For the first few weeks of the season, the Buffalo Sabres appeared primed to end one of the NHL’s most ignoble streaks.
Now the Sabres are running out of time to avoid matching or exceeding the most frustrating streak in team history.
The Sabres will attempt to snap their lengthy losing streak Monday night when they visit the New York Islanders in a battle of Eastern Conference rivals in Elmont, N.Y.
Both teams were off after playing on the road Saturday night, when the Sabres fell to the Boston Bruins 3-1 and the Islanders never trailed in a 6-3 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The defeat was the 13th straight for Buffalo, which has fallen into last place in the 32-team NHL by going 0-10-3 since an 11-9-1 start. The losing streak is the third-longest in franchise history behind an 18-game slide (0-15-3) in 2020-21 and a 14-game skid (0-14-0) in 2014-15.
The losing streak has all but ended the Sabres’ hopes of halting their league-record 13-season playoff drought. Buffalo, which was in third place in the Atlantic Division following its most recent win Nov. 23, entered Sunday 12 points out of an Eastern Conference wild-card spot.
“We can’t sit there and we can’t think about all the negative stuff that’s happened to us,” Sabres right winger Alex Tuch said. “We’ve got to take some of the positive and try to carry that over or else we’ll just eat ourselves alive.”
Unfortunately for the Sabres, the slump seems to be deepening. Buffalo has lost six straight games in regulation. Its last five losses have been by at least two goals.
Of the first seven losses in the streak, five were by one goal.
“We want to win in here and we just need a little bit more out of everybody, a little bit more complete game, and I think we’re going to do it against the Islanders,” Tuch said.
The Islanders finally unveiled their optimal lineup and played a long-awaited complete game Saturday, when they scored twice in the first five minutes and matched a season high with six goals. New York entered Saturday with three goals or fewer in 12 of its previous 16 games.
The outburst Saturday coincided with the return of left winger Anthony Duclair, who missed the previous 28 games with a lower-body injury. Duclair was expected to man the first line along with center Mathew Barzal, who returned Dec. 15 after being sidelined for six weeks with an upper-body injury.
“We definitely have it in this room,” said center Bo Horvat, who had a goal and two assists against Toronto. “We can all put the puck in the net. It’s nice to finally get a full lineup back in.”
Duclair and Barzal played on the second and third lines Saturday. Duclair assisted on Isaiah George’s third-period goal before Barzal iced the win with an empty-netter.
“We know we’re a good team,” Duclair said. “We’ve had a couple of injuries and never really had a full lineup since the beginning of the season. A lot of adversity. Now that we’re all healthy and ready to go, we’re trying to find our team chemistry as a whole.”
–Field Level Media
