3 Takeaways From Sabres’ 5-2 Loss to the Flames

It wouldn’t be Buffalo Sabres hockey if the team didn’t follow up an encouraging comeback with a hugely disappointing effort. That’s what happened to the Sabres on Thursday night, just two days after a nice little comeback win over the Vancouver Canucks.

Facing a tough Calgary Flames team, the Sabres put in about 30 minutes worth of good effort before everything fell apart. It’s getting harder to find positives from these games, but let’s take a look at the three takeaways from the Sabres’ 5-2 loss to the Flames.

Abysmal Special Teams

Special teams have been an issue all season long. It is not uncommon for the power play to go games at a time without scoring despite all the talent on the top unit. But when both the power play and penalty kill are awful at the same time, it is little wonder that this isn’t a playoff team.

The Sabres are going to be sellers at the deadline for the umpteenth time in part because of how awful the special teams have been. It was perhaps the worst effort of the night collectively as the power play went 0-for-6 and gave up a pair of shorthanded goals in the process. But hey, at least they killed both Flames power plays.

This has been going on long enough that someone has to go, but that won’t happen because this is the Sabres. The exciting power play of 2022-23 is dead and gone, an anomaly that no one can explain. It is just one of the many things you can underscore when talking about the failures the Sabres go through every season.

Does This Team Know the Game is 60 Minutes?

There are plenty of things to be frustrated about when it comes to this Sabres team. Or the Sabres franchise, in general. Perhaps the most frustrating trait they’ve shown throughout this playoff drought is the inability to put together a complete 60-minute effort. They can be good for 20, 30, maybe even 40 minutes at a time.

Related: Sabres’ First Round Picks in the Pegula Era

Yet again, we were treated to another incomplete effort from the Sabres. They looked okay in the first, came back to briefly take the lead in the second, and that was all she wrote. At best, it was 30 minutes of solid effort followed by 30 minutes of, “What are we doing?”

It’s tough to bring your best for 60 minutes night in, night out. That said, when your team hasn’t made the playoffs in almost 15 years, there needs to be a point where you dig down deep and try to find a bit extra. The Sabres seemingly never do that, and it costs them dearly on a near-nightly basis.

Net Front Presence

For all the talent the Sabres possess offensively, they don’t generate nearly as many “high danger” chances as they should. In fact, they are 21^st in the NHL in high-danger chances generated while giving up the 10^th-most high-danger chances. It becomes easy to see how problematic this could be.

Of the 10 best teams in the NHL in goals for, seven of them are in the top 10 in high-danger chances. It just correlates at this point. The Sabres are a perimeter team, hoping to free up their snipers to take long-distance shots.

In this game, both of their goals came from high-danger areas. Mattias Samuelsson picked up his third goal of the season because Beck Malenstyn was buzzing around the front. Tage Thompson posted up in front and got a tip-in for his 22^nd of the season. Disrupt the goaltender and keep the puck in those dangerous areas, and the goals come.

Things Will Definitely Go Well in Edmonton

It’s just one of many losses and probably many more for the Sabres. They finish up their Canadian West Coast trip by visiting the Edmonton Oilers, so that will surely go well. The good news is that at least Connor McDavid will be serving the third game of a three-game suspension.

Changes are coming this offseason because they have to be. Until then, this season will be about finding the little positives when they pop up. They feel few and far between, but we must persevere.