Buffalo’s road trip did not turn out the way they wanted it, as they suffered their third loss Monday night against the Nashville Predators, 2-1.
Although it wasn’t the outcome they wanted, the Sabres applied pressure where needed, adding a playoff feel but they didn’t pose as much of a threat. There were many chances to tie it up in the third period but the Predators held the Sabres down.
“You saw their experience and how they kind of shut everything down and made it hard for us to get pucks in behind them” Sam Reinhart said following the game. “We need to figure out when teams do that how to generate more and generate speed on the puck.”
Reinhart scored the Sabres’ only goal of the night, unassisted, during the second period. Nashville’s Roman Jose basically shot the puck into his own net.
The game ended with the Sabres having only 22 shots, 8 of them being in the third period alone. Carter Hutton once again bailed his teammates out, even with Hutton out of the net they couldn’t close in on Nashville. Icing call after icing call, Buffalo had a close chance within the final 60 seconds of the game, but Jeff Skinner was stopped and Patrik Berglund couldn’t get a hold of the rebound.
Nashville continued to come out on top when it came to scoring first and leading throughout the second period, with a record of 15-1 so far this season. Ryan Ellis scored on the power-play at 16:25 in the first period with the assist from Josi. Kevin Fail sealed his team’s victory bouncing the puck in at 16:34 in the second period. Pekka Rinne made 21 saves for Nashville.
“I don’t think we generated enough,” Sabres Coach Phil Housley said at the conclusion of the game. “We’re going to need more help from our other lines to create some more offense, generate some more offense to take some heat off of Jack’s line.”
Buffalo (17-8-23) will return home to take on another tough challenge against big rival, the Toronto Maple Leafs (19-8-0), Tuesday Night at 7:30 p.m.