Same as it ever was.
For a team that is supposedly hungry to make the post season, last night’s home opener against the Rangers looked like a lot of other Sabres losses over the past 14 years. The team came out of the gate completely flat, got scored on halfway through the first period and then got shut out the rest of the way enroute to a 4-0 loss. Let’s get into yet another dismal home opener.
Prior to puck drop, the team did its usual player and coach intros over the PA system, but they curiously opted not to mention the front office staff as they have done in the past. This is, of course, because Kevyn Adams got vociferously booed during this event last year and he almost certainly didn’t want to endure that humiliation once again from his home fans. Soft stuff from a franchise that doesn’t take criticism well – or at all, really.
The Sabres were simply not ready to play for the first 10 minutes of the game, which is incredible considering they have talked about this issue for approximately five years now and still nothing has changed. A few things have changed over the summer, though, such as the acquisition of Mason Geertsen.
Geertsen managed a -1 rating with a minor penalty for tripping in 4:26 of ice time. Excellent stuff.
This is probably a good place to talk about the built-in injury excuse that the Sabres can use to justify their performance last night. Yes, Owen Power, Zach Benson, Michael Kesselring, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, and Jordan Greenway were all injured. In UPL’s case, that really wasn’t much of a factor. Goaltender Alex Lyon played a very clean game in his place. None of those other players mentioned would have solved the Sabres’ main issue last night – namely that they have a noted lack of offensive firepower in the forward ranks following the trade of JJ Peterka.
Both Kevyn Adams and Lindy Ruff spent much of the summer talking about how the team has plenty of offense, and that the defense is really where they need to focus on clamping down. Well, one game in and it was a shutout, but not the kind of shutout they were hoping for. The Sabres also went 0/4 with the man advantage. It’s incredible that Lindy Ruff still has all of Don Granato’s assistant coaches and that no one was fired or otherwise replaced after last season’s awful powerplay performances. This was another obvious problem that the team decided they didn’t want or need to address over the summer. Early returns suggest that indeed they should have replaced their powerplay assistant coach.
Perhaps the most disappointing news of the night was that the team lost center Josh Norris to an upper body injury sustained while taking a faceoff. Norris’s extensive history of shoulder injuries makes this news deeply concerning for a team that has very shallow center depth behind him in Jiri Kulich, Ryan McLeod and Peyton Krebs. This was another Adams gamble on a player who has been consistently unavailable due to injury. No word yet on the severity of Norris’s injury.
Next up for the Sabres is a trip to Boston against the undefeated Bruins. The battered and bruised Sabres are going to have to dig deep and find some answers before they bury themselves in the standings.