Hall Scores His First as Sabres Drop Opener to Capitals 6-4

Photo: Sara Schmidle/Getty Images

Marcel Louis-Jaques, our favorite ESPN Bills reporter once described Buffalo Bills fans to have “clairvoyant pessimism” when discussing the Bills Super Bowl hopes this year.

Well, Buffalo sports fans have plenty of clairvoyant pessimism to spare when it comes to this Buffalo Sabres season, and it came to fruition on opening night in a 6-4 loss to the Washington Capitals. 

Game Recap:

The Sabres were able to pull within one goal late with a Victor Oloffson goal late in the 3rd, but it was too little too late. The Capitals buried an empty netter shortly after and won their season opener on the road in Buffalo. 

The night started with a lack of energy and effort from the Sabres end. The first 10 minutes were sloppy and it ended up showing on the scoreboard as Nicklas Backstrom buried a pass from Ovechkin following not one, but two Rasmus Ristolainen turnovers.

Ristolainen was a low spot yet again for Buffalo. The fact that he is STILL on this roster is beyond me. I don’t know how he has survived this long, but maybe it’s because other NHL teams see what I see. He cannot make a smooth breakout pass. His passes continuously bounce off the boards, off of teammates’ skates, or can’t be corralled because they aren’t made with touch. 

The bright spot early in the night was Taylor Hall getting his first goal with the Sabres on a beautiful powerplay set up from Victor Oloffson and Jack Eichel. 

The penalty kill continued to haunt Buffalo though, as Rasmus Dahlin took a penalty for holding and TJ Oshie buried a powerplay marker to take a 2-1 lead into the first intermission.  

The Sabres had no answer for the trio of Ovechkin, Oshie and Backstrom. Oshie and Ovechkin assisted on a John Carlson goal midway through the second to extend the lead to 3-1. Brendan Dillon buried the 4th Capitals goal shortly after their second powerplay of the game ended to extend the lead even further. 

The Sabres continued to fight back though. An energetic shift from Reider-Eakin-Cozens ended with Tobias Reider getting his first goal with the Sabres in a night of firsts to bring the total to 4-2 heading into the second intermission.

In the third, Buffalo started off with a bang after Jake McCabe blasted a one-timer past Samsonov to cut the lead to 4-3. The Sabres have to be kicking themselves over the fact that they were unable to test the young goaltender more often, only amassing 26 shots for the game. He looked shaky in this start and but the high-level chances for the Sabres were too few and far between. 

Just 26 seconds after, the Capitals answered right back after a terrible, terrible turnover in the defensive zone by Eric Staal.

Staal ended up leaving this game after a blindside hit from Nic Dowd and his status is uncertain for tomorrow night’s game.

Garnet Hathaway sealed the victory with an empty netter at the end. These two teams will meet again tomorrow night in Buffalo for a 7 p.m. puck drop. 

Official Three Stars:

Not great for the guys in blue. All Capitals.

1st Star – TJ Oshie 1G 2A 3 P

2nd Star – Nicklas Bäckström 1G 1A 2P

3rd Star – Alex Ovechkin 0G 2A 2P

Overview:

Overall, I think this was a good effort for the Sabres after a 10-month layoff. They clearly need to get some chemistry going, especially in the defensive end where at times guys looked lost on their assignments. The penalty kill remains an issue, and it cannot simply be blamed on the players anymore. This was a brand new group and both times they allowed high danger chances and allowed the Capitals to build momentum.

Dahlin-Montour as a pairing is a problem. Dahlin still needs a top-pairing defenseman to help him along in his development. He should not be carrying Montour on the defensive end. Ristolainen is still getting too many minutes but that issue has not gone away for years. They need to buy into team defense as a group to be able to stay in these games. 

Hall and Eichel are still a duo to be excited about. They generated some exciting offense including a 2 on 1 that Jack JUST missed the net on. They were dangerous and created offense for whoever was on the ice with them. 

All in all, there are positive things for this group to build on after game one. Let’s hope for a more consistent effort from start to finish for game two. 

Jake Majka is a web contributor for the Sabres and the co-host of Happy Hour Hoops.