On Friday, the Buffalo Sabres were rebuked by the general manger, Kevyn Adams, for their competitiveness, or rather their lack of same.
Brock Nelson scored twice for the New York Islanders
They promptly went out Friday night and lost to the New York Islanders, 5-2,
Not much changed in the intervening 36 hours or so. In fact, the two teams played three times in the set, and each ended by the same score.
Brock Nelson struck for two goals for the Isles in this version of the set.
“We did some good things before with maybe less results, just a couple of good looks,” Nelson said. “It’s nice to get a few that go in and capitalize 5-on-5.”
Ilya Sorokin made 24 saves to get the win.
“You see them three times in a row, all in our building, it’s a mini-series,” the Isles’ Anders Lee said. “That third game’s tough, especially on a back to back. We knew that coming in and I think we just did a really good job of sticking to our game.”
Jeff Skinner (first goal of the season) and Colin Miller were the Sabres strikers.
“It’s not a fun time,” Buffalo head coach Ralph Krueger said. “These aren’t easy times but truly they are times where you could grow and learn if you take the right lessons out of it. We need to find lessons right now and really evaluate everything that’s within our control as coaches and work together with the players to pull ourselves together. The only way we’re going to get out of this is with a group effort.”
There are many greater understatements that that right there.
Lee, Casey Cizikas and Cal Clutterbuck had single markers for the Islanders.
“Coming into our building, this is our ice, this is our home,” Cizikas said. “We want to put our best games forward and make it hard on the other teams, knowing that when they come here, it’s going to be a dogfight. We’ve done that so far at the start of the season.”
New York won its fifth straight game.
“It was a big goal,” Clutterbuck said. “I just saw [Martin] flip a puck out; he made a really good play under pressure. The puck took a bounce and fortunately I was able to change directions quickly enough to grab it. I just tried to shield myself from the defenseman. I kind of knew I wanted to pull it to my backh
and and elevate it. It worked out.”
Buffalo has lost seven straight including the three in this set.
Jonas Johansson made 25 saves in the loss.
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