Tonight the Sabres were on Long Island in the second half of a back-to-back after a 3-2 loss to the Oilers last night and once again lost 3-2, to the hands of the New York Islanders.
Pretty boring, but evenly played first period, going into the first intermission with a 0-0 tied game. Both teams generated eight shots on goal and this is already a slow grind of a game.
The Sabres got on the board first, exactly five minutes into the second period on a beautiful shot from Dylan Cozens after a great zone entry through the Isles defense. With 7:22 left in the period, the Islanders tied it up with Casey Cizikas tipping it past UPL right in front of the net. We got outplayed in that second period, getting outshot 17-7.
The Isles took their first lead of the game just 1:51 into the third period, Josh Bailey capitalized on a rebound and scored on a wide open net with Luukkonen completely out of position. It didn’t take long for Buffalo to tie it up though as Captain Kyle Okposo tied up the game on a screened shot from the blue line only 3:12 later, making it a 2-2 game on a shot that Sorokin didn’t see at all. After a lengthy review with 12:23 left in the third, the Isles took the lead again with Hudson Fasching scoring on a goal that he kicked into the net. But the officially determined it to be a good goal.
FINAL: Sabres 2, Islanders 3
Boring loss but pretty much what I expected out of this game. The Sabres got outshot 39-24 and we got outplayed significantly by an expected goal rate of 4.73-1.45. We didn’t really play a completely horrible game tonight but this is the type of win you need to win to hold a playoff spot in such a huge spot where you need to win against another team that already holds one of the Wild Card spots in the East. Especially sucked that we had a great chance late to tie it up and couldn’t do it. Decent game for UPL but it wasn’t enough for the Sabres defense.
We’re back at it Thursday night at home with the Stars coming into tonight for a cross-conference matchup.
Go Sabres.
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