Sabres Fall to Flyers

Jack Eichel’s two goals in the first period were the only offense the team could come up with as they let the Philadelphia Flyers score the next six goals in a miserable performance on home ice.

It looked as though the game was going to be a replay of the first meeting between the clubs when the Sabres got out to a four goal lead in the first period and went on to beat Philly 5-2. Instead the Flyers continued to come after the Sabres and goals from James van Riemsdyk along with Ivan Provorov ended the second period with the teams tied 2-2.

Linus Ullmark kept the Sabres in the game early with several remarkable saves but had little help in the third period. Ullmark commented after the  game “they’re a good team with lots of skills- they had some key bounces that kept us from coming back”. Ullmark ended the game stopping 35 shots out of the 41 he faced.

Buffalo showed very little emotion in the third period, especially after Philadelphia’s Claude Giroux scored a short-handed goal with just 2:49 gone in the period. Sam Reinhart gave the puck away along the boards in the Flyer’s zone. Giroux picked it up, skated the length of the ice, and sent a nice wrist shot over the left shoulder of Linus Ullmark to take the lead 3-2. All the air seemed to leave the Sabres as the Flyers scored three more times within a two minute span midway through the period with goals from Wayne Simmonds, Dale Weise, and Travis Konecny.

The only hint of life in the third period came when Radko Gudas gave Johan Larsson a cheap shot along the boards. Nathan Beaulieu took exception, and the two dropped the gloves for a rare fight.

The Buffalo Sabres will look to get back in the win column on Tuesday when the Los Angeles Kings come to town. This will be the Sabres third game in their four game home stand. The game starts at 7:00p.m.

Richard Gutowski
Richard Gutowski
Rich Gutowski lives in Corfu, NY and has been following the Sabres for over thirty years. Favorite Sabres by decade: 1970s-Gilbert Perreault 1980s- Dave Andreychuk 1990s-Brad May 2000s-Thomas Vanek 2010s- high hopes for Marcus Foligno
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