A News staffer since 1987, I’m a Baseball Hall of Fame voter, a 2013 inductee into the Buffalo Baseball HOF and the Buffalo chapter chair of the Professional Hockey Writers Association. And I insist only Chicago & New York can come close to Buffalo pizza.
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It’s time for the Sabres to start collecting wins. Play some responsible defensive hockey, don’t cheat for offense but keep pouring the goals in, get enough saves, win some special teams battles. All of it.
And, frankly, they deserve a break from the schedule, too. They’re going to get it a little bit for the next week or so and need to take advantage.
Sunday’s 6-3 win over the San Jose Sharks in KeyBank Center was a good start. It wasn’t any sort of perfect performance, not even close. But it more than got the job done.
The Sabres (11-13-1) are 4-2-1 since snapping an eight-game skid and improved to 9-0 when leading at the second intermission.
Everyone leaving the building had to be talking about Rasmus Dahlin’s crushing hit on Matt Nieto in the second period, which had everybody recalling goathead glory days of Brian Campbell’s KO of Philadelphia’s R.J. Umberger during the 2006 playoffs.
It sent a buzz through the building and most of the fans in the crowd of 13,655 were on their feet roaring as the television timeout started and officials kept the players on both teams apart in the immediate aftermath.
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“I saw the opportunity there and it’s a part of the game,” Dahlin said. “I hope he’s OK and it looked like he’s OK. I obviously love our crowd and it was amazing to hear them.”
“It was unreal. As much as I could see, I think it was a clean hit and it was awesome,” added goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen. “I think it was a really good read from him. It lights up the team, so it was great to see.”
Perfectly clean hit. https://t.co/MHATVxzFlh
— Mike Harrington (@ByMHarrington)
That was the enduring image to this game but there was a lot more to it.
Consider this frank backdrop: There was no way the Sabres could lose to the Sharks on Sunday. Absolutely none. When Ottawa beat San Jose on Saturday night, it dropped the Sabres into last place in the Atlantic Division via tiebreakers.
Sure, this season is about development. We get it. But there is no reason, no excuse and no explaining away being in last place in this division. Ottawa has been a mess and Montreal just had the No. 1 overall pick in the draft. The Sabres are supposed to be past these moments.
The Sharks, meanwhile, are terrible. They’re just waiting for new GM and former Buffalo winger Mike Grier to trade rejuvenated defenseman Erik Karlsson to a contender and get them further in range for the Connor Bedard sweepstakes. They were on the final stop of a four-game road trip and playing a back-to-back after losing Saturday in Ottawa.
And San Jose was playing Aaron Dell in goal. Not to slag on a guy with 50 NHL wins who gave all he could to the Rochester Amerks in the Calder Cup playoffs last spring, but Dell’s best days are past him. He went 1-8-3 for the Sabres last year and is no longer an NHL goalie.
So there were some nervous moments when Luukkonen made himself small by going to his knees far too early and getting beat high glove twice in the first period, by Nick Bonino and Kevin Labanc. The Sabres were down, 2-1, but remained undaunted.
They played a dominant second period, taking control by scoring three goals and posting a 15-5 edge in shots on goal. It’s what you should do against an inferior team.
The Sabres got the game even at 16 seconds of the second period on JJ Peterka’s goal through Dell’s leaky glove after a strong stretch pass from Dylan Cozens and impeccable skate work from Peterka to get the puck out of his feet and on to his stick. Cozens had three assists on the night and is on quite a streak, with four goals and five assists in the last four games Quinn (3-2-5) and Peterka (2-2-4) also have four-game point streaks.
How about they keep this line together for, oh, the next few years?
Buffalo is 7-3-1 with Samuelsson in the lineup this season, compared to 3-10 without him. He and Rasmus Dahlin have formed a formidable top defense pair that’s learning to slow the top players in the world.
A big thing was watching Luukkonen lock down a lead for the final 40 minutes with no iffy moments like we saw against Tampa Bay or Colorado. He stopped veteran defenseman Marc-Eduoard Vlasic in tight in the final 30 seconds of the second period to prevent any momentum shift there and blunted Alexander Barabanov in tight early in the third to maintain a 4-2 lead.
“I feel all around we played really well today as a team and I think they made kind of pretty easy for me,” Luukkonen said of his teammates. “Even though there were two goals in the first, I feel we locked it up after that and we didn’t give them much. Especially in the third, if you take your foot off the pedal, you give them a chance to get back in. And I feel like we didn’t do that today at all.”
It was refreshing to see after the nightmares of the last few days against Tampa Bay and Detroit.
“He was on top of it, and held his ground without hesitation,” said coach Don Granato. “Very good signs. Especially when there’s thoughts that he didn’t play well in situations previously. That’s something you have to live with at this level and manage through it. And I thought he was dialed in tonight. His body language and performance were evidence of that.”
” … when you have an influx of more youth, you have less experience. And when you have less experience, you have more game-changing situations and plays and everything else,” Buffalo Sabres coach Don Granato said.
The Sabres are getting a football-style Victory Monday, with no practice. They had to Columbus on Wednesday to meet the team that’s last in the East. They have a home-and-home this weekend against Pittsburgh, which is dealing with the loss of Kris Letang to a stroke. Los Angeles, which can’t keep the puck out of its own net, is here next week. Get some of these points right now.
This is the best offensive team the Sabres have had since at least 2007 and maybe even since 1993. They have a dominant top line, a Norris Trophy candidate on defense in Dahlin and a kid line that looks like a long-term revelation.
But the Sabres will see Colorado, Vegas and Tampa Bay again later this month. So get on a streak in these next 10 days so this season has a chance to matter.
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A News staffer since 1987, I’m a Baseball Hall of Fame voter, a 2013 inductee into the Buffalo Baseball HOF and the Buffalo chapter chair of the Professional Hockey Writers Association. And I insist only Chicago & New York can come close to Buffalo pizza.
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