Sabres coach Don Granato said after Friday’s loss to New Jersey that his group would learn a lot from the game against a team that's tearing up the Eastern Conference. A rough first period, even though it ended scoreless, wasn’t remotely good enough. Nor was giving up three goals in the second.
By the third period, albeit too late, the Sabres found some legs and started to get some things accomplished. It went for naught, but now we see if there's some carryover to it.
“We found our game halfway through, and I think our guys elevated their compete,” Granato said Sunday in KeyBank Center. “… Once we got to our own game, we gave the other team a lot of trouble. We just didn't get to our own game quicker.”
Sabres General Manager Kevyn Adams declined to discuss Chychrun when asked by The Buffalo News on Sunday, but Adams reiterated that he’s always seeking ways to improve his roster in the short- and long-term.
You want your team to learn its lessons quickly, so it will be fascinating to see what the Sabres can do with an arduous schedule staring at them. They’re playing both participants in the 2022 Stanley Cup final here this week, meeting Tampa Bay (12-7-1) on Monday night and defending champion Colorado (12-6-1) on Thursday.
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In between is a Wednesday game at Detroit, which will no doubt be looking to avenge the 8-3 Halloween spooking it endured here on the night Tage Thompson piled up six points. (And let’s not overlook the fact that the 11-5-4 Wings actually have one more point than both of the Cup finalists).
Rookie defenseman Owen Power is a noted hockey nerd who got an ample fix of the Avalanche's six-game triumph over the Lightning in June that ended the Bolts' hopes of the NHL's first three-peat since the New York Islanders of the 1980s. The series proved instructive for Power.
"The biggest thing was just how fast they both play and how tough it was to score against them,” Power said. “It seemed like both teams really didn't give anything up. That's probably the biggest thing I took from it, just how fast they play and how little they give up even with how much they produce.”
The Devils are proving Ruff isn't out of touch. As we saw in Buffalo, he could play a defensive-oriented team relying on goaltending (think 1998, 1999, 2001 and 2010) and he could have a team skate like the wind (think 2006 and 2007).
"It was really an interesting series," Granato added. "I thought Colorado just wore them out physically. (Tampa Bay) had a lot of injuries to deal with ... I thought the bar was set pretty high by Colorado, and it was impressive as that series moved along to see them just take over. Tampa had played a lot of hockey the last few years, and it just looked like it reversed in that series."
Recent history doesn't bode well for the Sabres. The Sabres are just 1-9-1 in their last 11 against the Lightning dating to November 2018 – and have given up 32 goals in the last six defeats. Against Colorado, they have lost seven straight in regulation since December 2017, and have been outscored 32-12.
The task is skyscraper tall, but the Sabres were right there on Nov. 3 in Tampa, suffering a 5-3 defeat in a game they led in the third period and was still tied inside the final five minutes. It was a game played at a fever pitch in front of a sellout crowd of nearly 20,000 in Amalie Arena. It felt like April or May, and not early November. The Sabres haven't been involved in too many like that in recent years.
Power had to play nearly 29 minutes that night, with Rasmus Dahlin, Mattias Samuelsson and Henri Jokiharju out of the lineup. He had two assists, six hits and the only Tampa Bay goal he was on the ice for was an empty-netter. If there was ever a doubt he was ready for big minutes as a rookie – and maybe there was already none – all questions were erased that night.
Power doesn't shy away from big matchups. He knows the names he'll see again this week: Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos and Brayden Point of the Lightning, and Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Cale Makar of the Avalanche.
"They're a good team that really knows how to win, so that's probably the difference," Power said of Tampa Bay. "They have a lot more experience and know how to close out a game. We had a couple of really good chances to score, but they came down that same same shift and scored. They converted on their opportunities. They've got some some of the best players in the league, especially their top line (Point between Kucherov and Brandon Hagel). You've got make sure you know who's out there. If you don't, it's probably going in the back of your net."
As for the Avalanche, I went to the other side of the room to inquire with new Sabres center Tyson Jost. After parts of six years with the Avs, he didn’t get a chance to win the Stanley Cup with Colorado in the spring because he was traded to Minnesota in March. But he obviously knows what makes them tick.
"The Colorado Avalanche hosted Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final on Wednesday night, and they're a prime example of how rebuilds don't have to take forever. Or at least, in terms we're all too familiar with, 11 years going on 12," writes Mike Harrington.
"They're going to kind of suffocate you at their speed and always be on top of you," Jost said. "And that's something that we can kind of do here in Buffalo. We've talked about it. Play to our identity, and that's part of our identity. When we do that, we're going to be a really, really hard team to play against. You saw it in this last couple games here (wins over Montreal and St. Louis)."
The Avs, remember, were a 48-point disaster in 2016-17 and quickly got to 95 points the next season. It took four more years, however, for the ultimate breakthrough.
"I see a ton of similarities between my experience in Colorado and what I've seen here, just in the way we play and how we push the pace," Jost said. "We're always on top of pucks with our speed and our skill, and I like our commitment to play with that flow. And that's what Colorado is really, really good at. They play a really good half-ice game."
Maybe the Sabres can catch a bit of a schedule break here as both teams might be peering ahead to matchups in Boston. The Lightning head to TD Garden for a game there Tuesday on a back-to-back, while the Avalanche are there Saturday night. Granato said his team has to play "simple, hard and direct" this week to survive.
One thing's for sure: It's no break getting these two teams at home in the same week.
