In Buffalo, the Sabres squandered a 2-0 lead in the third period on three straight goals from the Detroit Red Wings, in a 3-2 loss.
“Unfortunately, it’s growing pains what happened there,” Sabres head coach Don Granato said. “(Alex) Tuch had a breakaway, Victor (Olofsson) had a breakaway, so it wasn’t without chances but we absolutely tightened up after giving up the first goal against, and it was a tough situation.
“… The last thing we should be doing is complicating things on the power play at that point. It should be simple and direct. The pain of it is something teams grow out of. … We played a pretty good game. Just didn’t finish. Just didn’t have a finish. It was a much, much better effort.”
Dylan Larkin scored twice for the Red Wings, once to tie the game, 2-2, to force extra time, and the second strike to win in the extra session.
“I thought that was the best third period we’ve played in a long time,” Larkin said. “We rolled lines and on offensive zone face-offs, we got our guys out there and we won draws and were able to swarm them. I liked the attitude on the goal [to tie the game, 2-2]; we pushed for the third one. We’ve got to keep doing that, we’ve got to keep playing that way.”
Alex Nedeljkovic made 26 saves in the Detroit win.
Henri Jokiharju broke the ice for Buffalo midway through the opening frame for a 1-0 Sabres lead.
“Obviously, they scored the second goal,” Red Wings head coach Jeff Blashill said. “Because we didn’t have a lot of push, it was a close call on our end. I decided to challenge it. And great for ‘Vladdy’ for the shorthanded goal. Because then I thought after that, it really ignited us.”
The Red Wings improved to 18-17-5.
“There wasn’t a lot being created either way,” Blashill said. “I was a little bit frustrated with the lack of creation on our end. I thought we had the opportunity to create more and we didn’t. … But we stayed with it.
Jeff Skinner scored midway through the third period for a 2-0 lead to the Sabres.
The Sabres fell to 11-20-7.
“You can look at the positives all you want, but at the end of the day, we didn’t get the job done,” Skinner said. “I think moving forward, we have to take those with us and the fact we were able to get up in the game establish that lead is something we should focus on just as much as the fact we need to close those games out. Obviously not the result. We’ve got to keep pushing here.”
Vladislav Namestnikov hit for a goal, 60 seconds after Skinner’s strike.
Larkin tied the game at 13:28 of the period.
Aaron Dell made 32 saves in the Buffalo loss.
You must be logged in to post a comment.