SUNRISE, Fla. – Leaning near the door of the Buffalo Sabres’ bench, Connor Clifton listened intently as referee Furman South made the announcement in the third period Saturday night.
“After the review, 75 Buffalo is assessed a match penalty for an illegal check to the head,” South informed the crowd at Amerant Bank Arena.
How much of this season is on the players and how much is on GM Kevyn Adams and/or coach Don Granato is a prickly debate. In the end, the Sabres were there. And that's what's so maddening about this playoff drought, Mike Harrington writes.
Clifton received a pat on the back from Rasmus Dahlin as he left the bench for the dressing room. The Sabres were going to have to kill a five-minute penalty to keep the score tied against one of the top teams in the NHL.
There was no time for the Sabres to strategize. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen stopped consecutive shots by Matthew Tkachuk, then another from Sam Reinhart. Alex Tuch, Jordan Greenway and Bowen Byram blocked one apiece. Remarkably, they limited one of the best power plays in the NHL to only six shots on goal in five minutes.
People are also reading…
Luukkonen and his teammates didn’t let another penalty late in regulation cost the Sabres a point, either. They helped Buffalo get to overtime, where the Panthers were unable to score on the power play before Dylan Cozens’ turnover led to Reinhart scoring the winning goal in Florida’s 3-2 victory.
You wonder if anyone in this turtle race will get to 90 points. The best the Sabres could do when they took the ice Thursday was 85. So disappointing. So unacceptable.
“It’s tough,” noted Sabres defenseman Owen Power, who had five of their 25 blocked shots. “Those were huge kills, and it would have been nice to get a win after those, but it is what it is.”
There was no talk of silver linings after the game. The Sabres (38-37-6) were eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs five days earlier with a loss in Dallas. Their 13-year postseason drought is an NHL record, and tied with the New York Jets for the longest active streak in North American professional sports. But the loss – which dropped Buffalo to 2-6-2 in its past 10 road games – included an important reminder for the Sabres to carry into next season.
They need to manage situations in games the way they did Saturday night. It was only the second time since Dec. 23 that Buffalo earned a point by losing in overtime or a shootout. The Sabres’ 38 wins are more than the Metropolitan Division’s third-place New York Islanders (37), but the latter is in a playoff spot because they have 16 loser points. The standings would look different if Buffalo was better than 11-11-6 in one-goal games this season.
It was clear from the opening puck drop that the Sabres weren’t as sharp, offensively, as usual. Their passes were off the mark. They were sloppy when moving the puck in transition.
The Sabres had zero high danger scoring chances in the first period, according to Natural Stat Trick, despite Tyson Jost and Jack Quinn scoring a goal apiece, and they were outshot 7-0 at the start of the third when the Panthers (51-24-6) were pushing to take the lead. For the most part, Buffalo’s forwards weren’t attempting irresponsible passes that could turn into odd man rushes against Luukkonen.
Hard as it is to believe, the playoff drought is now a teenager and General Manager Kevyn Adams will have to swing big this offseason to augment his roster with the depth needed to support his core.
“We were not as sharp and, as a consequence, they weren’t as sharp with the puck and they had to defend a little bit more, but they defended hard,” Sabres head coach Don Granato said of his players. “That’s the key. The moments we needed to defend, they defended hard, and they limited second chances and second opportunities or pushed pucks to the outside a little bit more, and contested pucks around the net a little bit better. Obviously, that enabled us, with some good play by Upie, to weather a few storms.”
Patience was a key for the Sabres. They were stuck in their own zone for a long stretch in the first half of the second period because they were making too many mistakes when exiting their zone.
Eventually, though, their forwards managed to earn scoring opportunities against Florida goalie Sergei Bobrovsky. Tuch and Quinn had shots from the slot. The latter’s wrister from the left circle leaked through Bobrovsky, causing the puck to lay idle on the goal line until Nick Cousins used his hand to clear it. Greenway forced a turnover, then set up Jeff Skinner for a breakaway that ended with a save by Bobrovsky. Tuch couldn’t get a shot off during a breakaway a few minutes later.
Luukkonen’s exceptional play bailed out his teammates. The Sabres didn’t have a shot on goal in the third period until Greenway’s with 12:26 left in regulation, and it occurred during the five-minute penalty kill. The Panthers had outshot the Sabres 13-1 by the time Clifton’s penalty was killed.
“We’ve been doing a pretty good job overall, you know?” Greenway said of the penalty kill, which ranked 14th in the NHL after the 3-for-3 performance. “The forecheck in-zone, knowing when to pressure, knowing when to back off and wait for your opportunity and just playing hard. Anytime you can win a battle and get the puck down the ice, it helps out the kill a lot. We were able to do that a good amount of times.”
The 3-1 loss Sunday in Detroit raised more questions about why the Sabres fell short of expectations and how it will impact their plan for next season.
The Sabres killed Tuch’s penalty that stretched 1:26 into overtime, then Dahlin had multiple shot attempts from the high slot before Alexander Barkov stripped Cozens of the puck and set up Reinhart for a goal that clinched home-ice advantage for Florida in the first round of the playoffs.
The final days of a disappointing season must be used by the Sabres to build toward next season. They’ve allowed three or fewer goals in eight straight games, and their struggling power play, which ranks 29th in the NHL, delivered the tying goal in the first period after Florida scored twice in 3:09 to take a 2-1 lead. As important, they finally got a game to overtime on a night when they easily could have left without a point.
“We have a great goalie, so we have a good chance to do that,” Sabres defenseman Henri Jokiharju said. “For next year, us players, we have a to pick it up a little bit better. But that’s next year. We still have one game, so let’s focus up on that one.”
Here are other observations from the game:
1. Breaking out
Though Power is still learning how to use his size to defend, he’s avoided the bouts of inconsistency that slowed him during the first half of the season. He’s looked confident and more assertive, aspiring enough confidence from coach Don Granato to earn a top-pair assignment next to Rasmus Dahlin.
Luukkonen’s season is one of the most impressive performances by a Sabres goalie in the past decade.
He is the first Sabres goalie since Ryan Miller in 2011-12 to appear in 50 or more games and record a goals-against average of 2.56 or lower. Robin Lehner (2017-18) was the last Buffalo goalie to appear in more than 50 games, and Luukkonen ranks third in goals-against average (2.08) and fourth in save percentage (.919) among all NHL goaltenders who have played in at least 20 games since Jan. 1.
2. Tough result
Clifton can’t allow the hit on Cousins to bother him for long.
There wasn’t malicious intent when the Sabres defenseman checked Cousins behind Buffalo’s net. The result was unfortunate and caused Cousins to leave the game, but the Panthers’ reaction to the play illustrated that no one expected the officials to make the call that they did. No one attempted to fight or approach Clifton. He can’t afford a repeat of what happened earlier this season, when he began to overthink and struggled after a two-game suspension for a hit to the head on Devils captain Nico Hischier.
Seth Appert has coached the Amerks to at least the second round of the playoffs in each of the past two seasons.
Clifton automatically earned a hearing with the NHL’s Department of Player Safety because of the match penalty.
3. Needing more
It was fair to wonder whether the Sabres would fall apart once Kevin Stenlund scored on the short-handed breakaway.
Mistakes have snowballed into ugly periods throughout Buffalo’s season. They responded as well as Granato could have hoped after Dahlin’s pass went off Stenlund’s skate to cause the breakaway. Quinn scored his ninth goal in 26 games to tie it 2-2. He didn’t need a one-timer to do it, either. The 22-year-old went to the front of the net to capitalize on the rebound created by Byram’s shot.
It was Quinn’s first power-play goal since Dec. 4, 2022, and only his second in 103 NHL games. He’ll need to help the Sabres in that situation next season, and his approach on the play was an example of how the entire team needs to simplify.
4. Class act
Panthers coach Paul Maurice’s lineup card Saturday night was a classy gesture for a player who joined his team only five weeks ago.
Former Sabres captain Kyle Okposo was in the starting lineup for his first game against Buffalo since the trade that sent him to Florida for defenseman Calle Sjalin and a conditional seventh-round draft pick. It was only Okposo’s sixth game in a Panthers uniform because he has been a healthy scratch 10 times, and he finished with one shot on goal in 8:35 of ice time.
Okposo appeared in 516 games with the Sabres across eight seasons and produced double goals in each of the past three.
“He did a lot of great things here for our young guys and for our team,” Granato said of Okposo, who, at 35 years old, preferred to be moved to Florida at the NHL’s trade deadline because he’s in the final year of his contract and wants to try to win the Stanley Cup. “He’s a guy you respect and love, all in one, and happy and hope things work out well for him.”
5. Next
The Sabres finish their season Monday with a game against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Amalie Arena at 7 p.m.