5-0 loss to the New Jersey Devils<\/a>, which saw Buffalo accumulate 42 shots but fail to beat goaltender Jake Allen. That was the second-most shots in a shutout defeat in franchise history, the record being 45 in February 2024.<\/p>\nBeyond shots, the Sabres\u2019 offensive pressure included 17 high-danger scoring chances and 4.13 expected goals, per Natural Stat Trick.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat first 40 minutes, we had opportunities to put the puck in the back of the net, and we missed those opportunities,\u201d coach Lindy Ruff said postgame. \u201cThe opportunities we gave them on a couple of our poor plays, they took advantage of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re going to run into hot goalies sometimes,\u201d added Tage Thompson, \u201cbut you\u2019ve just got to find ways to get it in the net.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buffalo doesn\u2019t have to wait long for another crack at a hot goalie, as the Wild, winners of seven straight, have two of them. Jesper Wallstedt is 6-0-0 with a .967 save percentage, a 1.14 goals-against average and three shutouts in November, while Filip Gustavsson is 5-1-1 with a .920, 2.09 and one shutout.<\/p>\n
Wallstedt beat Colorado in a shootout Friday \u2013 it\u2019s a back-to-back for Minnesota, too \u2013 so the Sabres will likely face Gustavsson as they look to get back in the win column.<\/p>\n
\u201cFortunately for us,\u201d Thompson said, \u201cwe\u2019ve got another opportunity tomorrow to get another crack at a game here and put this one behind us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PAUL, Minn. \u2013 The Buffalo Sabres are right back it on Saturday as they face the Minnesota…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-322345","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}