Scoreless drought ends in loss

The Buffalo Sabres and Pittsburgh Penguins played each other for the second night in a row, this time at at PPG Paints Arena. This game comes off the heels of last night’s 4-0 shutout win for the Penguins at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo.

Another storyline into this game was the Sabres being unable to score in three consecutive games, with their last goal coming in last week’s win over the Edmonton Oilers. The Sabres entered this game looking to break their goal drought on the road and although they did so in the third, they fell, 4-1.

After two and a half periods of no scoring by the Sabres, Jason Pominville broke their scoreless drought with 8:42 remaining the third period to end this franchise-record drought of 232:09, one hurdle the team got over this year.

“We still have work to do and we know we have to be better, that was a step, but we have a few more steps to go.”- Pominville

After a first period where both teams played good hockey and went back and forth, Evgeni Malkin scored his 8th of the year with over a minute to go to give the Penguins a lead entering the first intermission.

One of the game’s early highlights was in the first period when Zach Bogosian, playing in just his second game this year, got physical with Ryan Reaves, one of the league leaders in penalty minutes, tried to make an early statement for a Sabres team that desperately needs one.

However, the Sabres could not find the same fire Bogosian had throughout this game. In the second, Carl Hagelin and Patric Hornqvist on the power play, scored for Pittsburgh to give their team a three-goal lead after two, a difficult deficit for the Sabres to overcome.

While the Penguins got a power-play goal from Patric Hornqvist late in the second, and the Sabres finished 0-for-4 with the man advantage and 0-for-26 in their last nine games. A year after the power play excelled, this unit is now giving the Sabres great headaches a quarter through this season. Finishing with a slight lead in shots 33-29, this is a slight victory for the Sabres on night where they were mightily outplayed yet again.

Jason Pominville, with eight and a half minutes remaining in the game, scored his 7th of the year to break this record scoreless drought, and was one of our best players. After scoring to trail only 3-1, Phil Kessel and Sidney Crosby, who scored on the open net, finished the job and sealed the 5-1 win tonight for the Penguins at home.

After backing up for Robin Lehner last night at home, Chad Johnson started in goal and earned 24 saves on 28 shots, Johnson, along with the rest of his team, continued to struggle on the ice. This loss dropped the Sabres to a 6-17-4 overall record with an astounding -38 goal differential.

After a tough week that saw a record scoreless streak and no victories, the Sabres look to next Tuesday on the road in Denver against the Avalanche. Puck drop is at 9 p.m. at the Pepsi Center.