BUFFALO – As the Sabres recently found a bit of a groove, they played some games that made you wonder how the heck they fell into last place in the Eastern Conference.
They piled up goals, received strong goaltending and responded well when adversity hit.
But contests like Tuesday’s 6-2 loss to the lowly San Jose Sharks, who rank dead last in the 32-team NHL, serve as a strong reminder why the Sabres dropped out of the playoff chase months ago.
Against a team that ended an eight-game winless streak Monday and had 12 regulation victories all season, the Sabres looked uninterested in competing.
“Too many passengers,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. “They won the compete, they won the puck-play game. Our puck play was awful. Just too many guys took the night off.”
Tell us how you really feel, Lindy.
Winger Tage Thompson, who scored his 30th goal, said the Sabres “tried to slow the game down too much” and did not possess “enough desperation.”
“It was plain and simple, they outworked us, and we lost too many puck battles,” he said. “Just going into one on ones too casual hoping we were going to win them instead of going down with some intensity.
“They came up with pucks and they got odd-man rushes because of it. They deserved that. They outworked (us).”
Sabres defenseman Bowen Byram said “it comes down to work ethic and details and execution.”
“Pretty much everything went wrong tonight,” he said. “So it’s tough. You never go into a game thinking that’s how it’s gonna go. … It’s embarrassing for all of us.”
Ruff stressed before the game the Sabres couldn’t take the Sharks, who have scored the fourth-fewest goals in the league, lightly.
“We talked about it,” said Ruff, whose Sabres have 11 more points than San Jose. “There’s nothing to be overconfident about. This team has been in a lot of one-goal games, this team skates really good. Nothing to be overconfident about. We issued a warning on how tough a game it was going to be.”
Too bad no one seemed to take the message to heart.
“Just because you do it one night doesn’t mean it’s going to happen automatically the next night,” Thompson said. “There’s no light teams in this league. Anyone can win any given night. I think it’s just a respect for the game. It doesn’t matter who you’re playing. It’s having that pride that you’re going to put everything you’ve got into a battle to come out with the puck, and if you don’t, you’re going to track to get it back.”
Despite their wretched effort, Ruff believes Monday’s 4-3 overtime road loss to the Montreal Canadiens, a game in which they roared back from an early 3-0 deficit, illustrates the Sabres haven’t checked out on the season.
“When you look at as well as we skated last night, it looked like there was fatigue in our game,” he said. “You have no legs, you have no hands, then you have no brain after that. We gave up goals on face-off coverage, we gave up goals on just over-backchecking. Our puck play three times led to goals. … Our puck play was pathetic.”
The Sabres have 22 games remaining in a season that will almost certainly result in their 14th consecutive postseason DNQ. The trade deadline hits Friday, and while a significant roster overhaul will likely take place during the offseason, some changes could come this week.
For a disgruntled fan base, roster moves can’t come soon enough. Many fans in the crowd of 14,741 booed as the Sabres as ended the second period trailing 2-1 and again as the Sharks scored four times in the third.
In two nights, the Sharks have equaled their win total from their previous 12 games. On Monday, they defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs 3-2 in a shootout. They hadn’t won two straight outings Jan. 2 and 4.
Timothy Liljegren opened the scoring 1:01 into the second period, beating Sabres goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen under the crossbar. Play continued, however, and following a whistle and a video review, officials awarded the goal and put time back on the clock.
Sabres winger JJ Peterka’s power-play goal, a one-timer from the right circle, tied it at 5:13.
Nico Sturm restored San Jose’s lead from the inside edge of the left circle at 18:22.
William Eklund, Macklin Celebrini, Will Smith and Tyler Toffoli scored for the Sharks in the third period.
Thompson eclipsed last season’s goal total in 17 fewer games and reached the 30-goal mark for the third time in four years.
