LOS ANGELES — The Sabres knew what they were getting into when they got off the bus to play a road game against the Los Angeles Kings on Monday night.
This was one of those games the Sabres have been craving. The Kings entered this game three points out of first place in the division. The Sabres were five points out of a wild-card spot. Just before the new year, captain Kyle Okposo said the next step for this young team was going into late-season games knowing you need two points. This was one of those nights.
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But the Sabres didn’t get those points. After allowing seven unanswered goals in a 7-2 loss to the Flames on Saturday, the Sabres allowed five unanswered goals and struggled in a 5-2 loss to the Kings on Monday.
“We can sit and speculate,” Sabres coach Don Granato said. “When you don’t win, everything you say, you didn’t win. Who wants to hear why you lost? We’ve got to find ways to win and find ways to get better. Whatever caused it is an excuse at this point. Push forward and tomorrow is another day for skating. … This group, again, will find a way. I’m confident of that.”
Granato shuffled the Sabres’ lines before the game against the Kings. Tage Thomspon was centering Casey Mittelstadt and Okposo. Dylan Cozens centered Jeff Skinner and Alex Tuch. Tyson Jost was between Rasmus Asplund and Victor Olofsson. And Peyton Krebs centered Zemgus Girgensons and Jack Quinn.
That lineup didn’t spark a change for the Sabres. In the first period, the Kings had 75 percent of the expected goals, according to Natural Stat Trick. On its two power plays, Buffalo mustered zero shots on goal. The Sabres didn’t have a single high-danger scoring chance at even strength in the first period. They escaped that period with a scoreless tie, but that didn’t last.
The second period is when things got ugly. First, Adrian Kempe scored a short-handed goal after Okposo turned the puck over in the offensive zone. The Kings scored on the power play just over three minutes later when Arthur Kaliyev got a wide-open shot.
Even then, the game didn’t feel out of hand, but the Kings put it out of reach with two goals in the final 1:19 of the second period.
“I think it was those 10-15 minutes of collapse by us that cost us the game,” Cozens said.
Craig Anderson made just 23 saves on 28 shots against. Of the five goals, two came on low-danger scoring chances and two were on medium-danger chances, according to Natural Stat Trick. Turning to the veteran made sense, but he wasn’t able to bail the Sabres out long enough for the scoring to wake up.
This isn’t an opportune time for the Sabres to find themselves on a four-game losing streak. At the time in the season when every point matters, the Sabres have now gone three straight games without one. This is the third time this season the Sabres have gone three games without a point. The first was an eight-game pointless streak in November that was easily attributed to injuries. The second was a three-game lull at home in early January. The Sabres can’t afford to let this linger much longer. They’ve been a streaky team this season. That’s to be expected when you lack experience the way this team does. But if they’re going to maximize the opportunity in front of them, they need to course correct quickly.
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“Every game is important,” Rasmus Dahlin said. “It’s new for us. But there’s 30 games left, so we have to forget about this game and move on. We have a big one coming up here. Big practice tomorrow. We have to get back to work.”
When the Sabres went through previous losing streaks, Granato talked about the team hitting plateaus. The expectations for this Sabres team have been going up incrementally throughout the season, and with each jump in expectations has come an adjustment for players.
“We welcome that challenge again because that means we’re to the next one,” Granato said in December. “That one is not going away.”
This next plateau is the biggest one. Clearing that hurdle and getting to the playoffs is something the Sabres haven’t done in 11 years. It’s something most players on the roster have never done. It’s part of what makes this upcoming stretch important for the franchise and its growing core of young players.
“This a part of our learning process and what we’re going through and the players showing up to the rink with very important points on the line, and that’s all part of this,” Sabres general manager Kevyn Adams said last week. “So I think it’s really valuable for us. Now, in saying that, you have to stay present, you have to stay completely engaged in the moment and my conversations with these guys, the coaches is, ‘Let’s go after it, no fear. Just go out there and go compete,’ and that’s what they’ve been doing all along. So this is an important step for us and I’m excited for the guys to go out and have fun and play.”
The Sabres seemed to return to that fearless mentality in the third period against the Kings, once the game was well out of reach. They were engaged in some post-whistle scrums and ended up with a pair of goals during garbage time. Inconsequential as it was to the final result, the Sabres need to build on that before their season slips away.
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“The compete level,” Dahlin said. “We had a lot of scrums and we sort of took over the game. We have to battle for 60 minutes. When we’re in their face, our opponents don’t like when we play that way. So we just have to continue to play like that. It’s a learning game and we have to move on.”
Quick hits
1. Peyton Krebs scored a power-play goal late, but Buffalo again struggled with the man advantage. Before that, the Sabres were 0-4 on the power play and had just one shot on goal on those four chances. Teams have paid more attention to Thompson, who has been the Sabres’ most consistent power-play threat all season. And Buffalo hasn’t yet found an answer.
“Sometimes we look for the perfect play, and a lot of power-play goals come off scramble and chaos,” Cozens said. “Whether it’s me or (Dahlin), it’s just throwing pucks on the net and getting those back and creating chaos off that and scoring off that. That’s something we need to do more of I think. I have to start shooting more and being more of a shooting threat. (Dahlin) can shoot some too.”
2. Olofsson and Mittelstadt each had a pair of assists at the end of the game. The Sabres put them back on the same line and shifted Thompson back to his usual line with Tuch and Skinner in the third period. Getting back to some of the usual combinations seemed to help. Granato didn’t think the line changes impacted the team negatively.
“We need our guys to get back to that whole team and how we need to play as a team,” Granato said. “We’ll get it. They’ll get it. There’s no question about it. It’s frustrating because it’s not here yet, but it’s gonna happen. There’s no doubt about it with this group.”
3. The Red Wings won on Monday and are now even with the Sabres in the standings. That adds yet another team to the list of those chasing the Penguins and Capitals. That list already included the Panthers and Islanders, who are both four points ahead of the Sabres but with four more games played.
Up next: The Sabres play the Ducks on Wednesday before finishing this trip in San Jose against the Sharks on Saturday.
(Top photo of Kyle Okposo moving the puck ahead of Kings defenseman Sean Walker: Gary A. Vasquez / USA Today)
