The Buffalo Sabres were unable to complete a comeback in their 6-3 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes at Lenovo Center on Saturday. The Sabres entered the third period trailing 4-1 after Eric Robinson scored for Carolina in the opening minute of the period. Buffalo responded with goals from Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch, narrowing the deficit to one.
Despite generating 10 scoring chances in the final period, according to Natural Stat Trick, the Sabres could not get another puck past Hurricanes goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov. Carolina secured their win with two empty-net goals late in regulation.
“Honestly, all game I thought we worked extremely hard,” said Thompson. “We play like that, we’re gonna find ourselves on the right side of the game points-wise, winning those.”
This marks Buffalo’s second consecutive regulation loss following a seven-game point streak during which they posted a record of 3-0-4.
The team played without five forwards from their opening night lineup, including Josh Norris, Zach Benson, Jiri Kulich, and Jason Zucker—all of whom have spent time on Buffalo’s top line this season. Captain Rasmus Dahlin also missed the game due to personal matters in Sweden; Jacob Bryson took his place on defense.
Buffalo managed to control portions of play in the first period, which ended tied at one goal each after Sebastian Aho scored for Carolina and Owen Power answered for Buffalo less than four minutes later.
Sabres coach Lindy Ruff commented on missed opportunities early: “I thought we hurt ourselves with missed nets early in the game,” Ruff said. “We had opportunities to make them pay for their mistakes.”
Carolina outshot Buffalo 15-4 in the second period and added goals from Andrei Svechnikov and Jesperi Kotkaniemi. Svechnikov scored on a power-play one-timer while Kotkaniemi finished off a long shift with another one-timer goal.
“We got hemmed in the D-zone a couple times there,” Thompson said. “You get tired and it takes you a couple (shifts) to get your wind back, then you’re just trying to get the puck out to have energy to play offense. It gets you on your heels and that’s kind of what happened to us a little bit in the second.”
Goaltender Alex Lyon stopped two breakaways later in that period as Conor Timmins nearly reduced Carolina’s lead but hit the post before intermission.
Robinson extended Carolina’s lead at 4-1 early in the third before Buffalo responded with two rush goals—Tuch’s shot off the far-side post and Thompson converting McLeod’s no-look drop pass—but ultimately fell short.
“I think you look at that game as a whole, obviously the loss sucks,” Thompson said. “But I think you play that way as a group 82 games you’re gonna find yourselves on the right side of things.”
For this matchup, Buffalo adjusted its top line by centering Ryan McLeod between Thompson and Tuch against Carolina’s shutdown trio of William Carrier, Jordan Staal, and Jordan Martinook. With this configuration at even strength, Buffalo outscored Carolina 2-1 and led 7-1 in scoring chances during those minutes per Natural Stat Trick data.
“We were trying to just get it out of our zone as quickly as possible,” Tuch said. “A couple of really good plays by guys to get the puck out of the zone and we were just trying to outskate them, put them on their heels and we were able to get some goals.”
Noah Ostlund recorded his first NHL assist by setting up Power’s goal after Isak Rosen and Jack Quinn won possession deep in Carolina territory. Ostlund later set up Bryson for another chance but it was broken up by defenders.
The Sabres will continue their road trip Wednesday against Utah with coverage beginning at 8:30 p.m., followed by puck drop at 9 p.m.
