The Buffalo Sabres scored a series of moral victories in Washington on Sunday night.
Ted Nolan’s squad played a solid road game. They played with pride, purpose, discipline, and physicality. All 12 forwards and all 6 D competed. They played well in their units of five.
Nolan iced a roster of mainly Rochester-bound players and it held Caps vets Alex
Ovechkin, Nik Backstrom, Brooks Laich, and Joel Ward off the score sheet.
In his postgame presser, Nlan tipped his bucket to the Caps and praised the stick-to-it-iveness and battle of his Sabres.
“The one thing we tried to address from Day One of camp was effort, the way we compete and the way we battle,” Nolan said. “That doesn’t take a skill set, it just takes a will. These guys battled hard. That was a good team we played tonight, so I was happy with the effort.”
Nolan was impressed with the way that his youngsters battled in the final 20 minutes.
"I think the way we competed. We used our legs, we used our speed, we used our enthusiasm. We got the puck and attacked. They’re an experienced team. They pinched down on our young defense and our young wingers a number of times to get the puck in our zone.
“But as we progressed, we made a couple of adjustments and as [assistant coach] Bryan Trottier said in between the second and third periods, ‘Jeez, we made a little adjustment. They caught on.’ They did what we asked. Overall it was a great effort.”
Nolan should be happy that that Deslauriers-Reinhart-Armia line came to play. The line was physical and it had a couple of scoring chances. Samson won 60% of his draws (3 for 5); he had one takeaway, one blocked shot, and one hit. He was on the ice for the Burakovsky goal and earned a minus 1. Deslauriers skated 14:52 TOI, landed 3 shots on goal, and had a blocked hot. He plays a sandy style of game and loves to lean on opponents on the walls.
Mikhail Grigorenko was fully engaged in the process and was very noticeable all game long, especially on the fore check when he was seen seveal time getting first to pucks and finishing checks on Caps D-men. I really liked the way that Vaclav Karabacek-Grigorenko-Brian Flynn played together. Grigorenko made the most of his 12 minutes of TOI. He landed two shots on goal, blocked a shot, was credited with 3 hits and won 88% ( 7 for 8) of his draws . The kid handled himself well in all three zones. He is playing at 220 lbs. right now and his added muscle is helping him to protect pucks and win wall battles.
I was really impressed with the play of veteran grinder Zac Dalpe who skated 18:43 TOI. He was solid on the PK and was credited with one hit, one blocked shot and one takeaway.
Rasmus Ristolainen's stock increased with another strong performance. The tireless Finn skated 23:11 TOI on 24 shifts, including 2 minutes of PP time and 1:12 of PK time. Hos only gaffe of the game was his lost puck battle on the Burakovsky goal. In my opinion, Nolan and Murray would be crazy to send Ristolainen back to Rochester after his four dominant performances in Traverse City and his outstanding performance in Washington.
Andre Benoit caught my eye. He played 23:11 TOI with 2 blocked shots and a hit. He was a calming influence in his own zone.
Nikita Zadorov did not impress me. He looked gassed in the middle of shifts and was seen skating to the bench with his head down many times. He played similarly at Traverse City Prospects Tourney. Looks like a conditioning issue to me. In 23 minutes TOI, he had 3 hits and one blocked hot.
Sabres netminder Nate Lieuwen made several big saves to keep his team in the game.
I don’t even care that the Caps won 1-0.
Rookie Andre Burakovsky (Erie Otters, 23rd overall 2013) scored the game’s only goal on a nic e shot from the slot.
All in all it was an entertaining game that Nolan and his new assistant coaches and mine a lot of positive data from. There were coaching moments all over the ice for Nola to address on Monday.
For example, Rasmus Ristolainen was beaten behind his own net by the bigger, stronger, older Jason Chimera. The lost puck battle ended up behind Lieuwen. Not a bad thing for Ristolainen to be knocked off the puck by a 10 year NHL vet. The young Finn will learn from that experience.
Thanks, Capitals.com
Tyson Strachan held his own after eating a big bomb from Caps scrapper Spencer.
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