Lindy Ruff felt it looked familiar as the Florida Panthers played their disciplined game in KeyBank Center on Monday, using their sticks and bodies to quickly fill shot lanes.
It was exactly the sort of stifling defense the Buffalo Sabres have come to play during their recent run of success, which had led them to win 13 of their last 14 games.
“That’s the desperation,” Ruff said. “I mean, we’ve seen the frustration we put into other teams with the shot blocking and sticks and getting in lanes. We just – we have to be a little bit better.”
Both sides contributed to a tightly played Atlantic Division game on Monday, but the Panthers cashed in on one more opportunity to win 4-3 and end the Sabres’ latest winning streak at three games. Their home winning streak was also snapped at six contests.
The Sabres erased a pair of one-goal deficits in the loss. The teams were tied 2-2 to begin the third period, before a bouncing shot created a rebound on which Anton Lundell scored the go-ahead goal with 8:53 remaining.
“I think there was 10 guys around the crease and everybody whacking at it,” goaltender Colten Ellis said. “And they just got a stick on it and got a bounce there.”
The Sabres nearly tied the game for a third time when, with just under three minutes left, Zach Benson forced a turnover and set up a Tage Thompson chance from point-blank range. Florida goalie Sergei Bobrovsky made the save but saw the rebound bounce right to Josh Doan, whose shot from the slot missed wide.
A.J. Greer scored an empty-net goal to extend the Panthers lead to 4-2 (but not before a desperate block from Thompson prevented their first attempt at the empty net). Alex Tuch added the third Sabres goal with 12.1 seconds left to play, but the comeback bid ended there.
The Sabres were held to 23 shots by the Panthers, who – even without a trio of key forwards in Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk and Brad Marchand – played with the sort of discipline befitting a two-time Stanley Cup champion.
“It was a hard game,” Ruff said. “A lot of the game was played on the walls. They kept the puck on the walls. They did a good job kind of pushing us to the outside even on breakouts. It was a game where we were going to have to make them pay for their mistakes.”
The Sabres did make them pay on two occasions. After the Panthers took a 1-0 lead on an early power-play goal from Sam Reinhart, Jacob Bryson sent the tying goal past Bobrovsky thanks to heavy screens from Benson and Jack Quinn.
Benson was then rewarded with a bump to the top line alongside Thompson and Doan, a move that quickly paid dividends. Trailing 2-1 during the second period, Thompson used his arm to fend off Reinhart as he toed the offensive blue line, then drifted toward the left circle and sent a shot to the back side of the net. Benson was there to redirect the puck past Bobrovsky.
