Sabres gave 'everything they had' in Game 7 OT loss to Canadiens

BUFFALO -- There was a twist to the tears that fell from the eyes of the Buffalo Sabres late on Monday night, as they tried to digest the ending to their season. It felt like it had come so fast, so suddenly, a single shot, off a single stick, sailing over the pad of Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen for a 3-2 loss in overtime, one moment that would torture them for, well, they didn’t know how long.

“It sucks,” Luukkonen said. “It’s nothing else. It sucks.”

“(Freaking) sucks,” Buffalo defenseman Rasmus Dahlin echoed. 

“It’s tough, it stings,” Buffalo forward Tage Thompson said. “I thought we played hard all year to get to this point. I don’t think anyone in this room felt like we were done yet. Just disappointed. It sucks.”

It was hard to argue with that, with the flood of emotions and sadness and pain. 

But there was more, hidden behind the disappointment. Because just being there, just being in that moment, in Game 7, was in many ways a triumph, despite the devastation, the cruelty of that Alex Newhook overtime goal.

This was, in the end, a massive step for an organization and a team that had waited so long. 

And that was the twist. Because they would have taken this, despite the pain, after all those years of hopes dashed, all those years of early summers. They would have taken a spot in the second round, a Game 7 at KeyBank Center, a 50-50 shot at the Eastern Conference Final, even the 3-2 overtime loss to the Montreal Canadiens. 

Asked if he was able to appreciate that, Lindy Ruff said, “I am.”

“This is a giant step for us,” Ruff continued. “A giant step for all the players to really get a feel of what it’s really like. To be proud of being a Buffalo Sabre, to be proud of playing here. 

“When I took the job, I thought, number one, I wanted these guys to like being a Buffalo Sabre. I think they like being a Sabre and I think they made our city proud. It wasn’t the result we wanted, and to a man, they’re all disappointed. But they gave them (the city) everything they had in the can.”

That didn’t make it hurt any less, though. 

That didn’t take away the sting of being so, so, so close to moving on, of having a matchup with the Carolina Hurricanes if they could get just one more win at home. Which was why, after Luukkonen skated off the ice following Newhook's game-winner at 11:22 of overtime, the Sabres goalie ripped off his mask and threw it down the tunnel, anguish evident on his face.

“When you look around the room after a loss like that, you feel pain,” Thompson said. “You just see all the guys, and all the sacrifices and the hard work they put into the season, and not for themselves, but for the guy sitting next to them.”

It was a chance they had burned for, worked for, trained and lifted and practiced for, flown hundreds of miles and missed moments and hoped for. It wouldn’t go their way. 

They had started to truly believe, in December, that this team was different, that this team could do what the Sabres hadn’t done in so many years. They had started to believe in the possibilities. 

This was a team that had been last in the Eastern Conference after a 7-4 loss to the Calgary Flames on Dec. 8, sitting at 11-14-4. This was a team that had been down by two goals to the Boston Bruins in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference First Round, its first Stanley Cup Playoff game in 15 seasons, a team that rallied with less than 10 minutes remaining in the third period to start this run. 

It wouldn’t end for a month. 

“This was a team that, they never quit,” Ruff said. “They probably had every excuse to at times, but they always found a reason to win.”

Which was why they weren’t cowed, even going down 2-0 in the first period, on goals by Phillip Danault (4:30) and Zachary Bolduc (14:29). They turned the game, tilted the ice, and took over in the second period. They fought to get one back (Jordan Greenway, 13:19 of the second), and then another (Dahlin, 6:27 of the third). 

They found their pressure and their speed and their momentum, momentum they had earned back in a commanding 8-3 win in an elimination Game 6 on the road at Bell Centre on Saturday. They had found the resilience that had been their hallmark all season. 

“I think everyone in the room felt like we were winning that game,” Thompson said. “I don’t really know how else to put it.”

Until they didn’t. 

Until the goal went in. 

Until it was the Canadiens celebrating. 

“It hurts,” Ruff said. “I told the team it hurts. That pain will go away, but I won’t let this one game define the season we had. I told the players how proud I was of them. The battle that we took into Game 6 in Montreal, and then came back here and gave ourselves every chance to win. So, this one game doesn’t define our season for us.”

It shouldn’t. 

There was, at least among the Sabres faithful, disappointment tinged with pride, sadness laced with belief. It had been so long, so very long, since they watched a season end with optimism, with confidence in the future. 

Which was why they stayed and chanted, stayed and cheered, thanking these players with one final, “Let’s Go Buffalo,” as the team raised sticks in tribute, before a summer shorter -- and more filled with hope -- than any in recent memory.

“Just the energy in the city, the energy around our team again,” Ruff said of how he felt walking off the ice. “I’m so proud of our fans. And I know that this hurts them as much as it hurts us, but the energy around our team, around the city, in this building, outside the building: This was the first time our players got to experience something like this.”

There will be more nights like this at KeyBank Center, more trips to the playoffs, perhaps even trips that end later than mid-May. They will learn from this playoff run, from this Game 7. They will be back. 

Because for the first time in a long time, the end of a season didn’t feel like an ending for the Sabres. It felt like merely a beginning.