Saturday November 7 - Buffalo Sabres 3 - Vancouver Canucks 2
The Vancouver Canucks brought plenty of offensive punch, but became the last team in the NHL to lose a game on the road when they fell 3-2 to the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday.
Here are your highlights:
Though the Canucks outshot the Sabres 15-4 in the opening frame, they went to the dressing room down a goal after 20 minutes thanks to Jamie McGinn's redirection of a Jack Eichel feed—the first assist of Eichel's NHL career.
Buffalo grew its lead to 2-0 in the second period while Jake Virtanen was in the penalty box on an elbowing call that Canucks fans think was a phantom penalty and Sabres fans think could lead to a suspension. I can't find a GIF of it just yet but we'll get a good look if the Department of Player Safety decides to review it...
The power-play goal by big 21-year-old defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen was his second of the season. It's also the first power-play goal of the year that the Canucks have given up on the road...and the second in as many games after four perfect games for the penalty kill before that.
Yesterday, I put together a piece for Bleacher Report analyzing some NHL records that could be broken this season.
Click here to check it out.
One of the records in jeopardy is penalty-killing efficiency—a mark currently held by the 2011-12 New Jersey Devils, who killed 89.6 percent of their penalties that year.
Right now, three teams are above that mark this season according to the
NHL.com stats: Anaheim, Pittsburgh and Montreal. The Canucks aren't too far behind—even after today's 1-for-2 performance, their kill rate is 86.5 percent, good for sixth overall.
Though the Sabres have been without their new No. 1 netminder Robin Lehner since the second period of their first game this season, they've found a more-than-adequate replacement in another Swede, big Linus Ullmark. The sixth-round pick from 2012 was mostly excellent on Saturday, ultimately stopping 35 of 37 Vancouver shots.
The Canucks finally solved the young netminder with 6:27 remaining in the second period on a tidy play by the Sedins, then newly-minuted fourth-liner Chris Higgins tied the game midway through the third as he squeaked the puck under Ullmark's pads.
Even without considering the goal, Higgins was more prominent today than he'd been in his first game back against Pittsburgh—though the Buffalo defense certainly gave the Canucks a lot more room to skate than the Penguins did.
I did, however, notice Higgins falling down for no reason on more than one occasion today—and I saw that happen on Wednesday, too. Makes me wonder about the stability of his injured foot or possibly even a conditioning issue with his infamous core muscles that's making it harder than usual for him to keep his balance.
Hopefully it's just part of the catch-up process that goes hand-in-hand with coming back from an injury.
After Higgins scored, it looked like the Canucks would be able to salvage a point thanks to their comeback, but a sloppy pass by Daniel Sedin led to Ristolainen's second goal of the game with just 16.8 seconds left on the clock.
The twins were pressing hard for the game-winner when Daniel coughed up the puck. Were they pressing too hard because they were trying to end the game in regulation rather than find themselves in another dreaded 3-on-3 overtime situation against the speedy young Sabres?
Ryan Miller was certainly not impressed by the coverage in front of him:
Whatever the reason for the breakdown, that's an 0-1 start to the road trip in a game that the Canucks had every chance to win. And probably not the way Ryan Miller wanted to remember his first game back in Buffalo.
It's on to New Jersey now, for a Sunday afternoon game against Cory Schneider and company at 2 p.m. PT. The Devils are off to a pretty good start, just one point behind the Canucks with a record of 7-5-1, with one less game played, so tomorrow's game is far from a sure thing.
I'll set that up in a new pregame blog tomorrow morning.
One final note before I sign off for today: it looks like Jacob Markstrom was indeed a little rusty in his return to action—the Utica Comets fell 5-4 in the shootout to the visiting Toronto Marlies on Friday night. Markstrom made 30 saves in the losing effort, but the Toronto scorers went 2-for-2 in the shooutout to earn the win.
It's expected that Markstrom will be back in net tonight as the Comets host the Providence Bruins. Not sure yet who will start for the Canucks against the Devils.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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