The Buffalo Sabres returned home after an unsuccessful four-game road swing and snapped a three-game losing skid with a 4-3 shootout victory over the Eastern Conference-leading Washington Capitals on Monday, but lost rookie forward Jiri Kulich to injury.
Alex Tuch scored twice and Tage Thompson scored his club-leading 19th goal of the season. Buffalo took the lead on three separate occasions, only to see the Capitals respond with tying markers. Washington’s Tom Wilson responded with a pair of tallies, and big forward Aliaksei Protas tied the game with 4:13 left in regulation.
“We got a great effort,” Ruff said. “We responded every time they scored. We paid a big price for turning over the puck on (the tying) goal.”
After a scoreless overtime, Washington’s Pierre-Luc Dubois gave the Capitals the lead in the shootout, but Tuch and JJ Peterka converted past Charlie Lindgren to give the Sabres the victory.
The Sabres with the win are still at the bottom of the conference standings with 35 points at the halfway mark of the regular season but are just six points out of the final wildcard spot.
The 20-year-old Kulich, who has seven goals in 31 games splitting time between wing and center this season, left the game in the second period with Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff described as a lower-body injury.
“We’ll re-evaluate him (on Tuesday). Hopefully, it won’t be too long.”
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The 13 game winless streak has taken them completely out of the playoff race. They, you know, I believe Money Puck has them at 3% chance of making the playoff. So I, you know, if they can have an eight game winning streak and they're still not going to be within five or six points, any realistic person looking at this team sees that there's talent there, but is there enough talent in the right places to make them a winner? Obviously they know they're going to be a team that will miss the playoffs for 14 straight years. I don't think there's a chance in hell. If they do, I will be the first person to say, Oh my God, what a great comeback. They could do what St. Louis did in 2019. That's happened once in my lifetime when a team was 30, 30, it was last place in the league and came back, made the playoffs and made them win the Stanley cup. I don't think this team has what it takes to do the same thing. So all I can say is what changes are going to be made between now and March the 7th when it comes to the Sabres. And I think the ownership where, you know, Corinne was making the point about Terry Pagoola, this is where the ownership needs to make up their mind. Is Kevin Adams the guy to make these changes?