The Sabres were back in action on Thursday night against the Columbus Blue Jackets following the prolonged All-Star break layoff and never has the gulf between veteran power forwards and the supporting perimeter players been more clear. The Sabres dropped the contest 4-3 in overtime, and like most things about this season, the result is less important than the process that got them there.
The difference between those who are willing to pay a price to go to the hard areas rather than those who want to wait for opportunity to find them is completely obvious. Victor Olofsson in particular looks like he doesn’t want to touch the puck right now.
Whether his poor play is due to continuing injury issues, a serious lack of confidence or a lack of motivation is up for debate, but in any case, he doesn’t look interested in contributing to the play in any kind of meaningful way. Considering he hasn’t scored since October, he is almost certainly short on confidence and belief in his own abilities. His season has been an utter disappointment and the coaching staff has to notice that he doesn’t show any willingness to get to a hard area of the zone to generate meaningful chances.
Life is harder when you don’t have Jack Eichel feeding you gimme goals.
One would like to think that it’s lingering injury issues that have hampered his game rather than hustle issues because his lack of intensity was noticeably bad on almost every shift in the first period. His declining offensive game does not bode well for either a nice contract extension from the Sabres or for a trade offer from another team at the trade deadline. The market for low-intensity perimeter wingers who have 5 goals on the season is almost certainly a very small one. And if he is still indeed banged up from injuries suffered earlier in the season then the Sabres staff needs to realize that he shouldn’t be out there playing right now without being in the right frame of body or mind.
Peyton Krebs and Kyle Okposo, meanwhile, displayed some excellent chemistry and hustle during the early going of the game as they played a veteran-level cycle game deep in the Columbus zone. Okposo’s hustle level and his willingness to fight for puck along the wall pairs nicely with the vision and sneakiness of Krebs.
Those two weren’t able to cash on their best opportunities, though, and the Sabres subsequently suffered a really tough break as Jack Roslovic fed a puck in front of the net halfway in to the period and it pinballed off Mark Pysyk’s skate and into the net behind Dustin Tokarski. (Fun Pysyk fact from the Sabres’ broadcast in the second period – Mark Pysyk is the only Sabre to have played in all 46 games this season).
The best chance of the first for the Sabres came on an odd-man rush as Alex Tuch fed Jeff Skinner for a beautiful look and Skinner clanged the puck off the iron for a beautiful opportunity that missed by mere inches. Nevertheless, the period ended 1-0 in favor of the visiting team from Ohio.
All-Star Rasmus Dahlin got things moving for the home team as he fed a wrist shot on net which beat Elvis Merzlikins. The puck certainly appeared to have glanced off Tage Thompson’s high stick on its way down into the net, but the review team in Toronto said it was a good goal, so the game was tied at 1-1 on that chance. The review process apparently showed that the puck went off the Blue Jackets defenseman rather than Thompson’s stick.
The trio of Thompson, Tuch and Skinner was by far the best line for the Sabres for a majority of the game. That line has a terrific blend of size, speed and finishing that could have resulted in two or three goals by the midway point of the game if not for some poor puck luck and unfortunate bounces. Thompson has certainly gotten the memo about being a power forward with a nose for the net. Beyond that trio, the most noticeable forward may have been John Hayden who had a tenacious game on the forecheck.
The home team took the lead with under two minutes to play as Okposo scored his 9th of the season from the low slot on a feed from Mark Jankowski. Okposo consistently displays a willingness to play hard along the walls behind the net as well as playing in the contested areas in front of the net where a majority of goals are scored. The young Sabres would do well to follow the example of a veteran player like Okposo who is willing to go to the hard areas of the ice to set himself and his linemates up for success by paying a price in the high-traffic areas.
Young Sabres – especially burgeoning power forwards like Dylan Cozens – have a couple of excellent role models in Okposo and Tuch from whom to model their game. Those two veterans play a solid north-south brand of hockey which translates to production. Speaking of which, Tuch opened the scoring in third period on a beautiful feed Skinner with a gorgeous finish from the net mouth as he dragged the puck across the crease and elevated it above a sprawling Merzlikins.
The Blue Jackets subsequently drew within a goal as Brendan Gaunce beat Dustin Tokarski on a soft five-hole goal that beat the Sabres netminder on the 27th shot of the night. That goal was the kind of deflating score that Tokarski hasn’t often let in this season. The Blue Jackets then tied the game following a stick infraction penalty on Okposo as Laine found Bjorkstrand for a cross-net tap in to draw things even with less than 6 minutes to play. And with that, there was a brand new game for Jakub Voracek to win in overtime as he potted his second of the season.
Forget the final score, though.
There’s a clear choice to be made here for every young Sabre: Are they willing to be a net-front presence like the most effective players on the team? Or are they content being perimeter players who have no impact on the game?