The Buffalo Sabres finished out their pre-Olympic schedule with a 5-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday night. While the Sabres have been a juggernaut since the beginning of December, the club has come down to earth just prior to the break, losing three of their last four games to Montreal, Tampa Bay, and the Penguins.
The Sabres hold the first wildcard spot in the Eastern Conference, with 70 points (32-19-6), one point ahead of the Boston Bruins, and five points in front of the red-hot Columbus Blue Jackets, and Washington Capitals.
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Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff spoke to the media following the loss:
What were the reasons for the loss?
You look at the couple of goals that we gave them, We gave them a breakaway off of an offensive zone face off, we give them another goal off, an o-zone face off that we won, odd numbered rush. Our passing definitely wasn’t crisp. I think you look at our power play entries, they struggled. I think we missed the net on five of our first six real good opportunities, another sign that you’re not quite on your game.
This type of performance has been rare over the last two months.
We we’re still knocking on the door. We came out, we got the power play goal at the start of the third, we had a couple of good looks. I think the opportunity was there to claw our way back in, and then we took a late penalty. hitting the goaltender, which penalty you don’t really want to take. Giving up that fourth goal, we had possession in the corner, made an errant pass, and they made us pay. We didn’t make them pay for some of their mistakes, but they made us pay on the big mistakes we made.
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Are you thankful based on how the season started that you are in a playoff spot at the break?
I talked to the team after the game. This is how incredibly tight it’s going to be played. You can’t have games going like we had. We weren’t sharp. There were plays there. When you pass to a wide-open Thompson in front of the net and the puck kind of rolls, it should be in the back of the net, but we missed on opportunities to make them pay, but where we’re at, we’ve worked hard to get where we’re at. It’s tough going into break when you when you lose a game like that, it’s a bad feeling.
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Are you confident that the players will hit the ground running after the break?
I have no doubt. We’ve asked a lot to this point, and they’ve answered every call we’ve had. I have no doubt that they’re going to do the work that they need to come back and we can be better when we come out of (the break)……It’s just another test, really. How you use this time and realizing that the division we’re in, the conference we’re in, is incredibly tight, so you can’t take one step away for granted. And I think they understand that. That’s what we talk about all the time. A single point might make the difference at the very end, whether you would have crawled back and tied that game tonight, or if there’s another game down the road.
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