Recap: Coyotes Fall Behind Early, Lose to Sabres

BUFFALO --Christian Fischer scored a goal and Darcy Kuemper made 30 saves for the Coyotes in a 3-1 loss to the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center on Thursday night.

Buffalo's Casey Mittelstadt and Jeff Skinner notched goals within the first 6:54, and Evan Rodrigues added an insurance goal at 6:28 of the third period. All three tallies came immediately after Arizona turnovers.
"Some of the veterans, I guess they are taking it upon themselves to make a play," Coyotes Head Coach Rick Tocchet said. "We've just got to manage the game a little better, manage the puck a little better ... You lose and win as a team. So, regardless of the guy, it seems like we are making giveaway mistakes repeatedly. And it's not a lot of them, they just end up in our net."

The defensive pairing of Alex Goligoski and Niklas Hjalmarsson had a rough night for Arizona; both were minus-3.
"Forced a couple of plays (in the first period) and you can't do that, especially on the road against a high-powered team like that," Goligoski said. "They've got some good skill. Just made some plays that I shouldn't have made."
Hjalmarsson floated an errant drop pass to Goligoski to set up Buffalo's final goal.
"I was out there for all of their goals so it's obviously not a great night for myself," Hjalmarsson said. "I'll definitely take the blame for that. I think other than that, the rest of the team played good enough to win the game."
• Tocchet said the giveaways went both ways, but the Coyotes failed to convert Buffalo's into goals.
"I thought we missed the net a lot up high," Tocchet said. "We're not making their goalie make any saves. That's tough."
• Trailing 2-0, Fischer scored his goal at 7:19 of the first period, just 25 seconds after Skinner's goal. The backhanded wraparound tally was Fischer's seventh of the season and his third in the past six games.

• Fischer missed nearly the entire second period after being slammed headfirst into the boards by Buffalo's Jack Eichel on his first shift of the stanza. No penalty was called on the play, which left Fischer with some facial stitches.
"I didn't really have a look at it, but it is what it is," Fischer said. "It's hockey. I just kind of went into the boards there a little funky. There's nothing really to talk about."

• Arizona, which has lost four games in a row after winning four straight, again played minus top-line forward Alex Galchenyuk, who is nursing a lower-body injury.
• Stats that jump off the Event Summary: Lawson Crouse delivered eight hits and Brad Richardson won 10 of 18 face-offs.