TAMPA, Fla. – By far, the best part of the day came in the morning, when No. 1 overall pick Owen Power hit the ice for his first workout with the Buffalo Sabres. It was an optional morning skate and not nearly the intensity of the full practice the 19-year-old figures to see Monday in Toronto.
The Sabres surely need to find that intensity. Because there wasn't much of it during the game Sunday in Amalie Arena.
Goals by Corey Perry and Ondrej Palat in a 17-second span in the first half of the first period put the Sabres on their heels for good and the Tampa Bay Lightning blitzed Buffalo 5-0 before a roaring sellout crowd of 19,092.
The No. 1 overall pick's first steps with his NHL team took place during an optional morning skate after he signed his entry-level deal on Saturday.
The Lightning (44-20-8) moved one point ahead of the Boston Bruins – who lost 4-2 at Washington earlier in the day – in the battle for third place in the Atlantic Division. Tampa Bay snapped an 0-2-2 skid and avoided its first five-game losing streak since 2014. The Sabres (26-37-11) fell to 0-3 on their road trip over the last four days.
People are also reading…
"We struggled. We complicated the simple and we did not look like ourselves," coach Don Granato said. "Even the offensive stuff we generated, we had no sharpness and no execution. Uncharacteristic, but it's a sign of fatigue, and emotional drain."
"I just thought we sat back," winger Kyle Okposo said. "I thought we just got tight, and I think that's been an uncharacteristic thing for our team in the last month and a half. When we've given up goals, we haven't really sat back and haven't changed the way we played. We just were too hesitant in the first period."
It was a disastrous game for the Buffalo defense. The Sabres suffered from giveaways and miscommunication in their own zone on several Tampa Bay scoring chances. The shots on goal in the game were even at 28-28, but the quality of chances the Lightning had against Craig Anderson was much higher than what Buffalo managed against Lightning backup Brian Elliott.
Anderson couldn't do much on four of the five Tampa Bay goals. But the first one, by Perry at 9:23 of the first, was an along-the-ice shot that seemed to surprise him as it skittered through him into the net. Palat then scored at 9:40 off a Brayden Point feed on a 3-on-1 break after a giveaway by Casey Fitzgerald sent the Lightning away.
Any thought of a Buffalo comeback quickly went away early in the second period after former Sabres prospect Brandon Hagel tipped home a backhand from in tight at 1:12 for his 24th goal of the season between Chicago and Tampa Bay. Nikita Kucherov slammed home a one-timer off a beautiful pass from defenseman Ryan McDonagh at 4:28.
Ross Colton made it 5-0 off a Steven Stamkos feed at 2:09 of the third to give some added spice to the result. Buffalo defenseman Mattias Samuelsson had a minus-4 rating in the game, while Fitzgerald and Okposo both rang up minus-3s.
"This was the first game in a very, very long time we didn't come to our own identity that we want to be as a group, which is work hard and make the other team make mistakes," forward Rasmus Asplund said.
The Sabres simply have to wipe this one away and move to Toronto, where the eyes of Buffalo fans everywhere will be on Power's debut.
"It's obviously exciting when you know you have somebody like him coming in," Okposo said. "I spent some time with him yesterday, and he seems like a phenomenal kid, great head on his shoulders. We're looking forward to see what he can do on the ice and I'm sure he's gonna have a ton of fun here these last eight games trying to show everybody what he can do."
The pride of Michigan via Mississauga, Ont., is going to have a chance to play eight games this season, a veritable hockey lab for the Buffalo coaches to assimilate the No. 1 overall pick into NHL life on and off the ice and give him a huge head start on the 2022-23 campaign.
Here are some other observations on the day:
1. A change at forward
Sabres center Cody Eakin missed a game for the first time since Halloween, failing to make the lineup due to an unspecified injury. Granato said Eakin will be reassessed on Monday.
Anders Bjork, whose giveaway led to the first goal, came back into the lineup and played with Dylan Cozens and Vinny Hinostroza. Peyton Krebs, who has been at left wing on that line, moved into Eakin's slot between Kyle Okposo and Zemgus Girgensons.
2. No Vasilevskiy, no problem
The Sabres didn't face Andrei Vasilevskiy, Tampa Bay's Vezina Trophy-winning goalie, and that was no problem for the Lightning and a big one for Buffalo. The reason? Lightning backup Elliott continued his careerlong domination of the Sabres. Elliott improved to 18-4-2 in his career against Buffalo with five shutouts. He entered the game with a 1.93 goals-against average and .934 save percentage against the Sabres.
Vasilevskiy had started 56 of Tampa Bay's previous 71 games, including Friday's overtime loss to Boston. Elliott made a huge save in the first period on an Asplund one-timer off a Jacob Bryson pass while the game was still scoreless, and it came shortly before Tampa Bay's quick two-goal burst put the Bolts in front.
"'Brys made an unbelievable pass to me," Asplund said. "I need to put that in the net, but he made a good save. Just a bad bounce."
"You miss the chances we had early, and it's like a free pass," Granato said. "You're not holding the other team accountable for some of their mistakes."
Dave Mishkin calls Brian Elliott's huge save on Rasmus Asplund #GoBolts #BUFvsTBL pic.twitter.com/OKxrCMEaHH
— Bucs Rays Bolts (@BucsRaysBoltsYT) April 10, 2022
3. Numbers games
• It the seventh time the Sabres have been shut out this season and the sixth time they have lost a game by at least five goals. That also happened in the last meeting against Tampa Bay, a 6-1 loss Jan. 11 in KeyBank Center.
• The Lightning outscored Buffalo 11-1 in the teams' final two meetings after the Sabres' 5-1 win in October in Buffalo.
• Tampa Bay had 12 players register points in the game, but Palat (goal and assist) was the only one with two.
• Neither team had a power play in the first two periods, and the clubs each managed just one shot apiece with the man advantage in the game.
4. Next
The Sabres were slated to fly to Toronto after the game and will practice Monday at the Leafs' training facility in suburban Etobicoke. The teams meet for the final time this season Tuesday in Scotiabank Arena. Buffalo's next home game, and Power's presumptive debut at home, will be Thursday night against St. Louis.
