Tuesday’s matchup between the Blue Jackets and Sabres featured two teams at the opposite ends of the spectrum in the standings. The Blue Jackets, seeking to win the presidents trophy for most points in the league just three points back sitting at 103 points. On the other side the Sabres near the bottom of the league, looking to play merely for pride for one another and for the fans until the close of this underachieving 2017 year.
The Sabres came out strong in the first period, out-shooting Columbus 15-11. For a majority of the period, Buffalo played like the better team with momentum from the win against the Panthers the previous night. The team was playing as a cohesive unit.
Things started to unravel for the team with sloppy play and a giveaway in their own zone from Evan Rodrigues leading to the Kyle Quincy Goal past Anders Nilsson at 14:47 in the first. Rodrigues has been a great addition to the lineup towards the latter half of the year however, he has had his share of costly giveaways that resulted in goals which needs to be cleaned up if he wants to secure a position in the line up next season. Immediately following the goal, Dmitry Kulikov had a big hit on Hartnell looking for a spark for his team, only to be followed up by a Columbus goal at 17:48 by Cam Atkinson. When scoring first the Blue jackets were 34-9 heading into tonight.
A strong response on the power play came from Evan Rodrigues to put the Sabres on the board in the second period at 10:53 from O’Reilly and McCabe. Buffalo had a slow start to the period but had their fair share of chances, one with Jack Eichel point blank in front of the net turned aside by Bobrovsky. The line of Eichel, O’Reilly and Kane had heavy zone time in the final minutes of the period with several shots and some great looking opportunities to tie the game. Buffalo continued firing pucks at the net outshooting Columbus 27-19 and looking like they could tie the game in the third.
Anders Nilsson stood tall early in the third period with a turnover in the Buffalo zone found its way to David Clarkson with a rocket, only to be turned aside. The Sabres hung around with the Blue Jackets applying pressure, determined to equalize. Jack Eichel had a great 2 on 1 opportunity with Evander Kane and his pass was broken up with the play foiled and no shot on goal.
There were big saves at the beginning of the third period by Buffalo. A give away lead to David Clarkson having a great opportunity in the slot, fired a rocket and Nilsson stood tall with a pad save to keep the Sabres in the game. Buffalo gave everything they had to try to tie up in the third and pulled Anders Nilsson with just under two minutes remaining. Moments later Brandon Saad put home an empty netter at 18:55 to ultimately put away the game.
Buffalo out-shot the Blue Jackets 42-29 and connected on their league leading power play going 1 for 2 on the game. Evander Kane recorded 8 shots and logged a solid 25:24 of ice time however didn’t record any points. Sam Reinhart was on the bench the entire game not logging any minutes of ice time for “violating a team policy” prior to the game.
This was a disappointing loss for a Sabres team that has been playing well the last few games and generating plenty of scoring opportunities. With five games left on the season, the team will look to rebound and play spoiler Sunday vs the Islanders. Puck drop will be at 3 p.m. at KeyBank Center.