The St Louis Blues committed the cardinal sin and looked past the Sabres in Buffalo on Sunday.
The Blues fell behind 3-1 to the Sabres before rallying to tie on a goal from Brayden Schenn near the midway point of the third period.
Carter Hutton got the win over Blues on Sunday – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
But the Sabres got the final shot in with a win after the4 skills competition.
Sam Reinhart was credited with the deciding goal in the 4-3 win for Buffalo.
“I just liked the way we played after a back-to-back,” Buffalo coach Phil Housley said. “In [a 4-2 loss at the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday], I just thought our game was in a pretty good spot. We didn’t get the result and we haven’t gotten the result in the last two weeks. I’m happy for our guys. They just continue to battle, fight, and they found a way to win tonight.”
Regulation goals from Johan Larsson, Evan Rodrigues and Conor Sheary had given the Sabres the 3-1 lead.
Carter Hutton made 30 saves to get the win for the Sabres who are 13 back of a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
Pat Maroon and David Perron also scored for St Louis who dropped to 37-27-8.
“Not doing the right things, not taking care of the puck, maybe thinking it would be an easier game than it is,” Schenn said. “There’s a lot of good teams in this league, and you can’t take any team lightly. It’s nice to get a point out of that, but if we play the right way, we should be able to beat this team at this time of year.”
The loser’s point was critical for the Blues who have gone cold over the last five games.
“It was one of those games. It wasn’t very clean all game,” Blues head coach Craig Berube said. “It was a tough grind out there. We didn’t execute very well. Give them credit, they played hard. We just didn’t execute very well and our puck play wasn’t very good, we turned a lot of pucks over and they had the puck more than us.”
St Louis is five points back of the Nashville Predators in the second spot in the Central Division.
[WATCH: All Blues vs. Sabres highlights]
Jake Allen made 31 saves in the loss.
“If we play our way for 60 minutes, play the right way, grind teams down like we do, we’re not fun to play against. When we don’t do it for 60 minutes, we give teams a better chance to beat us,” Schenn said after the game.
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