There is competition, and there is education. Goodness, did the Buffalo Sabres get a ton of both Saturday afternoon.
The 4-3 defeat at the hands of the Florida Panthers in KeyBank Center might look like any other loss in the standings, but don't be fooled. Coach Don Granato was so pumped after it, you felt like he wanted to run his team back out on the ice Sunday night against the same opponent.
There was a hint of a smile on the coach's face, and a glint in his eye. He saw the raw anger in his locker room after this game, and loved it. He saw the mistakes his team made that he can work on at practice come Monday (Woe, that 0-for-8 power play in two games).
Granato talked about how his skaters played with more chips on their shoulders as the game moved on. How they initiated more of the agitation, rather than always responding to it.
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"We started a little bit late, as far as the ultra competitiveness. We didn't initiate enough early, but we started initiating more as the game went along," Granato said. "We responded, which is key, especially with where we're at being as young as we are, regaining an identity. I loved that response. I thought this was an outstanding, outstanding Game 2 to have with a level this competitive."
Perfect point, there. This didn't feel like any sort of Oct. 15 skate in Delaware Park. There were some legitimate March and April hostilities out there. The Sabres probably grabbed their phones as soon as they returned to the locker room to check the schedule – and had to be bummed to find they won't see the Panthers again until Martin Luther King Day in January.
Understand the perspective here. The Panthers had 122 points last year and captured the Presidents' Trophy. They won all four meetings against the Sabres, scoring 22 goals in the process. Good luck winning when you're giving up 5 1/2 goals a game to anyone. The Sabres didn't have much against Florida.
The scores of the first three matchups were 7-4, 6-1 and 5-3, and the Sabres were mostly non-competitive in each. The final meeting came April 8 in Sunrise, a barnbuner much like we saw here Saturday. Florida pulled out a 4-3 victory on a goal by Sam Bennett with 37.3 seconds left after Buffalo had a 3-1 lead after 20 minutes.
The Panthers have a different look now, with Paul Maurice behind the bench and notorious gnat Matthew Tkachuk on the ice after the summer blockbuster with Calgary that sent Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar to the Canadian Rockies.
There is no limit to how despised Tkachuk will become this season in Atlantic Division places like Tampa Bay, Toronto and Boston. Let alone when he meets up with his brother, Brady, in Ottawa. And he's already on everyone's, um, list in Buffalo after one meeting.
Alex Tuch took issue with him during one first-period scrum. Ilya Lyubushkin, some nice sandpaper added to the Sabres' lineup, went after him at another point. Tuch, Dylan Cozens and Rasmus Dahlin were after him at the final horn. This game seemed on the edge all afternoon.
Alex Tuch was NOT a fan of this play from Matt Tkachuk. pic.twitter.com/UOZflTG2No
— The Charging Buffalo (@TheChargingBUF) October 15, 2022
"There's some guys over there I'll be playing against for the next eight-plus years," Tkachuk, who signed an eight-year, $76-million deal on July 22, said slyly after the game. "Especially with some of the stuff that happened at the end that they did, we'll remember that for a while."
For his part, Tkachuk had a goal and an assist. He got the last laugh, for now.
"That's the type of hockey he's going to play. I knew it," said Tuch, who got a regular first-hand look when he was in Vegas. "It's something that he wants to bring to the table. And I'd say a lot of us don't really want to give him the time of day. Sometimes you have to stick up for your teammates. Sometimes (his style) is good. And then, other times, just let him kind of run around out there and take himself out of the play. Don't try to put too big of an emphasis on one guy in particular."
"He's around everything, man," said Panthers coach Paul Maurice. "He is involved, to say the least. That's his game, right? There's no show going on. That's just who he is. ... He's just an unusual, very unique man, that style of agitator with incredible hands."
You didn't like the ticky-tack officiating at times during this one, or a penalty kill unit that saw the Sabres give up two power-play goals, as it was a game ultimately lost on special teams. But Buffalo's pushback was good, with Zemgus Girgensons scoring a tying goal late in the first period 42 seconds after Tkachuk's goal, and Dahlin getting the Sabres back within one in the final minute of the second on a laser 76 seconds after old friend Brandon Montour swooped in on a loose puck to put the visitors up 4-2.
But the Panthers locked this one down in the final 20 minutes, allowing only five shots on goal in the third period. It was championship mettle, the kind they simply didn't have in getting swept by Tampa Bay in the second round of the playoffs in May. You saw the impact of Maurice quite clearly right there.
The Sabres might have been frustrated by the lack of offense in crunch time and the outcome. But especially against this opponent, they emerged with a much more optimistic view than games against Florida last season.
"Last year, we would have probably sat back a little bit," Tuch said. "It's different, definitely felt different."
"There's a fire in our guys, and it burned, burned hotter every moment that game," Granato said. "So lots of great opportunity for us to look at that film and see stuff that we left on the table."
