Sabres lose 13th straight

Sure, firing the head coach in Buffalo is going to solve all of the issues in the Sabres locker room.

Yup, let’s get that done.

The Sabres welcomed the Boston Bruins to town and promptly lost their 13th straight match, 4-1.

“The bottom line is we need to move forward,” Sabres head coach Don Granato said. “We need to demand more, obviously. Push harder. All of us: coaches, players, everybody. And again, practice is something that is another opportunity to do just those things. Certainly, that will be a focus.”

Jarsolav Halak made 23 saves in the win.

David Krejci picked up three assists in the win.

“I think Bruins fans know his importance, especially come playoff time,” Boston head coach Bruce Cassidy said. “He’s really doing it every year, the 1-2 punch with him and [Patrice Bergeron]. As for heating up, it’s been well-documented we need our centermen to drive the lines they’re on, and he’s a big part of it. … Congrats to [Krejci]. Seven hundred, on to 800 now, so good for him.”

Buffalo is 0-11-2 in that losing streak.

Kyle Okposo scored the Sabres’ lone goal.

“It was definitely nice to see that one go in,” Okposo said. “The longer the zero sits there in that column, the more it weighs on you. But, yeah, I mean, it’s nice, but same time, we have a lot of stuff to correct and we’ve got to take a deep dive into what’s going on here from everybody. It’s systemic. Like, the whole way through. We have some work to do.”

Greg McKegg put Boston ahead, 1-0, with a goal in the first period.

Okposo tied it in the middle frame, before Jake DeBrusk put the Bruins ahead for good at 2-1.

“Happy he scored, obviously, because like I said, he is as scorer,” Cassidy said. “We measure him by them. He really measures himself by them, obviously. So when he gets rewarded, it really fuels him. So that’s good. Hopefully, he gets hot. We need it.”

Craig Smith pushed the Boston advantage to 3-1 late in the second period.

David Pastrnak tacked on an insurance marker early in the third period for the 4-1 final.

Carter Hutton made 33 saves in the loss.

“I felt today, at least within our own game, we established at least a decent pace, and we didn’t sustain it,” Granato said. “I could say we couldn’t sustain it, but the fact is we didn’t sustain it. So now you look into that and say, ‘OK, how can we sustain it?’ It might be better puck management. Did we mismanage pucks tonight that cost us more energy in getting them back? When you mismanage a puck, you put yourself in a bad position and spend more energy to recover it, not feeling you were going to, obviously, misplay a puck. So they all tie in, but I do believe our guys played with, at least at the outset, a good pace in sustaining it again.”