Defense Asleep; Comeback Falls Short; Thompson Torches Devils in Loss to Sabres

Buffalo Sabres head coach, Lindy Ruff, must’ve felt a lot like New Jersey Devils head coach Sheldon Keefe when he faces the Toronto Maple Leafs. That last two times the Devils and Sabres met, they were in Czechia, Prague for the Global Series. The Devils dominated the Sabres in both tilts, thus leaving Ruff winless vs. the Devils this season. The ex-Devils had his final chance this season to defeat his former team on Sunday afternoon.

Well, Ruff didn’t have to hold onto that feeling much longer.

Buffalo had the Devils on their heels early, out-shooting New Jersey inside the first 10 minutes of the game by a wide margin.

The Sabres opened the scoring at the 8:11 mark of the first period, a goal by Tage Thompson, who took advantage of a rebound created by Owen Power and left by Jake Allen, and poor defense to clear the puck from the slot.

The Devils quickly got a chance to even the score after Rasmus Dahlin was called for interference two minutes later.

Despite the Devils working on their special teams on Saturday, and assistant coach Jeremy Colliton pushing his units for more urgency, the Devils didn’t convert on their first advantage.

Buffalo then went on to take advantage of some poor defense by the Devils. J.J. Peterka scored the Sabres’ second goal after Thompson beat Jesper Bratt in a foot-race to the puck heading towards New Jersey’s end of the ice. After Thompson won the puck battle, he found Peterka on Allen’s back door for an easy tap-in.

New Jersey received their second power play of the game, and a chance to cut Buffalo’s lead in half.

However, an aggressive Buffalo penalty kill gave Dougie Hamilton trouble at the Sabres’ blueline. Ryan McLeod forced the turnover, and tripled the Sabres’ lead on a breakaway, making it a 3-0 game going into the first intermission.

The start of the second period was similar to the first. However, the Devils finally responded to the Sabres’ onslaught just under five minutes into the middle frame. Below the Buffalo net, Hamilton fed Paul Cotter in the slot and got a shot on Ukka-Pekka Luukkonen. The Sabres goaltender made the initial save, however, Cotter pushed the loose puck over the goal line.

Cotter and the Devils celebrated, yet the referees waved the potential goal off immediately.

After the Toronto situation room reviewed the sequence, it was determined the puck crossed the Buffalo goal line by the slimmest of margins, and the Devils cut the Sabres’ lead to two goals.

The Devils had some life in them following Cotter’s goal. The Devils accrued a handful of chances throughout the middle frame. Yet, near the end of the second period, Jason Zucker finished a sequence to make it a 4-1 game. The Devils, struggling in their own end, were out of position defensively, and chasing the puck around their zone.

Nico Daws started the third period for the Devils, relieving Allen, who gave up four goals in 40 minutes.

In the first 18 seconds, Cotter snuck a shot over the shoulder of Luukkonen on the rush, cutting the Buffalo lead to 4-2.

At 14:49 of the third, Stefan Noesen caught Thompson with an illegal check to the head. The Devils forward received a major & match penalty.

On the penalty kill, Bratt found a streaking Jack Hughes during an odd-man rush, and Hughes scored five-hole to bring the game within one goal, the first shorthanded goal of Hughes’ career.

The Devils killed off the Noesen five-minute major. However, the late push was too little too late.

They didn’t take advantage of the momentum they received for going plus-one on the five-minute penalty kill. Instead, they went goal-less on multiple power play’s through the remainder of the period and left points on the table.

Thompson left the game after the Noesen hit, skating in just 13:39 of the contest. However, his goal and two assists propelled the Sabres to victory as the buzzer rang in regulation, and the Devils couldn’t complete the comeback.

Allen made 23 saves on 27 shots in the first 40 minutes.

Daws stopped 7/7 pucks in relief.

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