This weekend’s pair of games against the Arizona Coyotes and Colorado Avalanche brought headlines galore and it’s worth reviewing a few of the key moments from that duo of games before moving on to tomorrow’s contest against the Vegas Golden Knights.
First of all, in the battle of the tank titans, there was no contest for superiority. The Coyotes are a miserably bad team that walked away with undisputed tank bragging rights. The Sabres absolutely man-handled them from puck drop and dominated the first 50 minutes before the Coyotes put on somewhat of a push in the final 10 minutes while down three goals. The Sabres played that game without Rasmus Dahlin, Rasmus Asplund, Victor Olofsson and five Sabres staff members – including assistant coach Matt Ellis – due to inaccurate Covid-19 tests which wrongly indicated that all eight were positive for the virus.
It didn’t make a lick of difference to the outcome.
It’s a little bit surprising to see hockeyreference.com peg the Sabres with a team Corsi of 48.2% when it felt like the blue-and-gold were controlling the game pretty well throughout the contest. Perhaps the last 10 minutes when the Coyotes put on the full-court press skewed the numbers somewhat. In any case, the Sabres outshot the Desert Dogs and Sabres goalie Craig Anderson made a triumphant return to the team with a 26-save performance in the win. The highlight of the night had to be Alex Tuch’s give-and-go goal with Peyton Krebs:
Alex Tuch scores against the Arizona Coyotes to make it 3-0 #ARIvsBUF #Yotes #LetsGoBuffalo pic.twitter.com/H5LoXwbG2t
— nopClips (@nopClips) January 30, 2022
There’s so much to love in this play. To start off, it’s an underrated outlet pass from Thompson and good instincts from Tuch to read the situation and exit the zone with speed. He expects the outlet pass and gets it. Next, he enters the zone with speed and pulls up to deliver the drop-back pass, but notice that when he executes the drop pass, he moves to the middle and obstructs the lane of the Coyotes defenders which precludes either defender from making the play on the puck. From there, he drives hard through Ilya Lyubushkin and Janis Moser toward the net, and he has the presence of mind to lift Lyubushkin’s stick on the way to the net. Krebs draws Lyubushkin nearer to him on the left side and that leaves Moser one-on-one with Tuch who had a full head of steam.
It was a gorgeous feed from Krebs and a terrific play overall from Tuch, who has been sensational this season for the Sabres.
The game against the Colorado Avalanche was less impressive, but not quite the beatdown that some may have prognosticated. The Sabres were outshot, yes, but only 36-31 and they managed to carry the pace of play for stretches at a time.
They actually managed a team Corsi of 52.8% against the hottest team in the NHL – and a team that ended up finishing the month of January with a superb 15-0-1 record. That is an NHL record for the best finish to the month of January in league history. Sure, the Sabres are in no position to tout moral victories, but it was a respectable game to say the least. Dustin Tokarski made his re-debut in that game, as he had been out since mid-December due to ongoing Covid symptoms and he played fine. The turning point in the contest came during a disputed hand pass call that went against the away team midway through the second period.
Kadri, 2-1 ... might be a hand pass, under review #LetsGoBuffalo #GoAvsGo pic.twitter.com/VTe6DB9qPi
— Buffalo Hockey moments (@SabresPlays) January 31, 2022
The Sabres wisely challenged that call and it went against them for reasons unknown. The downside of that challenge is that the Sabres were assessed a two-minute delay of game penalty as a result of the non-overturned call and the Avalanche subsequently scored on that opportunity. Frankly it’s hard to fault the Sabres for trying to overturn the call and it’s basically just bad luck that the NHL decided not to overturn it. They played fine in that game.
The major disappointment of that game is that Casey Mittelstadt may have re-aggravated his pre-existing injury as he was unable to complete the game. Granato indicated that it was indeed related to the ailment(s) that have plagued him this year, but declined to say what this means going forward.
"We knew a back-to-back would be tough. It was unfortunate he wasn't comfortable in the moves he was trying,… Granato said. “And then he probably pulled out early because of precaution. I don't have any word on it yet."
Ready or not, the Sabres will be on the road tomorrow against the Vegas Golden Knights for a #SabresAfterDark 10 pm puck drop which will see Peyton Krebs and Alex Tuch faceoff against their former team for the first time. This one is a Hulu game so you’re not going to find it on MSG. For those who do stay up late, you’re unlikely to see Jack Eichel make his debut against his former squad tomorrow. The Golden Knights will need to make some corresponding cap moves to fit him into their squad when he does come back from his disk replacement surgery.
Still, it would be very on-brand for the Knights to make his first game against the Sabres if they could. In a world without a salary cap, it would even be possible for the team to do it mostly unnoticed which would have added a massive jolt of flair with Eichel skating out for warmups unannounced. It doesn’t seem like he’ll be a participant in this one. Still, it’ll be interesting to see what kind of energy Tuch brings against his former squad.