In Buffalo Thursday night, the Anaheim Ducks’ season got a little worse in a 3-0 loss to the Sabres.
Chad Johnson got the shutout on 44 saves.
“I wasn’t thinking shutout at all; that doesn’t really cross my mind,” Johnson said. “They had some good chances in the first with guys coming down the wing. Maybe I make it look a little easy every now and again. We just defended really well as a group.”
Chad Johnson’s 44 saves set new club record in shutout. – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
The 44 saves were a franchise record in a shutout; the previous record of 43 was held by Ryan Miller.
“I can think of six times in the first and second periods where either coming down the wing or [the Ducks] had to pull it to the middle and had a good look at him from a good shooting spot with some good player shooting the puck and never looked like it was going to get by him,” Sabres coach Dan Bylsma said. “[He was] real calm in net, real solid in net, right throughout the whole game. It got a little hairy there on the power play [in the third period] where they had a flurry with the puck in the crease and he was the guy that was probably the most under control. I’m glad we buckled down and got the shutout for him.”
The Sabres got goals from Evander Kane, Jake McCabe and Jamie McGinn.
The fire seems to have gone out in the Ducks; the effort was listless at best.
“We don’t have enough hunger, we don’t have enough drive,” Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf said. “Everything, I think, right now it feels like we’re almost there. It was almost a nice play; it was almost … and in this league that’s not good enough.”
Anaheim may have put 44 shots on net but aiming for the crest is no way to get a puck past a goalie in the zone.
“The finish right now; well, it’s gone all year, the finish hasn’t been there,” Coach Bruce Boudreau said. “It seems like we hold onto the puck an extra second when we should be shooting and we pass when we should be shooting and we shoot when we should be passing. Maybe somebody was wide open and then when they get the opportunity it’s like they’re squeezing the stick so tight that they can’t make a play, it’s bouncing off them left, right and center. When that happens and they come down the ice and score, it’s fairly deflating.”
John Gibson took the loss on 19 saves,
“Quite frankly, when your best players aren’t your best players you’re not going to win the game and that’s the bottom line,” Boudreau said. “And on a too-consistent basis, our best players aren’t our best players.”
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