Grime Time (sabres)

Their 2017-18 season is 9 days old and the Buffalo Sabres have yet to win a game. The Sabres kicked off a four-game Western roadie with a 3-2 loss Thursday night in San Jose and are now 0-3-1. Next stop Los Angeles where the Sabres and Kings will do battle on Saturday night.

Did you know that the Buffalo Sabres have been shutout the last four times they have ventured to Silicone City? The last time a Buffalo Sabres player scored a goal in a game played in La La Land, it was scored by former captain Craig Rivet way back in 2010!!

Of the eight points that have available to the Sabres, they have only earned one single, solitary skin.

The star-studded Sabres are being outscored. Badly.

Buffalo’s minus-eight goal differential is a problem that will continue to get worse if something drastic isn’t done about it. The Sabres have scored only 9 goals (5 even strength, 2 PPG, 2 SHG). They have allowed 17 goals against. They have allowed 6 goals against in the first period, 8 in the second and 3 in the third period.

From my point of view, Housley and his assistant Davis Payne have a few forwards who are not punching the time clock and are not giving an honest night’s work for an honest night’s pay. There are far too many passenger forwards who are content to watch the big boys light the lamp.

Only three Sabres players have scored goals. All three are scoring forwards. Evander Kane and Jason Pominville each have 4 goals for. Jack Eichel has scored only one goal. It’s a big fat goose egg for the 18 other Sabres who have skated in the first four goals of the season.

What gives?

Scoring goals off the rush gets you on Sportscentre and on NHL On The Fly. Failure to do so can land a player in the press box as a healthy scratch. Living off the pretty play is a very dangerous and stressful way of life.

Skilled teams that strive for aesthetic perfection usually find themselves chasing opponents from behind in the division standings.

Their lifestyle determines their death style.

Scoring pretty goals off odd man rushes is a high risk way to make your living in today's NHL. The rush game isn’t a sustainable, reliable method of scoring goals. At some point, the opponent takes away the odd man rushes and the scoring chances go away. Rare is the NHL team that can dangle, dance and score 300 of the prettiest goals over an 82 game NHL season.

The 1976 Montreal Canadiens and 1984 Edmonton Oilers were the exception and not the rule.

If you want to score goals on a regular basis in today’s NHL, you better put your head down and bully your way to the blue ice. There are no free lunches in the low slot/crease, where angels fear to tread.

Phil Housley is a practitioner of pretty, high octane hockey. He was the Drew Doughty of his era. His skating and hand eye coordination were second to none. He parlayed all of his NHL playing experience into a successful curriculum while he coached the D for four seasons at the Nashville Predators. Housley was hired by the Sabres in June to kick start and inspire an otherwise listless offense. Housley’s five man attack system is a work in progress. His players cannot cheat the system while they are learning to play it.

Watching the mistakes being made by Sabres forwards and D are part of the learning process. Learning the new system is like learning to drive your Dad’s manual transmission car. You will pop the clutch and grind the gears to the point of tears. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. Before you know it, it all seems like second nature. The problem with the Sabres right now is that they can get the car out of the garage with no problems. Their struggles occur when the car in in drive. They are not shifting to glide. They are stalling in the middle of rush hour traffic.

"We're close, but we're so far away because of our attention to detail," Housley told the team’s website on Friday after practice in suburban La La Land. "It has to get better. It has to be a 60 minute effort, maybe it's 65 minutes. We're putting something together, but we've still got to build our game."

Housley has broken down the game tape of all four losses. He has seen some good things. He has seen some bad things. Of note, he’s not seeing a full-time commitment by all of his players to go to the greasiest, nastiest areas on the ice to hunt pucks and to create chaos.

"We work on it every (practice) day," a concerned Housley said. "We worked on it again today. It's a niche that guys make livings off of, being in front of the net. You look at some of the best net-front guys who find a way to get sticks on pucks and redirects, and just getting some dirty goals on rebound or a second opportunity. We have to get hungry in that area." In other words:

STOP TRYING TO SCORE PRETTY SNIPES OFF THE RUSH!

Let’s not beat around the bush. Housley will take goals however he can get them right. If a point shot hits a forward in the face or ass and caroms into the cage, then so be it. If a knuckle puck kisses in off three skates and five holes the goalie, fine. They don’t ask how. They ask how many. There are no awards for scoring the prettiest goals. They all look like dangles and snipes in the box score.

After Monday’s embarrassing 6-2 loss to New Jersey, Housley pulled a page from Dan Bylsma’s coaching manual and moved Evander Kane away from Jack Eichel and Jason Pominville. The move was not meant to diss to Kane. To the contrary. It was a 9-1-1 call to the rest of the team to get their crap together. Moving Kane with Ryan O’Reilly and Kyle Okposo will eventually pay dividends. Kane is a spark plug. He now has to sacrifice his own offensive output to kick start his new dormant line mates. Housley didn’t want to have his three goal scorers on the same line.

Housley has heard enough of the flimsy excuses. He wants less talk and more action. "I don't care if it's in their nature," Housley said. "If you want to score goals, and you want to score points, you've got to get there (net front). When it's your job to get there, you're the low forward and it's required, you have to get there whether it's just a fly-by to get in front of the goalie’s eyes and make it difficult or mainly just planting yourself there."

I can count on one hand how many times I’ve seen a Sabres forward bump, jostle and disrupt and opposing goalie. Except for Kane, Pominville and Eichel, Buffalo forwards are being far too congenial towards opposing defensemen. Housley has seen enough of the pretty perimeter plays. He’s imploring his down low forwards to set up shop and get grimy by mixing it up with the enemy in the blue ice.

Forget about the Sabres’ secondary and tertiary scoring. Where is their primary scoring hiding? The Sabres are averaging just 2.25 goals scored per game while they are allowing an unacceptable 4.25 goals per game. Only Pittsburgh (4.40) and Boston (4.33) have worse GA/GP.

Their 21st ranked (12.5%) is only 2 for 16. Buffalo power players have allowed fan NHL-leading four shorthanded goals against. It’s a far cry from their #1 overall PP from 2016-17. A silver lining is that their penalty kill is ranked fourth in the NHL with a 92.8% kill rate. They have given up only on PPG against.

The third time is proving to not be a charm for Samson Reinhart. The second overall pick in the 2014 NHL Draft has been an invisible man in the first four games of the season. Reinhart’s lack of production is maddening. Reinhart is playing on an expiring contract and is looking to earn an eight-year contract in the $48 million range next summer. He’s not doing himself any favors. Reinhart has played in all for four Sabres losses this season. He has zero goals and zero assists. He has zero even strength points. Zero power play points. He owns a team-worst minus 7 rating. Reinhart isn’t shooting and only has one shot on goal. He’s averaging 14:55 TOI. He is 9 for 25 (64% faceoff loss rate). He has landed only three hits. He has two blocked shots, four missed shots, one giveaway, one takeaway.

Reinhart is a low forward who better heed Housley’s warning or he may find himself eating popcorn in the press box when he team rolls into Anaheim. To know Reinhart is to know he has much more to give. He’s not injured. He’s struggling. He started the season as the third line center. During Monday’s home loss to New Jersey, Reinhart was bumped to the wing. He wasn’t impressive as a center. At Friday’s practice, Reinhart played left wing for Johan Larsson and Seth Griffith.

Like Reinhart, Ryan O’Reilly has been a disappointment. In four games played, ROR has only one assist. He has zero goals. He owns a -3 rating, has nine shots on goal, three hits, two giveaways, one takeaway, and nine shots on goal. O’Reilly will be the first to tell you he has much more offense to give to his team. He’s averaging 19:25 TOI.

Unlike Reinhart, O’Reilly is doing other things to help his team while he is slumping offensively. ROR is among the NHL leaders with his 63.9% (67.9% 5v5) faceoff win rate.

Combined, Sabres forwards are pitching bagels. O'Reilly, Reinhart, Kyle Okposo, Zemgus Girgensons, Seth Griffith, Benoit Pouliot, Jacob Josefson, Jordan Nolan and Matt Moulson have zero goals for.

Not one Sabres defensemen has a goal at this juncture of the season. In fact, Rasmus Ristolainen, Jake McCabe, Marco Scandella, Nathan Beaulieu, Viktor Antipin, Matt Tennyson, and Josh Gorges have only 36 comined shots on goal at this juncture in the season.

The last place Sabres have nowhere to go but up in the standings.

To say that Sabres Nation is perturbed at the slow start is an understatement.

Tonight’s game is Buffalo’s second in a four-game road trip against Pacific Division opponents.

The Sabres will play Anaheim on Sunday night before visiting Las Vegas for the team’s first-ever meeting with the Golden Knights on Tuesday.

The Sabres and Kings have split the season series in each of the last four seasons.

The Sabres are seeking their first road win against the Kings since their 4-2 victory on October 8, 2011 in Berlin, Germany. All four of the team’s trips to Los Angeles since that win have been 2-0 Kings wins.

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