'This is not acceptable' | Sabres shut out again by Flyers

Rasmus Dahlin gave an honest assessment of the Buffalo Sabres' performance after they were shut out by the Philadelphia Flyers for the second time in as many days on Sunday.
"The team we have in the locker room can do something very special," the 20-year-old defenseman said. "We have to find the competitiveness in the team. We will keep losing if no one is competing. Do all the gritty stuff. Hit someone. A fight. I don't know. But the team we have right now should not be losing like that."
"I've very embarrassed," he added later. "This is not acceptable."

The Sabres fell to 6-10-3 with their 3-0 loss to the Flyers. They were outshot a by a combined tally of 77-51 in the two-game series, shutout by Brian Elliott on Saturday and Carter Hart on Sunday.
"We're trying to figure it out as well," said captain Jack Eichel, who returned from a two-game absence. "It's a really good group of guys in there and we've stuck together. But it's, yeah, it's definitely been tough so far, the last … little bit. We obviously haven't performed the way we wanted to."
Here are takeaways from the game.

1. Flyers took over early

The Sabres started the game well, holding the Flyers without a shot until 7:08 into the contest. By the end of the first period, the Flyers had taken a 13-7 lead in the shot column.
The game tilted more toward the Flyers during the second period, in which shots were 21-12 in their favor. Sean Couturier scored to put them on the board 22 seconds into the period and Michael Raffl doubled the lead with a deflection 1:15 later.
James van Riemsdyk capped the period with another deflection goal, which came at the end of a long shift in the Buffalo zone.
"There was a semblance of our game early on and we just couldn't sustain it after the early goal against second period," Sabres coach Ralph Krueger said. "We slipped out of our structure, our culture and that is something that we need to get a better grasp on and figure out ways of getting our game back together."

2. "It's not going to be pretty to turn this"

Krueger said he liked the spirit on the bench after the Sabres fell behind early in the second period but agreed with Dahlin's assessment on what it will take to turn the season around.
"It's not going to be pretty to turn this," he said. "The emotions we can get and the good feeling we can get out of success would be needed right now to sustain any type of winning feeling, but we won't get it easy.
"The Rangers will be waiting hungry on Tuesday to try to keep us where we're at right now and it's going to be about character, it's going to be about fight, it's going to be about grit and hard work within the right framework, of course. It is a challenge. There's a wall ahead of us and we've got to climb over it, and we've got to climb over it together."

3. Eichel returns

Eichel skated 22:18 and tallied eight shot attempts after missing two games with a lower-body injury. He commented on the state of the team afterward.
"The guys have stuck together, no one's turned on each other, it's a positive mindset," he said. "It's just, currently, it's not working for us. No one feels sorry for us in this league. We don't feel sorry for ourselves. We just need to dig ourselves out of this and find a way to feel good about our game, feel good about ourselves and enjoy it."

4. Lineup notes

Dylan Cozens was scratched to make room in the lineup for Eichel's return. Krueger has said to expect rest days for the 20-year-old rookie amid the condensed scheduled.
Goaltender Jonas Johansson made his first start of the season and made a career-high 35 saves.

5. The big picture

The Sabres trailed the fourth-place Islanders by nine points following the loss. (The Islanders had yet to finish their game against the Penguins.)
They have little time to catch their breath. The Sabres depart Monday for a five-game road trip that begins against the Rangers on Tuesday, followed by three straight games against the Islanders. The trip concludes in Philadelphia the following Tuesday.
"It's serious, what we have as a challenge ahead of us," Krueger said. "It's serious, what we need to do to fix this. We need to communicate and [find] a clarified pathway. We need to do a refresh where we can find a window here on what the principles are that we all embraced early in the season through training camp and into the start of the season."