@boosbuzzsabres
It was Jason Pominville's 1000th game last night and even the hometown Ottawa Senators acknowledged that with a little video commemorating his milestone. Which was very classy, especially when you consider Pominville's most famous goal knocked the Senators out of the playoffs in that very same building back in 2006.
As the Ottawa Sun put it, Pominville "returned to the scene of the crime" last night for his milestone and then he even proceeded to score a goal for the Buffalo Sabres, but it wasn't quite enough as they lost to the Sens 4-2.
The Sabres team that hit the ice last night couldn't have looked more different than the '06 Buffalo team that advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals on Pominville's shorthanded, overtime winner. The 2018 Sabres hit the ice slow and were overwhelmed before coming to life early in the third period where they dominated.
The Sabres have been choppy over the last three games having played only three good periods and were lucky to come away with two loser points in that span. Prior to the game last night some leaned towards the thought process that the very fact that the Sabres were able to get points while not playing their best was a sign of progress as opposed to years past when they folded.
However, a team just can't continue doing what Buffalo has been doing the last three games and hope to consistently win or even get a point. The Sabres pulled into Columbus last Saturday night on a three-game winning streak and looked like they found their game leaving the first period with a 2-1 lead over the Blue Jackets. But old habits die hard. They succumbed to an aggressive Columbus team and gave up three unanswered goals in the second period before coming back to tie the game in the third period. Buffalo quickly lost in overtime and the overriding theme afterward was that the Sabres showed some gumption in coming back in the third to tie it.
Fair enough. But what transpired in the next game was cause for concern as they were dominated by the Calgary Flames who were at the tail-end of an eight-game, 14-day crisscross between their Mountain Time Zone and the Eastern Time Zone. Buffalo was their last destination and the Flames allowed only one Sabres goal before tying it late in the third period and winning it in overtime.
Last night the Sens dominated the first two periods and left for the second intermission with a commanding 3-0 lead. In addition to looking like a tire fire vs. the Senators aggressive forecheck, Buffalo took a total of five penalties in the first 40 minutes with four of them of the lazy variety in the defensive zone--a Jake McCabe slash as a Sens player was going by him, a Marco Scandella hold, a Jack Eichel hook, and a Kyle Okposo delay of game for sending the puck over the glass.
The Senators scored on two of those four powerplays and added another goal on a weird carom off the backwall that hit Buffalo's net and bounced in off of Carter Hutton's arm as he was moving back in the crease.
For many Sabres fans it was deja vu all over again and it would have been easy to turn the game off with the Sabres down 3-0. However Ottawa changed their game after scoring their third goal. They sat back late in the second period and when they did that in the third period, the Sabres jumped all over them. Pominville scored at the :59 second-mark to make it 3-1 and aggressive Buffalo play lead to an Ottawa penalty and the Sabres pulled to within one goal on a Jeff Skinner powerplay deflection with over just 16 minutes left to play.
It was the jolt the Sabres needed but despite throwing another 18 shots at Ottawa goalie Craig Anderson the rest of the way, they couldn't tie the score. A late Bobby Ryan empty-net goal sealed the 4-2 win for Ottawa.
Perhaps there are a lot of lessons to be learned as Hutton mentioned post-game, but the big lesson is that the Sabres need to come out ready to play from the drop of the puck. It's been a problem for years, dating back to Pominville's first tour in Buffalo. They should have known last night that the Senators were on a four-game winless streak (0-3-1) and would be ready to play in front of home crowd (however small it may have been) after being on the road the prior three games.
Then again, perhaps Buffalo took Ottawa too lightly. The Senators were picked by many to finish near the bottom of the league, they were on a winless streak and they were coming back home after a road trip which is usually very difficult for the travelling team. Add in the hoopla surrounding Pominville's milestone and they could have had a false sense of entitlement.
For a team that finished dead last a season ago and were at a real .500-mark this season while playing wildly inconsistent hockey, one would hope that wasn't the case.
In any event, the tide has turned and all the good feelings from that three-game winning streak which turned into a five-game point-streak has now vanished as the Sabres are on a three-game winless streak and they're now below that real .500-mark.
Although it's early in the season, it's gut-check time as they don't want to things to spiral out of control.
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Sabres bench-boss Phil Housley is in a bit of a conundrum right now when it comes to scoring goals, most notably secondary scoring. Early in the season they struggled with scoring and went a rough patch of scoring only one goal in each of three losses, which caused Housley to juggle the lineup. The big move for him 5v5 was putting wingers Skinner and Pominville with Eichel and that line has been rollin'. Since the move they've combined to score nine of Buffalo's 12 even-strength goals over the last six games.
Other than that the only three players to score even-strength goals are defenseman Zach Bogosian along with wingers Okposo and Sam Reinhart meaning that the middle two lines have combined for only two even strength goals in the last six games.
That simply isn't good enough.
Housley has been juggling the mid-six but no combination seems to be working leaving him with very few options right now. He can continue to keep his first and fourth lines intact and hope the middle starts gelling, he could do more juggling and break up either one or both of his most consistent lines or they could call up a player from Rochester to provide a boost.
While the latter seems somewhat unlikely at this time, and one would think that he won't touch his only scoring line right now, he may end up juggling that bottom-nine.
Buffalo's second line last night was Vladimir Sobotka flanked by Conor Sheary and Okopso. They combined for a total of five shots on goal and were a minus-3 as a line. The Sabres third line was rookie Casey Mittelstadt flanked by waiver-claim Remi Elie and Reinhart. That line combined for four even-strength shots on goal with the first one not coming until there was just under 10 minutes to play in the game.
Housley had a soft spot for Elie as the forward grew up in Green Valley, Ontario which isn't very far from Ottawa and he put him in the lineup under the auspices of bringing energy to the team. It was a major flop. Nothing against the player but Elie was in way over his head and really added nothing to a line that featured two top-10 draft picks. However, we know Housley wanted Elie in the game and were pretty sure he didn't want to break up his fourth line which had been playing extremely well despite not contributing offensively. It's the hand he played and that's what Housley got.
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Buffalo's penalty kill units went into last night's game snuffing out all 12 opposition powerplays over the last four games. Ottawa went 2/5 last night as special teams got them the win.
Forwards Zemgus Girgensons and Johan Larsson had anchored the PK the last four games and they did so once again. Ottawa did not score a powerplay goal when that duo was on the ice.
Sobotka was on the second pairing of PK forwards, first with Evan Rodrigues for a game then with Berglund for the next three games. Last night he was paired with Elie. They were on the ice for both powerplay goals against.
Just sayin'.
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With all that said, one would think that Rodrigues will be back in the lineup tomorrow night when the Sabres host the Senators. Although he wasn't lighting things up (four assists in 10 games,) and had struggled a bit defensively (minus-3 in his last three games,) there might be a place for Rodrigues in the bottom-six. Housley could either put him on the fourth line and move the veteran Berglund up a line or he could put Rodrigues on the third line.
Rodrigues was a part of the team's three-game winning streak before he left for the birth of his first child. He's not been in the lineup the last three games and the Sabres are 0-1-2. Although his absence is not the lone reason the Sabres are on a three-game winless streak, he's a quick, shifty forward that hounds the puck.
It can't hurt.
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