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Sabres Lose a Snoozer to the Ducks |
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The Sabres dropped a dismal decision to the Anaheim Ducks during a dull affair on Tuesday night. The Sabres ended up out-shooting the Ducks 24-23, though the blue and gold managed only three shots in the second period when the game was still up for grabs. The final score was 2-0.
The first period was a real snoozer, perhaps by design to let goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen get his feet under him during his first start of the 2021-22 season. UPL wasn’t tested much other than a point-blank slot shot which he got a piece of before the puck ricocheted off the cross bar and out of play. The shots were low for both sides and quality chances were hard to come by.
The Sabres had one good scoring opportunity as Tage Thompson fed the puck in front of the net to Jeff Skinner who tried to pull it to his backhand and tuck it in. It looked like Victor Olofsson then stripped Skinner of the puck in order to score himself, although that move led to the puck harmlessly falling below the Ducks’ goal line. It’s not a terrific idea to strip your own teammate of a scoring opportunity in order to try to pot one for yourself. Leave it. L e a v e i t. Good boy!
The rest of the first period flowed on harmlessly and uneventfully before the Ducks took a tripping penalty against Henri Jokiharju. That man advantage yielded a whole lot of nothing. The Sabres had a 6-gme power play goal streak heading into the game, but that particular 5-on-4 situation didn’t look dangerous. The power play did, however, yield an excellent graphic courtesy of ESPN which showed viewers at home that Tage Thompson possesses elite height as the third tallest player in the NHL. It’s true! He’s tall!
As the final horn sounded the end of the first period, the shots were 7-6 Buffalo and Luukkonen succeeded in not barfing all over himself, which, if we’re being honest, is the current standard for acceptable goalie performance. He wasn’t asked to do a ton and he succeeded in doing what he was asked.
The second period started on a less positive note as Trevor Zegras picked up the puck behind the Sabres’ net lacrosse-style and looped a pass over top of the net for Sonny Milano who tapped it home. There’s nothing that UPL could have done on that one. After the goal was reviewed for a potential high stick by Milano – and it certainly looked like a high stick from all the angles I saw – it was subsequently ruled a good goal. It was *definitely* a cool goal, even if it probably shouldn’t have counted.
Zegras, who has 22 points in 25 games, was taken one pick after Dylan Cozens in the 2019 NHL draft. Cozens hasn’t done as well offensively, as the Yukon native has 14 points in 25 games. There’s no reason to assume that Zegras will ultimately be the more effective player while the two are just getting their feet wet at the NHL level. Still, the Sabres have often been haunted by wrong choices in the draft, so it bears keeping an eye on going forward, especially if Zegras keeps up this pace and finishes at-or-around 70 points.
The Ducks definitely had the better of the play for the majority of the second, and that was only made worse following a penalty to Rasmus Dahlin. The Sabres only mustered two measly shots through the first 15 minutes of the second frame. The Sabres are lacking a consistent net-front presence when they engage in the offensive zone cycle game which leads either to unscreened shots that are easily stopped by the opposing goalie, or easily blocked shots by opposing defenses.
Apropos of nothing, Cam Fowler only just turned 30 years old two days ago. I honestly thought he was about 35 because he’s seemingly been around forever. Anyway, that’s a pointless thought caused by the complete lack of action during the second period wherein the Sabres managed a whopping 3 shots on net. They did a whole lot of nothing in another boring period.
The Sabres managed to get a shot on net within one minute of the start of the third period. That was good. Jeff Skinner also managed to draw a penalty by squeezing Kevin Shattenkirk’s stick between his legs which netted the Sabres a power play opportunity. Skinner sold that one very well. The Sabres came away from that power play empty handed after generating some quality opportunities against Anthony Stolarz.
UPL was again fine in the third period as faced a mild workload. He didn’t face a ton of quality chances and he didn’t let in any bad goals. It was a solid debut. In what is perhaps a bad sign for the future of the Hulu/ESPN games, it doesn’t appear that the network was able to sell all of the commercial breaks available to them. In fact, there were no paid promotional commercial breaks during the usual commercial spots at 12 minutes and 10 minutes.
Also, in an incredibly dumb move, ESPN decided to provide picture-in-picture of John Buccigross eating chicken parm during a Sabres power play. I get it. This is a national broadcast and ESPN is in it for the memes. Awesome. Some of us actually just want to watch the games without those kind of stunts. That was incredibly obnoxious.
The second Ducks goal, and the nail in the coffin, came after Dylan Cozens lost a faceoff draw deep in the Sabres zone with 2 minutes left. Sam Carrick deflected a Josh Manson shot past UPL to end the game and that was that. The Sabres are now 8-14-3 and next play on Friday against the New York Rangers.
Buffalo Sabres Blogger • 
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