Sabres Miss Out On Western Sweep With Loss To Anaheim

The Buffalo Sabres finished their four-game Western road swing on a losing note, surrendering a lead late in the third period after staging a comeback in the final stanza and losing 6-5 in overtime to the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday night. The Ducks led 4-2 entering the third, but goals from Jack Quinn, Owen Power, and Zach Benson put the Sabres out front, but Alex Tuch’s tripping penalty late in the third led to the tying tally from Mikael Granlund, and Troy Terry scored in overtime to give Anaheim the victory. 

Buffalo went 3-0-1 on their road swing, with shutout wins over Vegas and San Jose and a 4-1 win over the LA Kings, but in the second of back-to-back games, the Sabres lost some of their defensive structure against the offensively-gifted Ducks.   

Head coach Lindy Ruff commented on his club’s performance after the game:

How did you look at how this game played out?

You look at it (as) a big point for your club. But again, with a little over two minutes left, getting the lead, you'd like to be able to hold that. I think the penalty we took.....we took a couple bad penalties in the first period, and then the penalty (we) took there late, really hurt us. But to get seven out of eight points in the road trip and to battle back from being two down to take the lead, it was a good effort. (With) back to back games, you make some mistakes. We made some, and they took advantage. They made a few, and we took advantage.

The penalty killing, which has been good all year, gave up three goals against the Ducks:

Yeah, the first one was a screenshot, the (Chris) Kreider goal. I don't think there's much you can do. He shot that from a tough angle. You're not defending that. But he hit a mark that, it's going to go in. The last one, was six-on-four, we just got on the wrong side up top, and allowed their guy to walk right down the middle. 

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What did you think of Alex Lyon’s performance?

I told the team, we're going with all-out pressure, and I know we're gonna give us some opportunities. I just said to (Alex) in between periods, gonna make some saves for us. And he did. He stood tall. Maybe it wasn't his best night, but he's a reason, making those saves we got a point at the end of the day……I'm going to say this again. Our goaltending has been so good all year long, it's a big reason that where we're at. It's the fact that these guys have (made) big saves at big times for us. 

Thoughts on returning home for four straight games:

Just take it one game at a time. I think every game means so much to every team you're playing. Take it a game at a time. Stay within our game. Coming back home after a long trip, you always fear that first game to get settled in, and we got a long night coming ahead of us. Get back, get organized and worry about winning the game. Big picture, your team's worked so hard to get where they are today, and you can't be terribly disappointed in losing one point.

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