After an opening two months in which the Buffalo Sabres went .500 (11-11-2) thanks to a trio of three-game winning streaks and three-game losing skids, the club opened the month of December on the verge of ending their latest stretch of defeats, leading the Colorado Avalanche 4-1.
The Sabres gave up four third-period goals in a 5-4 loss, which seemed to sap all confidence and eventually snowballed into a 13-game winless skid and a 3-9-2 record in December.
Hoping to climb their way out of the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings, the Sabres opened January against the Avs and just like the game one month ago, Buffalo held a lead in the third period, and just like one month ago, that lead evaporated in a 6-5 overtime loss to Colorado on Thursday.
“You play a game like that, nine out of ten times you are going to win the hockey game,” An exasperated Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff said after the loss. “(It was) just the composure to not just get the puck out into the neutral zone near the end (and) kill the clock, (but) to take the shot at the empty net with over a minute….you have to take the shot.”
Buffalo led 3-0 on two power-play goals from Jason Zucker and former Avs blueliner Bowen Byram’s fifth of the season. Goals from Cale Makar and Ross Colton narrowed the lead to 3-2, but Zach Benson’s controversial goal that injured Colorado starter Scott Wedgewood made it 4-2.
The Sabres could not fend off the Avalanche, who responded with Mikko Rantanen’s 22nd of the year on the power play to make it 4-3. Zucker appeared to ice the game away with 3:51 left with his hat trick marker, but Colorado pulled goalie Mackenzie Blackwood for the extra attacker. Makar scored with 2:26 left to make it 5-4, Jonathan Drouin tied the game with eight seconds remaining, and Devon Toews provided the coup de grace with a breakaway game-winner at 48 seconds of the extra frame.
The loss lowers the Sabres record to 14-20-5. Buffalo will finish off their four-game road swing on Saturday against former team captain Jack Eichel and the Vegas Golden Knights before taking on Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals at Key Bank Center on Monday.
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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?