Sabres' home opener spoiled by third-period meltdown, 3-1 loss to Kings
Anze Kopitar scored three goals in the third period Thursday to lead the Los Angeles Kings to a 3-1 win and spoil the Buffalo Sabres' home opener in KeyBank Center.
The Sabres’ Jordan Greenway, left, Connor Clifton and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen watch a replay of Kings captain Anze Kopitar’s second goal during the third period
Thursday night at KeyBank Center. Harry Scull Jr., Buffalo News
Lindy Ruff was brutally honest.
His players gave him no choice but to react that way after they committed two egregious mistakes that spoiled the Sabres’ home opener Thursday night in KeyBank Center and handed the Los Angeles Kings a 3-1 win despite the visitors playing poorly for most of the game.
“There’s so much good stuff, and I’m about to sit here and be (upset) about the end of the game,” Ruff lamented after Sabres dropped to 0-3 to start the season for the first time since 2014-15.
For 40 minutes Thursday night, the Sabres played with the speed, physicality and relentlessness that Ruff is demanding in his second stint with the franchise. They corrected most of the problems that plagued them in their back-to-back losses to the New Jersey Devils in Prague.
Alex Tuch gave Buffalo a 1-0 when the winger stripped Quinton Byfield of the puck during a Kings power play and capitalized with a short-handed goal late in the second period. A sellout crowd of 19,070 roared. A sense of relief washed over the crowd once the Sabres were finally able to beat goalie Darcy Kuemper on their 23rd shot of the game.
One problem persisted, though, and magnified the consequential mistakes Ruff was forced to revisit after the game: an inability to score. The Sabres went 0-for-5 on the power play and they’re now 0-for-11 this season. They have three goals in three games after finishing tied for 23rd in goals per game in Don Granato’s final season as coach.
During the first period alone, they failed to score on a 69-second 5-on-3 power play, Ryan McLeod couldn’t convert a penalty shot, Kuemper dove to his right to prevent McLeod from scoring on a wraparound and Zach Benson had a goal taken off the big, new videoboard above center ice because the puck crossed the line one second too late.
“I do feel snakebit, there’s no doubt,” said Ruff. “We continue to do the right things the puck is going to go in the back of the net or we’re sending every goaltender we play to the All-Star Game, one of the two.”
The Sabres outshot the Kings 27-11 through two periods and Los Angeles did not have a high-danger scoring chance at 5-on-5 during that span, according to Natural Stat Trick. Buffalo’s penalty kill swarmed the Kings’ top players and earned better opportunities whenever Los Angeles had a man-advantage. It was a performance that would have inspired optimism from the frustrated fan base if the Sabres could have done more with their 19 high-danger scoring chances and 34 shots on goal.
“We’ve got to be able to bury some more of those,” said Tuch. “Honestly just bearing down a little bit. Kuemper played well. They played pretty well defensively in front of him, but we got a lot of opportunities, a lot of grade-As. To win games, a lot of times, you’re gonna have to score more than one goals.
The Kings (1-0) took over in the third period when the Sabres began to beat themselves. Trouble began 13 seconds in when defenseman Rasmus Dahlin, Buffalo’s captain, turned the puck over behind his own net. None of his teammates were ready to cover Anze Kopitar, who snapped a shot past Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to tie it 1-1.
A silence fell over the crowd. Despite the mishap, though, the Sabres were still in position to earn at least one standing point. They didn’t do that often enough when Granato was their coach and failing to take games to overtime was one reason why the playoff drought reached 13 years. Connor Clifton nearly slid the puck between Kuemper’s legs after an excellent pass from Jordan Greenway, a play that would have put Buffalo ahead. Tage Thompson hit the post. Bowen Byram hit the crossbar.
The Kings got an assist from the officials with a phantom roughing call on winger Jason Zucker, but the Sabres’ penalty kill had overmatched Los Angeles to that point.
The Sabres were on the verge of killing the penalty altogether, and receiving another opportunity to take over the game with their faster, more effective approach with the puck, when Mattias Samuelsson took an unnecessary slashing penalty to give the Kings a 5-on-3 for 27 seconds. Kopitar needed only 29 seconds to give his team a 2-1 lead with 1:38 left in regulation, and he completed the hat trick with an empty-net goal.
“The Samuelsson [mistake] is like hockey suicide to take a penalty like that because our penalty-killers had done an unbelievable job,” Ruff lamented. “That is just lack of composure for a group that played so well. The killing had been so good to that point. We have to learn from that one. We’ve gotta sense that, ‘Man, these guys are doing an unbelievable job.’ That’s not on the officials. That’s a good call.”
Here are other takeaways from the game:
1. Same problem
The Sabres finally fixed the zone entries that prevented their power play from being able to work in Czechia.Jiri Kulich, who drew into the lineup with JJ Peterka still out, looked far more comfortable and helped them cross the blue line multiple times. The group overhandled the puck too often, though, and made critical mistakes, particularly during the 5-on-3 when Buffalo could have taken an early lead against an opponent that was playing its first game of the season.
The Sabres had 12 shots during their power plays, including a pair of chances in front for Thompson, but they’re still searching for their first goal of the season.
“That was more time than we got on the power play the last couple games and better looks, but still not good enough,” said Tuch.
2. Blunder
The puck should have never been in the Sabres’ zone so early in the third period. They were credited with winning the faceoff before the goal. A mistake caused them to regroup behind their net before the Dahlin turnover.The team captain and highest-paid player can’t make that play, though. He had multiple teammates around to support a quick pass, but he had his stick lifted by Alex Laferriere before he could make a play.
“I made a bad play,” said Dahlin. “He came down in the middle. Kopitar doesn’t miss those chances, so we’ve just got to clean it up.”
3. Mistakes
The result will overshadow some strong individual performances on the Sabres’ side.This may have been Clifton’s best game since signing a three-year contract with Buffalo in 2023. He was the Sabres’ best penalty-killer – particularly on the shorthanded situation before McLeod’s penalty shot – and he even joined the rush to almost finish the pass from Greenway that would have tied it 2-2 in the third period.
Samuelsson needs to be better. He hasn’t looked sharp in any of the three games and, as Ruff noted, must understand that he can’t take a penalty in that situation. It’s going to have to improve fast for Samuelsson to hold off the two defensemen pushing to get into the lineup: Dennis Gilbert and Jacob Bryson.
