The loss to Chicago was a reflection of the areas that Housley and veterans on the Sabres have stressed throughout the season: decision making as they move up the ice and attention to detail away from the puck. Turnovers and missed coverage fueled the Blackhawks' transition, resulting in grade-A opportunities for their star players.
Speaking after practice, Kyle Okposo echoed the sentiment that Housley and Jason Pominville shared postgame, calling for a better respect of the defensive zone.
"I think we've just been giving up a lot, giving up a lot of chances," Okposo said. "Right now, they're going in the back of our net, so until we kind of figure out that we have to play well away from [the puck] and have to defend harder, we're going to give up chances. Unless our goalies want to stand on their heads every single night, then that's not a good recipe for success."
Okposo said he could see signs of the Sabres' tight-checking, defense-first identity starting to slip during the team's 10-game winning streak in November. He said part of the team's current learning process is being able to maintain an identity through the highs and lows of a season.
"I think the really good teams, they don't play well, they lose, their mentality is they're going to win the next game," Okposo said. "If they win, it's like, 'Eh, yeah, we played well. We're going to win the next game too.' That's the mentality of a really good hockey team."
In adverse times, getting too low has meant looking to create offense at the expense of defense.
"We just have to find a way to get back to our identity, everyone buying into that every shift," Okposo said. "It's not like every shift we're giving up chances. There's just some times when we're pressing for offense and we're not making the right decisions, then the puck's back in our own end and we're not defending hard enough. It's not every shift, but it's definitely a lot more than it should be."
"That group in there really cares a lot," Housley added. "I think that's when we get too low, we lose. I think it's just when we're in an adverse situation and something doesn't go right or it goes wrong, it's how we react to that from that point. I don't think we've handled that very well and we talked about it as a coaching staff with our leadership group how we have to change that moving forward."
