It started early yesterday afternoon for the Buffalo Sabres with a pregame, feel-good celebration of Jason Pominville's 1000th NHL game, which actually occurred against Ottawa on Thursday prior to the first game of their home-and-home with the Senators. The Sabres and the KeyBank Center crowd saluted Pominville with a pre-game celebration and the team hit the ice some adrenaline.
After a choppy start the Sabres began to pick up the pace with a terrific shift by their third line played mostly in the Ottawa zone and a minute later Rasmus Ristolainen dropped a long stretch pass to Jack Eichel who went in on a breakaway with a head of steam creating some oohs and ahs from the hometown fans. Although no goals were produced, the momentum was clearly in Buffalo's favor and the third line broke through with a goal by Kyle Okposo off the rush five minutes into the game.
The Sabres would tack on two more goals--one by Jeff Skinner and another by Pominville--and left the first period with a 3-0 lead.
Buffalo continued to pour it on in the second period as Skinner scored again and Zemgus Girgensons scored his first of the season :13 seconds later to make it 5-0. After Ottawa got on the board, Pominville answered with his second of the game only :29 seconds later and Conor Sheary made it 7-1 with this blast :42 seconds after that:
Patrick Berglund and Casey Mittelstadt finished off the scoring for Buffalo.
The lack of secondary scoring has been a problem most of this young season for Buffalo and as of late the Sabres top line of Eichel, Skinner and Pominville has been carrying the weight. They were at it again last night as the trio combined for four goals and five assists. Since head coach Phil Housley put that line together in Los Angeles seven games ago they've combined for a total of 16 goals, 22 assists and have a +24 rating. The Sabres are 4-1-2 in those games.
Pominville is on a seven-game point streak (7+6) and since that streak began, according to Sabres PR, he and Skinner (8+5) are tied for the lead in NHL points over that span with Eichel (1+11) ranking third.
Sabres PR also points out that the Sabres nine-goal output is the most since January 7, 2009 at Edmonton (10-2 win) and the most at home since a 10-1 win vs. the Atlanta Thrashers on January 18, 2008.
As a team, the plus-7 goal differential last night put them in the plus column overall at +1 and once again they were able to stop a slide. The Sabres had gone into yesterday's game on an 0-2-1 losing streak.
Individually some Sabres players were able to get off the schneid. As mentioned, Girgensons scored his first of the season and Berglund scored his first at even strength. Those two, along with linemate Johan Larsson make up Buffalo's fourth line and combined for five points yesterday (2+3.)
Defenseman Marco Scandella's plus-5 moved him into the positive side of the plus/minus rating (+2) and d-man Casey Nelson, who set up Okposo for the opening goal after joining the rush was a plus-4 yesterday and his plus-6 on the season places him third on the team behind Skinner (+12) and Pominville (+9.)
Yesterday's game obviously did a lot numbers-wise for both the team and individual players but maybe more important is what it did for the fan-base. There was the feel-good ceremony for Pominville prior and the team didn't waste it. As the goals kept coming the crowd got louder and after Girgensons scored Buffalo's fifth goal play-by-play man Dan Dunleavy said, "This building as been waiting a long time to have this feeling."
It sure has.
*****
There's no rest for Buffalo as they hit the road and headed to New York City for a 7 PM game against the Rangers tonight. With the country setting back their clocks an hour as Daylight Savings Time ended in the wee hours of the morning, the Sabres will get an extra hours worth of sleep.
Their game last night was a doozy and it should have given them quite the boost heading into Madison Square Garden. And they'll need it. Buffalo is only 3-6-1 against the Rangers in their last 10 games on the road.
That said, the Rangers returned back home from a four-game road trip that took them to Chicago then to Southern California. Usually there's a lull for the team returning home but the Sabres just faced that in Ottawa on Thursday and lax play put them in a 3-0 hole at the end of two periods. Perhaps they learned a little bit at Canadian Tire Center.
It will be interesting to see how much an effect yesterday's thumping of the Senators will have on Buffalo's young core as they try to ride that breakout game into NYC. The Rangers are rested and ready.
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