MONTREAL – You want to see some downright awful hockey? You want to watch a team that has completely unraveled possibly hit its nadir?
Watch the Buffalo Sabres’ utterly embarrassing performance in their 11th consecutive defeat, Tuesday’s ugly 6-1 loss to the lightweight Canadiens.
Prior to the game, the Sabres sounded like owner Terry Pegula’s visit a day earlier energized them. Perhaps his presence and words instilled some much-needed confidence and would shake them out of their doldrums.
Not quite. Nineteen seconds into Tuesday’s game, the Sabres fell behind 1-0. They trailed 2-0 by the 6:26 mark before a noisy crowd of 21,105 fans in Bell Centre.
“Just no legs, no jump, no energy,” defenseman Connor Clifton said of the Sabres’ wretched start. “You think, obviously, with the meeting yesterday, a 10-game losing streak, at least we have legs and energy. We didn’t. Chased the whole game.”
The Sabres recorded their first shot on goal at the 10:05 mark, when Montreal had pumped nine on goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen.
“They came out with a lot more energy than we did,” Sabres winger Alex Tuch said. “Flat-footed, for some reason (there was) no spark in our game, and it showed. They came out with a purpose and took it to us.”
The loss dropped the Sabres, a team that briefly surged into a playoff spot three weeks ago during its 10-5-0 run, into last place in the Eastern Conference. They’re two points out of dead last in the NHL thanks to going 0-8-3 in the last three weeks.
“Sure does (stink), doesn’t it?” Tuch said of the Sabres’ stunning fall down the conference standings. “It’s horrible. But the season’s not over. We’re gonna come back and be better tomorrow.”
What might happen today or in the coming days? So far, nothing has jolted the Sabres enough to win a game.
Following Sunday afternoon’s 5-3 road loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs, Ruff put the onus on himself – “Nobody else,” he said – to put the Sabres in the right place to win a game. Visits like Pegula’s don’t happen often.
“I think the change has to fall on our shoulders, individually and as a team,” Tuch said. “The change has to come in this room. No matter what happens, (it) still has to come from in this room. That’s it, no one else’s. It’s no one else’s responsibility but our own and my own.”
Clifton also said the Sabres must find answers from within.
“I think we’re looking around and we’re waiting for someone else to do something and make something happen and, obviously, we’re in it right now, got to find our way out of it,” he said.
But this group of players clearly doesn’t work. If the Sabres don’t win some games soon, they’re essentially assured of missing the playoffs for the 14th consecutive season, adding to their NHL record.
A trade or significant roster move might be the only way general manager Kevyn Adams can ignite the Sabres. An NHL Christmas roster freeze starts Friday and runs through Dec. 27, so perhaps something will materialize soon.
Right now, they’re so fragile that Joel Armia’s goal on the opening shift of the game – a puck that bounced off the end boards, that Sabres defenseman Owen Power would’ve corralled, hit a referee’s skate – sent them spiraling.
They panicked, looked disjointed and took penalties. Patrik Laine, a lethal shooter, scored three power-play goals thanks, in part, to missed assignments.
“Just hyper,” Ruff said. “If you look at the first one, that was our D’s guy to cover him, and he raced to the other side. I mean, that’s what we went over in our penalty-killing meeting.”
Ruff said “that first goal just bothered us too much.”
“Then it was we’re going to race here, race there,” he said.
The Sabres, believe it or not, settled down a bit and escaped the first period down just 2-0. Center Dylan Cozens scored 3:43 into the second period, moving the Sabres to within one goal.
“We made it 2-1, the turning point was the non-call when (defenseman Bowen Byram) goes to the net,” Ruff said. “In a game when they were calling everything, he goes to the net and gets dumped, and there’s no call. … We just scored a goal, gave us some momentum. Now they get a couple calls and it’s in the back of the net.”
Juraj Slafkovsky scored at 5:54, the first of the Canadiens’ four goals in the period.
Sabres goalie James Reimer replaced Luukkonen for the third period.
