BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Buffalo Sabres, with their young legs, sure looked like a rested team Sunday afternoon. The Penguins, meanwhile, played as if they had stopped at an all-you-can-eat chicken wing buffet on the way to KeyBank Center.
Both teams had their fair share of scoring chances in the second half of a weekend back-to-back. The Sabres cashed in three while the Penguins found only frustration in a dispirited 4-2 defeat. It was their first loss against Buffalo this season.
“You have to give them credit. They played hard. They played well,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “I don’t think we had our best. But, having said that, I thought we had opportunities that we weren’t able to convert on. But give Buffalo credit.”
The Sabres got the jump on the Penguins early, scoring 26 seconds in. Kris Letang pitched down the right wall and got caught in a crowd as the Sabres went the other way on a 3-on-2. Dylan Cozens sent a perfect saucer pass over a pair of outstretched sticks and Arttu Ruotsalainen ripped a one-timer past Casey DeSmith.
That snapped the goalie’s shutout streak against the Sabres at 180:18, dating back to 2019. He blanked Buffalo in his first two starts against them this season.
Moments later, Jason Zucker had a chance to tie the score when he was left alone in front of Dustin Tokarski. But he was unable to flip his backhand over the goalie’s glove. After the whistle, Zucker hunched over in the crease in disbelief.
In the first minute of the second period, Sidney Crosby looked to the heavens after he somehow sent a potential tap-in goal through the crease. Either that or he was simply admiring the championship banners for the NLL’s Buffalo Bandits.
The game could have turned there. Instead Sam Reinhart beat DeSmith with a shot from the right circle 2:18 into the second period to make the score 2-0. That was one of eight rush chances for the Sabres, per Sportlogiq. They buried two.
“They’ve got a skilled group, defensively and offensively. And they’re playing fast,” Zucker said. “They transition quick and caught us off guard a few times.”
Reinhart sniped DeSmith again in the third period, from a similar spot. It was the eighth power-play goal the Penguins have given up in the last eight games.
Throughout his bounce-back season, DeSmith, who spent all of last season in the American Hockey League, has typically delivered timely saves when the Penguins needed them. Not so Sunday, nor in his three appearances prior to that. DeSmith is 1-3-0 in his last four games, posting a meager .828 save percentage.
A few minutes into the third period, Bryan Rust barged down the right wing on a partial breakaway. With no fans in the stands at KeyBank Center, the four-letter word he grumbled after missing the net was heard way up in the press box.
It was just one of those games for the Penguins, out of sync from the start.
“I didn’t think we were very good [Sunday],” Zucker said. “I thought they carried the play for a lot of the game. We had some good chances. I don’t think it was anything about work ethic. I think it was just that we weren’t executing.”
Tokarski made 34 saves to beat the Penguins, for whom he was a minor-league insurance policy last season, sharing the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton net with DeSmith. Sullivan felt the Penguins could have made things tougher for him by getting bodies to the net. They had just one rebound chance, per Natural Stat Trick.
“We were talking the whole game about trying to get to the net front and trying to get in the goalie’s sightlines and create some opportunity by going low to high,” he said. “I don’t think we went to the net as consistently as we needed.”
Entering Sunday, the Penguins were 5-0-0 against the last-place Sabres, outscoring them by a 20-6 margin. Their 3-2 win here a day earlier officially eliminated the home team from playoff contention for the 10th consecutive season.
One silver lining in Sunday’s loss was another strong showing from the line of Jared McCann, Jeff Carter and Zucker. They dominated their competition at 5-on-5 all game, out-chancing them by a 6-0 margin. And Zucker scored with 9:42 left in the game. It was just his third goal since rejoining the lineup March 29.
After an empty-net goal for the Sabres, Teddy Blueger scored with 23 seconds left. Blueger didn’t even bother skating to the bench for celebratory fist-bumps.
“Maybe a little bit of cause for concern in the sense that this time of year we can’t afford to come out flat like that. I thought we were second to loose pucks, losing a lot of puck battles,” Blueger said. “That kind of cost us. With [11] games left and the playoff race the way it is, we’ve got to come out with more urgency.”
The Penguins, despite Sunday’s disappointing loss, remain securely in playoff position. The next three weeks should be interesting, with the top four teams in the East Division jumbled within six points of each other in the standings.
The Penguins will begin a five-game homestand Tuesday. They will host the New Jersey Devils at PPG Paints Arena for three games in a row before the Boston Bruins come to town for what could be a potential playoff series preview.
