Cruising Through Cali; Sabres Taking Advantage Of Young Clubs On West Coast Swing Skid

All any team can do is beat the teams in front of them. It has been fortuitous for the Buffalo Sabres, in the midst of their struggles to start the season, that their schedule took them to California to face two struggling talented clubs in the San Jose Sharks and Anaheim Ducks, and the Los Angeles Kings, who won their first home game against Ottawa on Thursday.  

Buffalo followed up a win over the Sharks in which they clinged to a 1-0 lead until Zach Benson’s empty-net goal with a chaotic 7-6 victory over the Ducks at the Honda Center. The Sabres continued their trend of falling behind, trailing 3-1 in the first period after surrendering a pair of power play goals, but rallied with six straight goals, including a natural hat trick from Tage Thompson.  

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The Sabres came dangerously close to blowing a four-goal lead, as Cutter Gauthier, Tristan Luneau, and Beckett Sennecke narrowed the lead to one, but the Ducks ran out of time to score the equalizer on Colten Ellis, who made a sprawling save with seconds remaining to preserve his second straight victory.

“I didn’t like the way we started the game, I didn’t like our discipline for the type of penalties we took early, but then you’ve got to like the middle 50 minutes, you’ve got to like the fact that our power play scored a couple,” Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff said after the game. “All you need to do is concentrate on playing good defense,  and you are going to get more offense. Your rush coverage, read where guys are going, we’re better than that.”

 The win moved Buffalo to 6-4-3 and into a tie with Detroit and the NY Rangers, just one point behind Florida for the second Eastern Conference wildcard spot. Sam Carrick returned to the lineup and had an assist on Tyson Kozak’s first period goal, taking the place of injured rookie Konsta Helenius. 

Helenius sustained an upper-body injury in San Jose on Tuesday, and was sent back to Buffalo to be evaluated. 

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