In Buffalo, the Pittsburgh Penguins were the latest team in the NHL to squander a 2-0 lead. On Tuesday night, the Pens put two in the back of the net to lead the Buffalo Sabres early in the second period.
Buffalo rallied for a 63 win to send Pittsburgh to their sixth straight, 0-4-2.
“You’ve got to build [confidence],” Pittsburgh captain Sidney Crosby said. “There’s no secret. In a situation like this, it just comes down to finding your way and being determined. It’s work and finding a way to get out of it. We can’t sit around and feel sorry for ourselves.”
Jason Zucker staked the Pens to a 1-0 lead near the midway point of the first period.
Eric Comrie made 18 saves for the Sabres in the win.
Buffalo improved to 7-3-0.
Josh Archibald pushed the lead to 2-0 in the early middle frame.
Buffalo got on the board in the late stages of the second when JJ Peterka connected to get them within 2-1.
The Penguins dropped to 4-5-2.
Jake Guentzel restored the two-goal with eight seconds gone in the third period. With fresh, the Pens converted on the power play for a 3-1 lead.
“That first part of the game, I thought we did a pretty good job of just creating offense off of defense,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said. “We got a number of 2-on-1s, odd-man rushes just by defending hard and making good decisions, winning the wall battles, getting pucks behind their defensemen and getting in foot races. And then I thought the third period or the second part of the game, we just didn’t do as good a job at beating the pressure on the walls and just recognizing danger and just making simple plays.”
From there, it was all Buffalo.
“To give up the goal immediately to fall down two goals, we hadn’t had a good night to that point yet, and then we responded,” Sabres coach Don Granato said. “So, it is a testament to the group’s will, determination. But I think they also, they know and we know their identity, and we knew we weren’t playing to it to that point. I think the collective feel going into the third (was), ‘We are going to get to that, and we are going to turn it up.'”
Tage Thompson and Victor Olofsson scored to get the game even at 3-3.
Midway through the final frame, Alex Tuch scored what would be the game-winner and a 4-3 advantage.
“We know they’ve got a lot of skilled players,” Tuch said. “… We didn’t get down on ourselves, we didn’t slump down and we went out there and tried to respond right away. We were able to have a great come-from-behind-win there, and it showed a lot of guts in this room.
“It took all of us, honestly. We all beared down and it started with ‘Coms’ in net and went out from there. So, a lot of guys stepped up in that third period and we responded well.”
Kyle Okposo scored his first of the year into an empty net for a 5-3 lead.
Olofsson added a second goal on the night, also into an empty-net.
Casey DeSmith made 27 saves in the Pens loss.
“[The mood in the room is] what you’d expect for a team that’s blown a couple of leads on back-to-back nights and winless in six,” Crosby said. “I mean, it’s not a great feeling and we’ve got to find a way to get out of it.”
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