Sabres fall to Senators on Fan Appreciation Night

Ryan O'Reilly scored a mere 30 seconds into the tilt between the Buffalo Sabres and Ottawa Senators on Monday, and for a moment it seemed like it might be a KeyBank Center finale to remember. Instead, the game turned out to be a microcosm of what's been a disappointing season on home ice.
The Senators responded with two goals of their own withing six minutes of O'Reilly scoring, from Max McCormick and Matt Duchene. Ryan Dzingel added another early in the third, giving Ottawa a lead it would never relinquish in a 4-2 loss for the Sabres.

The Sabres have now clinched 31st place in the standings, a far cry from where Jason Pominville thought they would be when he rejoined the organization in the summer.
"I don't think anyone … envisioned this," Pominville said. "Certainly not myself, being on the outside coming in and hoping we'd be headed in the right direction. And sometimes we are, but for the most part we're not.
"We take steps forward and then we take a couple back. Yeah, we had injuries and stuff like that, but with the group we have, I still don't believe we should be where we're at. But we are there, and things have got to change."

It was Fan Appreciation Night at KeyBank Center, and Housley emphasized the importance of his team having a strong performance in its final game in front of the home crowd. For the most part, he felt they came up short.
"I just think we didn't have enough investment from our players, particularly it being the last home game," Housley said. "We needed to be better, we needed to give more to our fans, and by the time we get a push it's too late.
"It's a broken record in that area where we're chasing games again. That's the disappointing part for me, because we talked about this after the Toronto game, we talked about this yesterday. We needed to have more investment from a lot of guys in our room."
Housley suggested that the Sabres approached the game as if it would be easy after O'Reilly's early goal, a sentiment echoed by Pominville. The Sabres were stranded in their own zone before McCormick tied the game on a tip, while Duchene was unchecked when he scored on a one-timer from the high slot.
Dzingel's goal, scored just 3:21 into the second period, came on a power play after Marco Scandella was penalized for tripping while defending a 2-on-1 rush.
"We got the lead, then they turned the switch," Pominville said. "It's almost like when we got the lead early we thought it was going to be an easy game and thought we were going to score a lot of goals and put on a show.
"But that's not the way we play, that's not the team we are. It hasn't been, it's not going to be. We've got to defend, we've got to chip and forecheck, get after them. When we get away from that we end up wasting energy in our own end and that's the result."
Kyle Okposo scored to bring the Sabres within one with 3:19 remaining in the second period, but the Senators tightened up defensively and held onto their lead in the third. Alexandre Burrows capped the scoring with an empty-net goal.

Chad Johnson made 28 saves on 31 shots for Buffalo. Craig Anderson stopped 32 shots for Ottawa.
Like Pominville, Housley reiterated that the team's current position is far from where he thought it would be upon taking over as coach in the summer. At the same time, he maintained his belief in the organization and its ability to turn things around.
But it will have to start with consistency.
"I believe in our system," Housley said. "I believe in our structure, I believe when we do play a brand of game that's the right way - we're on top of people, we're not cheating the game and we're doing things for the better part of the team - you can see we're a good hockey team.
"This is just where we are as a group. Let's be honest, we have a long way to go."

Fan Appreciation

The Sabres kicked off Fan Appreciation Night by honoring Michael Moskal, the 2017-18 Fan of the Year. Moskal, a Depew native, has been a season ticket holder since 1996 and attends road games annually, including this season's Winter Classic in New York.
Dan Dunleavy caught up with Moskal on the broadcast, which you can catch below:

Player Awards

The Sabres announced their annual team award winners throughout the game, as voted on by the players. Victor Antipin was named Rookie of the Year, Zemgus Girgensons earned the award for Unsung Hero and Jack Eichel was voted as the team's Most Valuable Player.
Antipin, 25, signed with the Sabres during the offseason after playing eight professional seasons in Russia. The defenseman scored 10 assists in 47 games for the Sabres prior to sustaining a concussion in Nashville last Saturday.
Girgensons scored 15 points (7+8) in 71 games this season and has been lauded by Housley for his work ethic and tenacity on the forecheck. The forward accumulated 115:15 of shorthanded ice time, which ranks third on the team, while his 134 hits rank second.
Eichel missed 15 games with a high-ankle sprain but still managed to set career-highs in most offensive categories, including goals (25), assists (37), points (62), even-strength points (42) and multi-point games (18). He scored his first-career hat trick against Carolina on Dec. 15 and notched a career-high five points (all assists) in Nashville on Saturday.
Defenseman Zach Bogosian was named the Sabres Foundation Man of the Year. He continued to support Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center through the work of his Bogo Bunch Foundation, which hosted the "Zach Bogosian Kancer Jam" at KeyBank Center in March.
Check out the highlights from that event below:

Up next

The Sabres will finish up their season with back-to-back games in the Sunshine State, beginning when they visit the Tampa Bay Lightning on Friday. Coverage on MSG-B begins at 7 p.m., or you can listen live on WGR 550. Puck drop is scheduled for 7:30.