Sabres recap: Tight defeat to Canes marks Buffalo's first losing streak since early December
Seth Jarvis' power-play goal at 2:10 of the third period snapped a tie, and the Carolina Hurricanes went on to beat Buffalo 2-1 in a Monday matinee in Lenovo Center.
For the first time in over a month, the Buffalo Sabres are on a losing streak.
Seth Jarvis' power-play goal at 2:10 of the third period snapped a tie, and the Carolina Hurricanes went on to beat Buffalo 2-1 in a Monday matinee in Lenovo Center.
The Sabres, who fell in overtime to Minnesota on Saturday in KeyBank Center, had not dropped consecutive games since falling to Philadelphia, Winnipeg and Calgary from Dec. 3-8. Their overtime win Dec. 9 in Edmonton opened a 10-game winning streak that had morphed into a 15-2-1 run heading into Monday's play.
Buffalo is 0-11-2 in its last 13 games at Carolina, which is now the longest active winless streak for an NHL team in another club's rink.
With Owen Power in the penalty box for tripping, it took just seven seconds for Carolina to snap a 1-1 tie. Sebastian Aho, who assisted on both Canes goals, fed Jarvis to the left of Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, and the Buffalo goalie made the first save, but could not stop the rebound as Jarvis beat Alex Tuch to the spot.
Carolina goalie Brandon Bussi needed to make just 17 saves to improve to 18-3-1, but several had a high degree of difficulty. Bussi stymied the Sabres in the second period with a save-of-the-season candidate on Sabres center Tage Thompson, who was named the NHL's First Star of the Week earlier in the day.
With the Sabres on a power play, they quickly turned over puck possession in the Carolina zone as Thompson and Jason Zucker had the net to themselves for a 2-on-0
Thompson passed to Zucker at Bussi's left and burst to the net, taking a return pass and seemingly having his 26th goal of the season on his stick. But Thompson one-timed the puck directly into Bussi's glove hand, looking into the rafters in amazement as the sellout crowd of 18,299 roared its approval.
Bussi robbed Thompson twice more in the final 20 seconds with the Sabres pressing for a tying goal
Carolina had a 13-3 advantage in shots on goal in an opening 20 minutes that saw the Sabres fail to get a single shot from their forwards. Buffalo took a 1-0 lead at 1:33 as Rasmus Dahlin burned Bussi with a snapshot from the right circle, and Carolina tied it at 7:04 when Andrei Svechnikov pushed off on Mattias Samuelsson to create space and tapped home a pass.
NHL honors Thompson
Thompson, who notched his ninth career hat trick as part of a five-point game Thursday against Montreal, has been named the NHL's First Star of the Week for the period ending Sunday.Also honored by the league Monday as Second Star was Nashville defenseman Roman Josi, while the third star was Utah goalie Karel Vejmelka. Thompson (Team USA), Josi (Switzerland) and Vejmelka (Czechia) are all slated to play in next month's Winter Olympics in Italy.
Thompson led the league in scoring for the week, with nine points in four games (three goals, six assists) as the Sabres went 2-1-1. His signature game against the Habs included his 200th NHL goal.
Injury update
Although center Josh Norris is being gauged as week to week after suffering a rib injury last week, coach Lindy Ruff said prior to the game that the Sabres are not pondering a shutdown of Norris, and that he might be back at some point on this road trip."This can turn around in a day or two," Ruff said prior to the game. "He could call us Tuesday, Wednesday and say, 'I'm doing pretty good here,' and join us for the end of this road trip. So I wouldn't rule him out for later in the week."
Goalie Alex Lyon, who suffered a leg injury Dec. 29 in St. Louis, was activated from injured reserve and served as the backup goalie. The Sabres are thus back to three netminders on their roster.