
“Losing has to hurt more than winning,” he said. “It has to mean more. It has to hurt you more. And to lose in that style, you’ve got to hate losing more than you like winning. … We’ve been there. I’ll say this that, again, we’ve been a team since the start of the year that’s had a tough time dealing with, inside the game, a little bit of adversity, whether it’s a lucky goal at the start of the third or we make a bad play. We’ve compounded that with we haven’t had the next couple lines come out and say, ‘That ain’t gonna happen again.’
Seemingly every skater on the Sabres’ roster is guilty of making momentum-crushing mistakes.
Tage Thompson’s bothersome undisclosed injury is the reason why he hasn’t been the same scoring threat in each game, but he also makes too many high-risk plays in the offensive zone. He, Dylan Cozens and Jason Zucker were a combined minus-12 against Seattle. Rasmus Dahlin made uncharacteristic mistakes. Tuch played less than Zach Benson and finished with only three shots on goal. The youngest players aren’t the only guilty ones.
Sabres center Tage Thompson, looking on from the bench in a game against the Kraken on Saturday, says,
“The stuff we’ve been through this season has made us fragile in certain situations sometimes.” Harry Scull Jr., Buffalo News
The Sabres earn time in the offensive zone when they follow a simple approach, but they’re not doing enough when they cross the blue line. They’ve been outshot 29 times in 43 games, and their 27 shots on goal per game is the seventh-lowest mark in the NHL. Their starts give them a chance to win, but they can’t finish. Buffalo has scored a third-period goal in only six of its last 14 games, and it’s averaging only 6.8 shots on goal in those situations during that span.
It’s a fragile team that loses its confidence at the first sign of trouble. The Sabres can’t generate enough quality scoring chances and give up too many. Fixing the situation may be a simpler task if the problems were the same each time, but seemingly a different part of the Sabres’ performance has failed in each of their worst losses this season.
“The stuff we’ve been through this season has made us fragile in certain situations sometimes,” said Thompson. “We’ve got to be mentally tougher to know that we can win those games. Good teams are going to have a pushback and when they do, we can’t let that collapse us. It’s immaturity in our game and it’s got to be consistent where we have the confidence that we’re going to close games out and make sure we do the right things to make it happen.”
The roster needs another right-shot defenseman who understands how to protect the Sabres’ net. Their forward group has enough capable goal-scorers, but it lacks playoff experience. The mission should be to add another winger or center with the intangibles and skill of Zucker.
One or two additions won’t cure the bad habits that have permeated their play in recent seasons, but the youngest team in the NHL can’t wait for inexperienced leaders to learn through losing. Dahlin, Thompson, Tuch and Cozens need to be surrounded with more veterans.
The Sabres’ 84-point finish in 2023-24 cost Don Granato his job as coach and led general manager Kevyn Adams to adjust his roster. Casey Mittelstadt was traded for Bowen Byram. Matt Savoie, a top prospect, got moved to Edmonton for third-line center Ryan McLeod. Lafferty, Beck Malenstyn and Nicolas Aube-Kubel were added for the fourth line.
It hasn’t produced teamwide success, raising external questions about whether this team is better off now than in April 2023, when it finished one point out of the playoffs. Tuch spoke confidently that these Sabres are far better than the version that was buried in 2022-23 before it went on a late run and got lucky with the out-of-town scoreboard.
The standings don’t support Tuch’s opinion, but he’s seen his teammates rebound from challenging losses. Their approach in wins can lead to sustained success, he said, even though they’re unable to repeat that formula each game. And, among the current Sabres who were on that 91-point team, the youngest are much better now than they were then.
The standings are a reminder of how far the Sabres must climb, but Tuch isn’t ready to give up.
“This year, I still do have high hopes,” he added. “I still think we’re way better than we were the last two years. Obviously, losing 13 in a row hurts, but I have a lot more faith in this team than the past couple years in our ability to bounce back and really make a push. I think this year we’re talking about making a push a lot earlier than the past couple of years. The last few years it was about development, getting back on track to some extent, and this time it’s about winning every single night.”