So I took a week off of doing these Sabres recap blogs but I’m back tonight. I’m not a huge excuse guy but last Thursday I was at the game against the Avs and then had to watch the second half of the Bills on Thursday night football, then I was out of town on Sunday for the Sharks game and for Wednesday’s clinic against the Blue Jackets, all the action took place in the first period and cause Spectrum’s the worst fucking cable provider imaginable most of Buffalo had to watch a frozen screen for over and hour and miss the first. Wasn’t gonna recap six goals just based off highlights.
Tonight the Sabres hosted the Pittsburgh Penguins for the second time this season after a 6-3 win with a huge third period on November 2nd. We ended up losing 4-3 in overtime in a quite entertaining game.
The Sabres had some really good opportunities early in the game but following an awesome Sabres penalty kill towards the end of the first period, we went into the first intermission scoreless, tied up at 0-0 as the Sabres outshot the Pens 13-5.
It took until 15:36 into the second period to open the scoring in this game as the Penguins got on the board with Jake Guentzel scoring on the power play. The Sabres answered back to tie it up just a few minutes later with 1:52 left in the second period on a nice goal from Victor Olofsson and then with a beautiful pass by Tage Thompson where all of the Pens thought he was shooting, he put it right in front on the tape of Jeff Skinner stick with Skins finishing it off for an easy goal to give the Sabres a 2-1 lead with just 45 second left in the second period.
Pretty quickly into the third period, Rickard Rakell scored just 2:53 into the period to tie it back up at 2-2 with terrible defense from the Sabres as the D was completely spread out. Late in the period with 3:30 left, the Penguins took the lead on a Brock McGinn goal. With just 1:30 left in the game though, the Sabres forced overtime with a really good looking power play and cashed in 6 on 4 with Craig Anderson on the bench as the captain Kyle Okposo sent it home. Great, clutch play for the Sabres to force OT.
Late in the period after taking a slash from Jake Guentzel, Jeff Skinner retaliated with what even as a Sabres fan I considered a dirty ass play, cross checking Guentzel twice with the second one up in the neck. I’m sure that will get reviewed by the league and he’ll probably get suspended. More importantly though, that gave the Pittsburgh a five minute power play to go through most of overtime.
As soon as we got that penalty I knew this game was over and I was right as the Pens scored 4 on 3 just 1:36 into overtime on a goal from Jeff Carter to win it. Pretty much as expected. You can’t give Pitt and this offense pretty much all of overtime against a lousy Sabres defense and expect to win. We were fucked.
Final: Sabres 3, Penguins 4
Solid, entertaining game tonight for the Sabres. The offense was good once again but the defense struggled at times and then after tying it up late in regulation and then pretty much giving the game away with the Skinner penalty sucked. Solid game tho.
We get another shot at it tomorrow in the second half of this home and home as we head to Pittsburgh tomorrow night to face them again. I’m sure it’ll have fireworks.
Go Sabres!
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