In Buffalo, the Sabres’ early season woes continued on Tuesday night in a 5-4 loss to the Vancouver Canucks. It was the sixth straight loss for the Sabres.
Bo Horvat and J.T. Miller hit for power play goals in the third period to put an end to the Sabres’ night.
Vancouver improved to 5-9-3.
“Obviously, we felt pretty good about holding that lead,” Horvat said. “Obviously, in games past we haven’t, and we definitely take our positives out of tonight. We did a lot of good things. Blocked some shots and a lot of key things to get pucks out toward the end there. We’re all really happy with our effort tonight.”
Spencer Martin made 28 saves in the Canucks win.
Jeff Skinner struck for a double for Buffalo.
“Too easy out of the gate,” Buffalo coach Don Granato said. “That is a big lesson that needs to be learned now. Period.”
The Sabres dropped to 7-9-0.
Vancouver took a 2-0 lead in the first period off strikes form Dakota Joshua and Ethan Bear.
“They got a couple of bounces early in the first and put us on our heels, and it took us all the way until the third period to recover,” Buffalo’s Alex Tuch (one goal) said. “It’s a learning experience. We’re going to continue to learn together, but we have to be better.”
Skinner scored before the end of the first period for a 2-1 score in favor of Vancouver.
Elias Pettersson pushed the lead back to two, 3-1, with 31 seconds gone in the middle frame.
“It wasn’t that we stopped playing, but we started watching and wanting to be too safe, and you can’t do that. And that’s how they got the third goal,” Canucks coach Bruce Boudreau said. “The last thing you want them to do is say, ‘Uh oh, here we go again.’ But you can only do that if you build on that and have another good third period. When you win games by one goal, you learn how to win a lot. So it’s important. Those are good wins.”
Skinner replied, again, for the Sabres to make it 3-2.
Miller and Horvat increased to the lead to 5-2 with their power play strikes in the third.
“We’ve got a pretty good power play, so any time we can get a power-play opportunity, we hopefully try to take advantage of it,” Boudreau said.
Tuch shaved the lead to 5-3, and Casey Mittelstadt made it 5-4 with just under eight minutes left in the game.
“I think guys in here are really hard on themselves,” Tuch said. “That’s good to keep yourself accountable, but you also have to continue to try to work and play your game and not let it get into your head. I think that’s something we have to learn as a group. … Bounce back a little quicker. We’ve done it in the past, we’ve done it this year, we’ve just got to get back to it.”
Craig Anderson made 27 saves in the Buffalo loss.
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