Sabres show fight early but can't solve Allen in shutout loss to Devils

Tage Thompson had several teammates offer to answer to Stefan Noesen in the lead-up to the Buffalo Sabres’ first game of the season against the New Jersey Devils, aware of the unfinished business left from Noesen’s hit on Thompson in February.

Thompson appreciated the offers, but declined.

“It’s a nice thing that everyone wanted to do it,” Thompsons said. “I figured I’d take care my own business.”

Thompson fought Noesen off of their first shared faceoff of the night, landing a few good blows on the Devils forward before the bout was over. The moment ignited a sellout crowd at KeyBank Center and sparked the Sabres bench, but the momentum never translated to offense in what ended as a 5-0 loss.

The Sabres finished with a 42-23 lead in shots but could not solve goaltender Jake Allen, who had his first shutout of the season.

“I thought there was a lot of energy on the bench, and I thought our team was playing well,” Thompson said. “I thought we controlled the first two periods pretty handily. Obviously, the score didn’t indicate that, but I thought we had a lot of chances, a lot of opportunities.

“I think whatever energy or whatever momentum we did kind of have early in the game kind of got snuffed out by their goalie, who was playing a hell of a game. It’s frustrating when you’re getting chances and looks and they’re not going in, especially when you feel like they should.”

The Sabres have now dropped two straight games in regulation since climbing back to .500 with a home win over Carolina last Sunday. They have a quick turnaround, with a visit to Minnesota to play the Wild – winners of seven straight games – on Saturday.

Thompson’s fight occurred 2:24 into the contest. Buffalo had four shots within the next two minutes, including a grade-A chance for Ryan McLeod from beside the net, but was held off the board by Allen.

Instead, New Jersey took the lead on what began as a seemingly harmless dump-in late in the first period. Timo Meier intercepted a breakout pass from Bowen Byram behind the net and attempted to pass to the net-front. The puck deflected off a Sabres player, bounced in the blue paint, and was pushed across the goal line by Nico Hischier.

Arseny Gritsyuk extended the New Jersey lead to 2-0 midway through the second period when he sliced through the Buffalo defense to bury a one-timer from the high slot.

“The first 40 minutes, we had opportunities to put the puck in the back of the net,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. “We missed those opportunities. The opportunities we gave them on a couple of our poor plays, they took advantage of.”

The Sabres made a conscientious decision to forecheck aggressively in the final 20 minutes in an effort to erase the deficit, but the Devils took advantage of the openings that created. Brenden Dillon fired a one-timer from the left circle to extend the lead to 3-0 less than two minutes into the period, then Paul Cotter added to the lead on a breakaway.

Gritsyuk scored his second of the night on a 2-on-1 rush late in the period.

“They’re an opportunistic team,” Thompson said. “We give up a couple of opportunities, and it’s in the back of our net. Yeah, it was just a frustrating game. I don’t really think the score really tells the full story of how we played. I liked our game.

“Obviously, you can’t sit there and say you like a 5-0 loss, but I thought we did a lot of good things, and obviously came out on the wrong side of it.”

Here’s more from the loss.

More on the Thompson fight

Thompson said Noesen agreed to fight during pregame warmups.

“I think we all know what happened last year,” Thompson said. “I didn’t really like the hit, and talked to him in warmups, (he) said he would give me one. I respect that.”

The hit from Noesen on Thompson – an elbow to the head in open ice – forced the Sabres forward to miss one game with a concussion and prompted the team to have internal discussions about the lack of an on-ice response in the immediate aftermath.

The Sabres have since had no such problem responding to physicality – further evidenced by the number of players offering to answer to Noesen on Wednesday.

“As a team, we’re in a pretty good place when it comes to responding and doing the right thing,” Ruff said. “It’s something they’ve dealt with on their own.”

Ruff said he had “a ton of respect” for Thompson choosing to go after Noesen himself.

“That’s the guy that hit him, the fact he wanted to go after him I thought was great,” Ruff said.

Lyon returns to the crease

Alex Lyon started in goal for the first time since Nov. 13 and made 18 saves on 23 shots. Four of the goals he surrendered were scored off turnovers or odd-man rushes; the other was a one-timer from the high slot.

“I didn’t feel too bad,” Lyon said. “Game probably felt better than the score, but that being said, it’s been a while since I won a game and for me that’s really the most important thing. So yeah, just disappointing obviously and I’ve got to find a way to do a little bit more.”

Lyon spent the last two weeks as the odd man out of the Sabres’ three-goalie rotation – a longer period than the team had initially planned, Ruff said, as Lyon worked on elements of his game in practice. The veteran started 12 of Buffalo’s first 17 games this season with a .907 save percentage.

Ruff was asked postgame about the three-goalie rotation, which began as a form of insurance as Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen worked through multiple early-season injuries.

“I’ve always said that it’s not an easy process to go through,” Ruff said. “It’s not easy for them, it’s not easy for myself. But it is and was based on the fact we had a goaltender who we didn’t know was going to be healthy or not and we were trying to protect ourselves.

“I think we’ve done a good job trying to work through it. Alex was working on some stuff in his game that was the reason we didn’t play him. He missed more time than we thought. You don’t want to see a guy sitting that long between games, for sure.”

Samuelsson enters concussion protocol

Mattias Samuelsson left the game bleeding heavily from his face after taking an elbow to the head from Meier with 12:02 remaining in the third period. No penalty was called on the play.

Ruff said postgame that Samuelsson had entered concussion protocol following the hit but did not have an update on the result of those tests.

Up next

The Sabres visit the Minnesota Wild on Saturday. Coverage on MSG begins at 7:30 p.m. with puck drop scheduled for 8.