Sabres after dark was back tonight in Denver, as the Sabres lost 5-1 to the Avalanche in a game that wasn’t as awful as the score. Coming into tonight’s game, Buffalo played pretty well recently, picking up points in our last three games with wins over the Yotes and Bruins in that span (both of which I couldn’t blog). Besides the terrible first period, the slow start, and the offense not getting much going, it actually wasn’t an awful game. Reoccurring issues.

The Avalanche got the first goal of the game 5:25 into the game, with Mikko Rantanen pulling UPL out of the net then scoring a wraparound goal on the empty net after a great drop pass from Nathan MacKinnon on the zone entry. With a ton of chaos out in front of the net, Val Nichushkin got the puck off the rebound and made it a 2-0 Colorado lead with 9:32 left in the first. It didn’t take much longer for them to score again. On a giveaway by Erik Johnson, who got a huge tribute and a long standing ovation in his return to Denver, but has been the worst player on the ice for the Sabres all season, Miles Wood came tearing up the ice and gave the Avs a three goal lead with 8:05 left in the period. It took until less than a minute and a half for the Sabres to get a shot on goal, and they scored on the second shot, as Zach Benson right in front of the goal in the mixer got the tip in on the rebound of Dahlin’s shot with 1:22 left in the first, getting Buffalo back within two. Although we finished that period well, terrible start for the Sabres. To not get a shot till the last 1:30 of the game is pathetic, as we got outshot 15-5.

The second period was scoreless, but MUCH better period for the Sabres, flipping the script and outshooting the Avs 16-3. Ton of physicality that period, which was pretty fun to watch.

Colorado opened the third period scoring just 2:40 into it, with Sam Malinski ripping a beautiful one timer for his first NHL goal, making it a 4-1 Avs game. On the power play, Nichushkin got his second of the game from the Nate Dogg on a nice cross crease pass to pretty much ice off the game, if it wasn’t already with 5-1 lead and just 6:49 left in the game.

FINAL: Sabres 1, Avalanche 5

Despite the score being so lopsided, I didn’t think was an awful game for the Sabres but the same issues still continued tonight. We had a completely horrendous start and getting into a hole so early. After that, we had the chances and couldn’t score. Part of that was likely because the Avs sat back a bit with the lead, but we still couldn’t get more than a goal all night. Pathetic. We outshot Colorado 30-29 but got a bit outplayed, by an expected goal rate of 3.11-2.47. It just wasn’t as horrible after the terrible start in the first. Reoccurring themes of a bad start and a lack of scoring. 

Back at it again tomorrow night in Vegas against Eichel and the Cup Champs. Spoiler alert, it won’t go well for the Sabres.

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