In Edmonton, the Buffalo Sabres’ Eric Comrie made 46 saves in a 4-2 win over the Oilers on Tuesday night.
“They [defensemen] were awesome clearing traffic; they were outstanding making sure I could see everything,” Comrie said. “Even a lot of the backdoor plays, it was surprising how many times they got sticks on the plays to make sure they weren’t executing the plays they wanted to execute. They did an awesome job and I owe a lot of credit to those guys tonight.”
Darnell Nurse and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins were the Edmonton strikers in the loss.
“Comrie played well,” Oilers captain Connor McDavid said. “We definitely threw everything we had at him in the first and third. I thought we gifted them maybe two goals there; the kid (Thompson) makes a [heck] of a play on the one, and the other is just a straight gift. We knew they had that talent and they were going to hurt you if we did stuff like that, and they certainly did that.”
Rasmus Dahlin scored for the Sabres to give them a 1-0 lead in the first period.
“It wasn’t pretty, but we found a way to win, and that’s what this league is all about,” Dahlin said. “We just dug in in the third period and [Comrie] kept us in the game. It was a really good team effort and we have a lot of guys that come in here and compete hard, so it’s really good for the future.”
Nurse scored in the opening period to tie the game, 1-1.
“Anytime you lose, there is no satisfaction in this room, there are no moral victories,” Nurse said. “We are not happy being 1-2 to start the year. We can say all we want, but we have got to come out and show it on the ice. We made a lot about the need to have a good start to the game, and I thought our start was better than the first two [games].”
Tage Thompson scored with 44 seconds gone in the middle frame for a 2-1 lead to Buffalo.
“I was just driving with some speed down the wing and saw some open ice in the middle,” Thompson said. “Once I got my backhand, I tried to bring it back to my forehand, I figured the goalie would be sliding, and it worked out.”
“In the second period, we made a couple of mistakes that ended up in the back of our net and we weren’t able to outscore those mistakes,” Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft said. “But certainly through period 1 and period 3, we liked what we saw.”
One of those mistakes was giving up a goal to JJ Peterka to go down 3-1 to the Sabres.
“They threw lots of pucks into Comrie’s pads and he stood very tall,” Sabres coach Don Granato said. “We did a great job of clearing guys out from that point and not allowing them to get real good wood on their shots. Comrie was very calm; he was more of a blocker the way they were throwing pucks to the net. It wasn’t the glove saves or the blocker saves or the post-to-post saves, they were throwing pucks in from bad angles and crashing the net. He had to hold his ground while our defensemen would clear it out or limit the second chances, and he held his ground.”
Nugent-Hopkins got the Oilers back to a within one goal, but Alex Tuch hit an empty-net goal for the 4-2 final.
Stuart Skinner made 20 saves in the Oilers loss.
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