NEW YORK \u2013 The Buffalo Sabres stewed over an uncharacteristic first 40 minutes inside Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, not focused on the Atlantic Division or the standings but simply on what they needed to do to play their game.<\/p>\n
They proved once again that they can find it, even on an off night. Alex Tuch and Jason Zucker scored net-front goals 1:23 apart during the third period to turn a one-goal deficit into a one-goal lead, and the Sabres went on to defeat the New York Rangers, 5-3.<\/p>\n
The Sabres \u2013 trailing 3-2 after 40 minutes as the result of frequent turnovers and a poor night on\u00a0special teams \u2013 held the Rangers to just one shot during the third period.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe decided to play our game,\u201d Zucker said. \u201cWe got pucks behind their D, we kept it simple through our D-zone and neutral zone. We got pucks out (of the defensive zone) and then we got them in behind their D and we played offense.\u201d<\/p>\n
The win was important given the unique position the Sabres found themselves in to begin the day: part of a three-way tie for first place in the Atlantic Division with Tampa Bay and Montreal, with all three teams at 102 points through 78 games.<\/p>\n
The Sabres now sit alone in first with 104 points, with the Canadiens and Lightning set to play a head-to-head matchup Thursday.<\/p>\n
Buffalo needs a top-two finish to secure home-ice advantage for the first round of the playoffs.<\/p>\n
While every person in the Sabres locker room is well aware of what they\u2019re playing for, they\u2019ve kept their one-game-at-a-time focus as the regular season winds down. More than anything, they\u2019re focused on fine-tuning their game to hit the playoffs rolling on all cylinders. If they do that, the chips will fall in their favor.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fans have been incredible, so any time you can play more games on home ice, the better,\u201d Zucker said regarding potential home-ice advantage. \u201cBut for us, our focus has been on getting to our game and feeling really comfortable with what we\u2019re doing and having as much confidence as possible going into Game 1.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following a brief two-game skid, the Sabres had been able to rediscover their tenacious, smothering, straight-line identity in their last contest, a crucial win over the Lightning.<\/p>\n
In the first period against the Rangers \u2013 who\u2019d won five of their last six games, invigorated by a youth injection into their lineup \u2013 Zucker thought they looked about as far from their identity as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were messing around with pucks a little bit too much in our zone,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were throwing pucks right through the middle of our slot coming out of the D-zone. Very uncharacteristic of us, and they made us pay for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen\u2019s goaltending \u2013 he made multiple grade-A stops off turnovers \u2013 allowed the Sabres to pull ahead 2-0 in spite of the sloppy start. The Rangers finally scored a power-play goal during the final minute of the first period, then pulled ahead with two goals during the second.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe managed the puck poorly in the first two periods,\u201d coach Lindy Ruff said.<\/p>\n
Buffalo simplified coming out of the second intermission and quickly began to generate sustained offensive-zone time. Tuch scored the tying goal on a deflection of a Peyton Krebs shot to end one such shift. Zucker\u2019s winning goal was scored off a rebound in front.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought in the third period we executed almost every zone and we got rewarded for getting people to the net,\u201d Ruff said. \u201c\u2026 Those are the type of goals, you\u2019re gonna win a game in the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zach Benson iced the game with an empty-net goal (thanks to Josh Doan, who unselfishly passed to leave Benson with the wide-open net).<\/p>\n
The end result: two big points in the standings, and another step in the right direction heading toward the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it was good to show that we can not have our best and still find a way to win,\u201d Zucker said.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s more from the win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2013 The Buffalo Sabres stewed over an uncharacteristic first 40 minutes inside Madison Square Garden on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,55,54,56],"class_list":{"0":"post-191710","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-city-news","12":"tag-ny"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}